History of economic thought
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The history of economic thought deals with different thinkers and theories in the
subject that became political economy and economics, from the ancient world to the
present day in the 21st Century. This field encompasses many disparate schools of
economic thought. Ancient Greek writers such as the philosopher Aristotle examined
ideas about the art of wealth acquisition, and questioned whether property is best left in
private or public hands. In the Middle Ages, scholasticists such as Thomas
Aquinas argued that it was a moral obligation of businesses to sell goods at a just price.
[citation needed]
In the Western world, economics was not a separate discipline, but part
of philosophy until the 18th–19th century Industrial Revolution and the 19th
century Great Divergence, which accelerated economic growth.[1]
Contents
1Ancient economic thought (before 500 AD)
o 1.1Ancient Greece
o 1.2China
o 1.3India
o 1.4Greco-Roman world
2Economic thought in the Middle Ages (500–1500 AD)
o 2.1Thomas Aquinas
o 2.2Duns Scotus
o 2.3Jean Buridan
o 2.4Ibn Khaldun
o 2.5Nicole Oresme
o 2.6Antonin of Florence
3Mercantilism and international trade (16th to 18th century)
o 3.1School of Salamanca
o 3.2Sir Thomas More
o 3.3Nicolaus Copernicus
o 3.4Jean Bodin
o 3.5Barthélemy de Laffemas
o 3.6Leonardus Lessius
o 3.7Edward Misselden and Gerard Malynes
o 3.8Thomas Mun
o 3.9Sir William Petty
o 3.10Philipp von Hörnigk
o 3.11Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Pierre Le Pesant, Sieur de Boisguilbert
o 3.12Charles Davenant
o 3.13Sir James Steuart
o 3.14Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb
4Pre-Classical (17th and 18th century)
o 4.1The British Enlightenment
4.1.1John Locke
4.1.2Dudley North
4.1.3David Hume
4.1.4Bernard Mandeville
4.1.5Francis Hutcheson
o 4.2The Physiocrats and the circular flow
5Classical (18th and 19th century)
o 5.1Ferdinando Galiani and On Money
o 5.2Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations
o 5.3Adam Smith's Invisible Hand
5.3.1Limitations
o 5.4William Pitt the Younger
o 5.5Edmund Burke
o 5.6Jeremy Bentham
o 5.7Jean-Baptiste Say
o 5.8David Ricardo
o 5.9Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
o 5.10John Stuart Mill
o 5.11Classical political economy
o 5.12Karl Marx and communism
o 5.13Henry George and Georgism
o 5.14The London School of Economics
6Neoclassical (19th and early 20th century)
o 6.1Anglo-American neoclassical
6.1.1William Stanley Jevons
6.1.2Alfred Marshall
6.1.3New institutional schools
o 6.2Continental neoclassical
6.2.1Léon Walras
6.2.2The Austrian school of economics
6.2.2.1Carl Menger
6.2.3Francis Ysidro Edgeworth
6.2.4Friedrich Hayek
7Alternative schools (19th century)
o 7.1Business cycle theory
o 7.2German historical school of economics
o 7.3Thorstein Veblen and the American Way
8World wars, revolution and great depression (early to mid 20th century)
o 8.1Econometrics
o 8.2Means and corporate governance
o 8.3Industrial organization economics
o 8.4Linear programming
o 8.5Ecology and energy
8.5.1Ecological economics
8.5.2Energy accounting
o 8.6Institutional economics
o 8.7Arthur Cecil Pigou
o 8.8Market socialism
o 8.9The Stockholm school of economics
o 8.10French Regulation school
o 8.11The American Economic Association
9Keynesianism (20th century)
o 9.1The General Theory
o 9.2The Cambridge Circus
o 9.3New Keynesian macroeconomics
o 9.4Sidney Weintraub, Paul Davidson and Post-Keynesian economics
o 9.5The credit theory of money
10The Chicago school of economics (20th century)
o 10.1New classical macroeconomics and synthesis
o 10.2Efficient market hypothesis
11Games, evolution and growth (20th century)
12Post World War II and globalization (mid to late 20th century)
o 12.1International economics
o 12.2Development economics
o 12.3New Economic History (Cliometrics)
o 12.4Public choice theory and constitutional economics
o 12.5Impossible Trinity
o 12.6Market for corporate control
o 12.7Information economics
o 12.8Market design theory
o 12.9The Laffer curve and Reaganomics
o 12.10Market regulation
13Post 2008 financial crisis (21st century)
14See also
15Notes
16References
o 16.1Primary sources
o 16.2Secondary sources
17Further reading
o 17.1Books
o 17.2Journals
o 17.3Societies for the History of Economic Thought
18External links
Ancient economic thought (before 500 AD)[edit]
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2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Main articles: Ancient economic thought, Arthashastra, Republic (dialogue), Credit
theory of money, Politics (Aristotle), Nicomachean Ethics, Metallism,
and Oeconomicus
Ancient Greece[edit]
Hesiod active 750 to 650 BC, a Boeotian who wrote the earliest known work concerning
the basic origins of economic thought, contemporary with Homer.
