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History of Economic Ideas

Purpose of Course  showclose

As a student of economics, you must study the history of economic thought to understand why individuals, firms, and governments make certain choices.  Economists try to answer three basic questions: what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom. The history of economic thought represents a wide diversity of theories within the discipline, but all economists address these three basic questions. As you learn more about the history of economic thought, you may realize that policies presented as great innovations today are founded upon centuries-old writings.  You will learn that without a clear sense of the discussions and debates that took place among economists of the past, the modern economist lacks a complete perspective.  By examining the history of economic thought, you will be able to categorize and classify thoughts and ideas and will begin to understand how to think like an economist. Economics is both a social science and a business subject; accordingly, economic thinking affects everything from art to philosophy to the wider global culture.  In turn, society and trends influence the development of economic thought.   Note that many of the assigned readings in this course are primary source materials written by the economic theorists themselves.   As you read the assignments, reflect on the authors’ motivations and consider the events of the era.  The readings in this class represent many different perspectives, and no single approach is favored.

Course Information  showclose

Welcome to ECON301: The History of Economic Thought!  Below you will read pertinent information on this course, its resources, and its requirements.

Course Designer: Tony Pizur

Peer Reviewers: This course was revised by Dr. Spyridon G. Patton with the helpful commentary and peer reviews of Dr. Rikard Bandebo and Dr. Richard McKizzie. 

Primary Resources: This course is comprised of a range of different free, online materials.  In general, this course is built around the original works of the great economists who have preceded us.  While we cannot reproduce all of those works in this format, we do present a diverse group of excerpts of those original works.  The following resources are most prominently used:

  • Project Gutenberg’s version of Works on Economic Though, including:

Requirements for Completion: You are expected to read each unit and the assigned readings and videos provided.  At the end of each unit, there is a set of reading questions which will enable you to properly frame the assigned material within the overall objectives for the unit and for the course.  At the end of the final unit, there is a Final Exam that must be completed.  Please note that you will only receive an official grade on your Final Exam.  In order to “pass” this course, you will need to earn a 70% or higher on the Final Exam.  Your score on the exam will be tabulated as soon as you complete it.  If you do not pass the exam, you may take it again.

Time Commitment:This course should take you a total of 104 hours to complete.  Each unit includes a “time advisory” that lists the amount of time you are expected to spend on each subunit.  These should help you plan your time accordingly.  It may be useful to take a look at these time advisories and to determine how much time you have over the next few weeks to complete each unit, and then to set goals for yourself.  For example, Unit 1 should take you 15.5 hours.  Perhaps you can sit down with your calendar and decide to complete subunits 1.1 and 1.2 (a total of 3 hours) on Monday night; subunit 1.3 (a total of 2 hours) on Tuesday night; etc.

Tips/Suggestions: Make sure you are alert when you sit down with the material.  Reading original works and watching lectures on topics in this course will become tedious if you are not fully alert and focused.  Try to take notes as you review each required resource.  Also, you should have the unit reading questions in front of you as you watch or read the material.  It will help you in organizing your notes and enable to draw the key elements from the material presented.



Learning Outcomes  showclose

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

  • Explain and analyze the development of economics as a discipline in various ancient cultures.
  • Trace the development of European economic thought and analyze concepts in historical context.
  • Compare and contrast Classical economic theories.
  • Synthesize the elements of Neo-Classical and Keynesian approaches in the modern era.
  • Evaluate the merits of alternative approaches to maximizing happiness.

Course Requirements  showclose

In order to take this course, you must:

√    Have access to a computer.

√    Have continuous broadband internet access.

√    Have the ability/permission to install plug-ins or software (e.g. Adobe Reader or Flash).

√    Have the ability to download and save files and documents to a computer.

√    Have the ability to open Microsoft files and documents (e.g. .doc, .ppt, .xls, etc.).

√    Be competent in the English language.

√    Have read the Saylor Student Handbook.

√    Have completed the following courses from “The Core Program” of the Economics discipline: ECON101: Principles of Microeconomics and ECON102: Principles of Macroeconomics

Unit Outline show close


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  • Unit 1: Ancient Economic Thought  

    Historians are limited by the documents civilizations leave behind.  The earliest examples of recorded history came from the Ancient Near East, between the Nile and the Euphrates, beginning around the 29th century, BCE.  Texts from nearly five thousand years ago detail many of the same economic choices we make today, addressing issues like how to measure productivity and output, how to determine the standard unit of economic value, and how best to divide private property.  In fact, one of the first known examples of writing was a tax receipt inscribed on a clay tablet in what is present-day Uzbekistan.

