Samuel Mountiford Longfield

Who was Samuel Mountiford Longfield?

Samuel Mountifort Longfield was an Irish lawyer and economist. He was the first Professor of Political Economy at Trinity College Dublin.

His most important work in economics was "Lectures on Political Economy", which was published in 1834. He argued convincingly against the labor theory of value and developed a marginal revenue productivity theory of labour and capital. It was unusual for its time and was only rediscovered after 1900; some of his ideas on capital and interest foreshadowed the work of the Austrian School.

His main approaches revolved around the labor theory of value, an analysis of capital and distribution theory. He applies insofar as the representative of the marginal utility theory avant la lettre.