Education Quote by John Bates Clark

A Progressive Era faith in measurement is doing a lot of work here, dressed up as modesty. John Bates Clark, one of the architects of marginal productivity theory, isn’t just praising “experience” in the abstract; he’s making a case for institutionalized fact-finding as the only adult in the room. “Volumes of mere assertions and contradictions” is a jab at the late-19th-century economy’s loudest participants: polemical pamphleteers, partisan politicians, and even rival economists locked in ideological trench warfare over trusts, wages, and regulation. Clark’s word choice turns debate into noise and positions a “commission” as a cleansing instrument.

The intent is strategic. By insisting that only experience can “give a final answer,” Clark claims neutrality while advancing a particular kind of authority: the expert committee, armed with data, capable of converting social conflict into technical questions. That move matters in context. Industrial capitalism was generating new concentrations of power and new labor unrest; public legitimacy for markets was wobbling. A commission promises calm, procedural legitimacy, and a way to adjudicate between labor’s grievances and capital’s defenses without conceding that either side’s moral language should dominate.

The subtext is both democratic and technocratic. Democratic, because it implies evidence should trump rhetoric; technocratic, because it quietly narrows who gets to define “experience” and interpret it. “Final answer” is the tell: it’s a rhetorical attempt to close the argument, to treat political economy as something that can be settled like a ledger. The line works because it flatters the reader’s desire for certainty while smuggling in a new hierarchy of expertise.