history of economics is quite long and rich.People are always interested in the processes that directly or indirectly affect their welfare.
subject of history of economic thought up the steps of the formation of the economy, its development and transformation at a large time interval.It also examines in detail the main directions of economic thought, dominant in a given period.
Unfortunately, this article can not fit the entire history of economic thought.It is only possible to specify the key stages in the development of schools and movements from ancient times to the late 19th century.
History of Economic Thought begins with Aristotle and Plato attempts to somehow organize the information known to them in this area.Especially valuable contributions made by Aristotle.He first called the economics of science, examined the economic activities, developed a theory of prices and the cost of money.
origin of the term "economy" we are obliged to Xenophon - historian and writer from Ancient Greece.The name consists of two words that together have a value of "the law of the jurisdiction of the economy."
History of Economic Thought binds exchange division of labor in society and the formation of the economy as a whole across the state.This suggests the need arises in the knowledge economy of the country as a whole.In the early 17th century A. Montchretien publication of a treatise on political economy has proved that the main purpose is the production of trade, and gave the final name of the young science.This economist, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Thomas Maine Pososhkov - representatives of mercantilism, mainstream economic thought at the time.At the heart of the nation's prosperity, they have seen the accumulation of precious metals.
In those same years, there is an opposite point of view, which expresses the followers of the school of the Physiocrats.They believed that only the labor of workers sat on the ground can bring revenues that far exceed the costs.All other activities are only engaged in processing products, without producing anything new.
And, of course, the history of economic thought is inconceivable without such classics of science, Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo.On many issues they had differences, but there was also a number of prerequisites that unite them.So, they called for the state to not interfere in economic processes and provided the individual economic freedom allowed to compete freely.The desire of man (as the subject primarily economic) to increase their wealth necessarily entails and increase the wealth of society as a whole.Adam Smith called the self-adjusting mechanism of the economy "invisible hand."It thus guides the producers and consumers so that the observed economic equilibrium.In such a system can not survive for long unemployment, produced a surplus of goods or felt its deficit.The followers of Adam Smith, and he believed that not only the agriculture creates a nation's wealth, and labor, and other classes.
The fact that the market economy is exploitative, created the doctrine of Karl Marx.It was based on the cost of labor and believed that the wealth of the people is the work of mercenaries.No work paying ordinary workers, the capitalists are making huge profits and thus society is polarized into two classes: the rich and the poor.And within a capitalist system necessarily brewing revolution of the proletariat.In practice, the theory of the German economist has not been confirmed.
In the late 19th century, Alfred Marshall became the founder of neoclassical direction.He proved that the welfare of producers and consumers to reach its maximum only when economic actors will be able to compete freely.
