Léon Walras and Alfred Marshall: microeconomic rational choice or human and social nature?

Abstract

Alfred Marshall’s and Léon Walras’s works have often been compared in the literature, on the one hand underlining their several differences and on the other hand focussing on their possible resemblances building what was called ‘neoclassical economics. This interpretation failed to pay due attention, however, to a number of important aspects that in fact stand in the way of a proper understanding of these two authors’ contributions. This paper focuses on the analogies to be found between Walras’s and Marshall’s analyses of economic behaviour, which are related not to a supposed affiliation to a common neo-classical tradition but to a common conception of the relation between human economic agents and society.