Thomas Nixon Carver (1865–1961)

Thomas Nixon Carver, professor of economics and chair of several departments at Harvard, was an advocate of natural inequality. He renounced the economists’ supposition that happiness is the goal, and made physical output the central goal. He had no use for exchange. With marginal productivity theory he was able to separate the contribution of an individual from that of the group. His work in agricultural economics revived Arthur Young’s travelling observer of agriculture by bicycle or by horse. Carver’s eugenic recommendations flowed from the claim that society would be more productive if the least able were removed. Contrary to stereotype, he was an important figure in laissez-faire circles. There is a famous account of his teaching, passed on by Paul Samuelson, in which he would invite lectures from those with opposing views in the first semester of a course and then spend the second semester refuting these views.