"[E]ach several want is limited, and... with every increase in the amount of a thing which a man has, the eagerness of his desire to obtain more of it diminishes; until it yields place to the desire for some other thing, of which perhaps he hardly thought, so long as his more urgent wants were still unsatisfied. There is an endless supply of wants, but there is a limit to each separate want. This familiar and fundamental law of human nature may pass by the name of the Law of Satiable Wants or the Law of Diminishing Utility. It may be written thus:— The Total Utility of a commodity to a person (...the total benefit or satisfaction yielded ...by it) increase with every increase in his stock of it, but not as fast as his stock increases. ...[i.e.,] the additional benefit ...from an additional increment of his stock of anything, diminishes with every increase in the stock ..."
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University of Cambridge facultyEconomists from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandPeople from LondonUniversity of Oxford faculty
Original Language: English
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Bk III, Ch. III. The Law of Demand
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Marshall
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Alfred Marshall
1842 – 1924
Alfred Marshall (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was a British economist, considered one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, Principles of Economics (1890), was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. It brings the ideas of supply and demand, marginal utility, and costs of production into a coherent whole. He is known as one of the founders of economics.
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