William Harold Hutt

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William Harold Hutt (3 August 1899 – 19 June 1988) was an

Hutt attended the London School of Economics (LSE) where he earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree under the "leading influence" of Edwin Cannan.^[5][3] After his 1924 graduation from LSE, Hutt worked for a publisher until 1927. It was during this period that Hutt wrote his first published essay, entitled "The Factory System of the Early Nineteenth Century" (1926).

Professional career

Rather than wholly removing himself from academia upon the completion of his undergraduate degree, Hutt remained immersed in the LSE culture, attending LSE classes informally until March 1928, when he accepted a position as senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. In 1930, Hutt was promoted to "Chair of Commerce" at UCT. Later, Hutt would be named "Dean of the Faculty of Commerce."^[3]

In his writings on

[Unions] had (and have) many useful functions in addition to acting as friendly societies for health and welfare provision. They could help their members to improve their qualifications and locate the best paid work, and they could provide assistance to members subjected to unfair treatment by management.^[4]

Hutt later became known as a leading voice in the academic community condemning South African apartheid.^[6] He vehemently objected to the policy, arguing in his 1964 critique, The Economics of the Colour Bar, that it was little more than a means by which white labor unions used the government to outlaw black competition.^[7] However, he did not support universal equal suffrage, instead arguing that “it would be absolutely essential to renounce the principle of universal suffrage on a common roll and accept some form of weighted franchise.”^[8]

He was a member of the

In his 1936 book "Economists and the Public" he coined the now famous concept "consumer sovereignty". His papers are archived at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City.^[10]

Books

• The Theory of Collective Bargaining (1930)
• Economists and the Public (1936)
• The Theory of Idle Resources (1939)
• Plan for Reconstruction: A Project for Victory in War and Peace (1943)
• Keynesianism Retrospect and Prospect: A Critical Restatement of Basic Economic Principles (1963)
• The Economics of the Colour Bar: A Study of the Economic Origins and Consequences of Racial Segregation in South Africa (1964)
• Politically Impossible...? (1971)
• The Strike-threat System: The Economic Consequences of Collective Bargaining (1973)
• A Rehabilitation of Say's Law (1974)
• Pejovich, Svetozar; Klingaman, David, eds. (1975). Individual Freedom: Selected Works of William H. Hutt. Westport, Connecticut; London, England: Greenwood Press – via Internet Archive.
• The Keynesian Episode: A Reassessment (1979)

Further reading

• Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay, 2020. "W.H. Hutt and the conceptualization of consumers’ sovereignty." Oxford Economic Papers

References