The purpose of this research is to examine Murder at the Margin by Marshall Jevons. The plan of the research will be to set forth a short introduction summarizing the novel, and then to discuss how the hero, Professor Spearman, uses economics to solve the murder mystery, in particular what economic concepts are involved and how their application leads to identification of the murderer. This is all with a view toward showing what can be learned about economics from the book.
The plot of Murder at the Margin is built around a Virgin Islands resort vacation with Professor Spearman and his wife Pidge. Spearman analyzes everyone he meets or observes from an economic point of view. When an unpleasant and very bossy retired general, Decker, is found dead from poison, Spearman does not agree that the police are doing a good job. He makes his own list of suspects and eliminates them based on one basic economic principle: behavior according to rational choice, the main idea of capitalism. That is, if a suspect does not behave in a way that maximizes the economic benefit (utility) to him, then Spearman looks for explanation of that behavior. By process of elimination, he discovers a conspiracy between married couple and the husband's brother-in-law to take revenge for the general's rigid orders in the Vietnam War years ago. These orders caused the war death of the husband's younger brother. A second murder, of another unpleasant person, Justice Foote, is also committed. That is because the conspirators realize Foote might have seen the poison go into Decker's drink.
To see how Spearman uses economics to solve the murders, it is important to see the basic concept of capitalism in the background. In capitalist theory, the rational human is an economic human. This rational human is motivated to maximize personal gain (profit or wealth) with the least effort (Lichtenberg, 1990). Therefore, the rational choice is the choice that involves the lea...