“ONE OF THE GREAT ECONOMISTS”: FIRST EDITION OF CLARK’S ALTERNATIVE TO SERFDOM, 1948, INSCRIBED BY HIM

CLARK, John Maurice. Alternative to Serfdom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. Octavo, original navy cloth, original dust jacket. $1500.

First edition of the renowned economist’s response to Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944), inscribed “To Caryl Haskins, With the author’s best regards, John M. Clark,” in scarce dust jacket.

“One of the great economists of this century…. Clark was an economist’s economist” (New York Times). In Alternative to Serfdom, published in the wake of WWII, Clark “deals pragmatically with the problems of freedom and responsibility in American economic policy. His alternative to serfdom is the balance of competing groups and institutions” (Foreign Affairs). This important work, “based on a 1947 series of lectures at the University of Michigan, was meant as a response to Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944), particularly in presenting a more positive role for the state.” Clark’s ability “to extend his theoretical insights and empirical studies into the realm of practical policy remains a model for the development of the discipline and its practitioners” (ANB). “First Edition” stated on copyright page. Recipient Caryl Haskins is very likely the preeminent biophysicist and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who also founded Haskins Laboratories and was a trustee emeritus of the National Geographic Society.

Book fine; light soiling, slight edge-wear to seams minimally affecting a word on spine of extremely good dust jacket.