China[edit]
Fan Li (also known as Tao Zhu Gong) (born 517 BC), [2] an adviser to King Goujian of
Yue, wrote on economic issues and developed a set of "golden" business rules. [3]
India[edit]
Chanakya (born 350 BC) of the Mauryan Empire, authored the Arthashastra along with
several Indian sages, a treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy. [4]
The Arthashastra posits the theory that there are four necessary fields of knowledge:
the Vedas, the Anvikshaki (philosophy of Samkhya, Yoga and Lokayata), the science of
government, and the science of economics (Varta of agriculture, cattle, and trade). It is
from these four that all other knowledge, wealth, and human prosperity is derived. [5]
Greco-Roman world[edit]
Plato and his pupil Aristotle had an enduring effect on Western philosophy.
Ancient Athens, an advanced city-state civilisation and progressive society, developed
an embryonic model of democracy.[6]
Xenophon's (c. 430–354 BC) Oeconomicus (c. 360 BC) is a dialogue principally about
household management and agriculture.
Plato's dialogue The Republic (c. 380–360 BC) describing an ideal city-state run by
philosopher-kings contained references to specialization of labor and to production.
According to Joseph Schumpeter, Plato was the first known advocate of a credit theory
of money that is, money as a unit of account for debt. [7]
Aristotle's Politics (c. 350 BC) analyzed different forms of the state
(monarchy, aristocracy, constitutional government, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy)
as a critique of Plato's model of a philosopher-kings. Of particular interest for
economists, Plato provided a blueprint of a society based on common ownership of
resources. Aristotle viewed this model as an oligarchical anathema. Though Aristotle did
certainly advocate holding many things in common, he argued that not everything could
be, simply because of the "wickedness of human nature". [8]
"It is clearly better that property should be private", wrote Aristotle, "but the use of it
common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent
disposition." In Politics Book I, Aristotle discusses the general nature of households and
market exchanges. For him there is a certain "art of acquisition" or "wealth-getting", but
because it[clarification needed] is the same many people are obsessed with its accumulation, and
"wealth-getting" for one's household is "necessary and honorable", while exchange on
the retail trade for simple accumulation is "justly censured, for it is dishonorable".
[9]
Writing of the people, Aristotle stated that they as a whole thought acquisition of
wealth (chrematistike) as being either the same as, or a principle
of oikonomia ("household management" – oikonomos),[10][11] with oikos meaning "house"
and with (themis meaning "custom") nomos meaning "law".[12] Aristotle himself highly
disapproved of usury and cast scorn on making money through a monopoly.[13]
Aristotle discarded Plato's credit theory of money for metallism, the theory that money
derives its value from the purchasing power of the commodity upon which it is based,
and is only an "instrument", its sole purpose being a medium of exchange, which means
on its own "it is worthless... not useful as a means to any of the necessities of life". [14]
