Senior, Nassau William

Born Sept. 26, 1790, in Comptom, Berkshire; died June 4, 1864, in Kensington. English economist.

After graduating from Oxford University in 1815, Senior became a lawyer. He was a professor of political economy at Oxford from 1825 to 1830 and from 1847 to 1852. Senior held leadership positions on various government commissions on questions of labor in industry. His main work was An Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836). Oversimplifying and distorting classical bourgeois political economy. Senior propounded an apologetic theory of profit, which he defined as compensation to the capitalist for his “abstention” from spending funds for nonproductive purposes. He attempted to provide theoretical justification for the impossibility of shortening the 11.5-hour workday, wrongfully asserting that profit is created only in the last hour of work. Therefore, shortening the workday would have an adverse effect on the country’s economic condition, since the entrepreneurs’ incentive for economic activity would disappear.