In The Worldly
Philosophy, Robert Heilbroner traces the history of the discipline of
economics. He looks to Adam Smith as its founder, since Smith was the first to
attempt a thorough and comprehensive description and explanation of capitalism.
Before Smith’s time, there had not been a free market. Instead, the material
needs and wants of societies had been fulfilled (or left unmet) by systems
governed by tradition or government edict. Since Smith, other theorists, such
as Malthus, Ricardo, Mill, Marx, Hobson, Veblen, and Keynes came along to make
economic observations, prognostications, and prescriptions. What is the state
of capitalism today?
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