    Economic ideas have been combined with political, philosophical, and social thought to create general observations about human society.  The first economist may have been Fan Li, a pharmacist and royal adviser in the Chinese state of Yue in the ninth century BCE.  In the fourth century BCE, the Greeks gave birth to the term “Oeconomicus,” which described household economics, agriculture, and slavery.  Around the same time, Indian thought on economics was chronicled by Chanakya in his lengthy work Arthashastra.  Later, in the eleventh century, Islamic thought on economics emerged; the most notable scholar was a Persian, Al-Ghazali.  As a historian in your own right, you should work to recognize and trace this cross-cultural evolution of economic thought.

    As you review the materials in this unit, think about the similarities and differences in the various presented approaches to economic thought.  Remember that ideas may develop independently or may be influenced by earlier authors.  Consider how our modern-day assumptions influence our perceptions of these ancient economists and philosophers.

    Unit 1 Time Advisory   show close
    Unit 1 Learning Outcomes   show close
  • 1.1 Political, Economic, and Social Thought in the Near East and Greece  
  • 1.1.1 Ancient Egypt to Mesopotamia  
  • 1.1.2 Greece  
  • 1.1.2.1 Overview  
  • 1.1.2.2 Xenophon  
    • Reading: Project Gutenberg’s version of Xenophon’s "The Economist"

      Link: Project Gutenberg’s version of Xenophon’s The Economist (HTML)
       
      Also available in:
      Google Books
       
      Instructions:  Read this entire work. 
       
      This text is written as a dialogue between Socrates and Critobulus, the son of one of Socrates’ disciples.  Socrates asks questions, and Critobulus answers them.  This format is typical of many Greek writings designed to present and explain ideas.  Notice that when Critobulus asks questions, Socrates replies with a story from Ischomachus, a gentleman farmer.  Many historians believe that Ischomachus represents the author’s own thoughts.  In other words, it doesn’t matter much who the speakers are; the entire work is a way for Xenophon to express his ideas.  Why wouldn’t Xenophon directly write his thoughts in his own voice?  Remember what happened to Socrates, who was condemned to death; it was less risky to hide behind the mask of characters.
       
      In the author’s translation, we learn about Xenophon:  “Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil of Socrates.  He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens.  Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more to settle in Corinth.  He died in 354 B.C.”
       
      In terms of economics, think about how managing household and agriculture was discussed.  Pay particular attention to how goods are valued and what would constitute a fair exchange.  
       
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  • 1.1.2.3 Aristotle  
    • Reading: Project Gutenberg’s version of Aristotle’s "A Treatise on Government"

      Link:  Project Gutenberg’s version of Aristotle’s A Treatise on Government (HTML)
       
      Also available in:
      Google Books
      PDF
       
      Instructions:  Read Book VII. 
       
      Aristotle was born three to four generations after Xenophon.  His work is best known for introducing the scientific method and for breaking down the complex into its basic parts.  Aristotle’s writing style is direct.  Note that he does not use the dialogue technique we saw in Xenophon’s work.
       
      Reflect on how Aristotle describes the nature of happiness and the role of material goods and ask yourself how Aristotle’s view of social mobility reflects the concept of comparative advantage.
       
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  • 1.2 China  
  • 1.3 India  
    • Reading: Fordham University’s Internet Indian History Sourcebook: Paul Halsall’s version of selections from Chanakya’s Arthashastra

      Link:  Fordham University’s Internet Indian History Sourcebook:Paul Halsall’s version of selections from Chanakya’s Arthashastra (PDF)
       
      Also available in:
      EPUB

      Instructions:  Read these selected passages.  The authorship of the work is the source of some debate amongst historians.  Chanakya may have been the prime minister of an Indian empire in the third century BCE, although some scholars trace the work to some 500 years later. 
       
      Note how the author views the role of woman and marriage.  Consider how slaves may have been treated in their role as economic participants, as the work focuses on economic punishments for disobeying ethical imperatives.
       
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  • Unit 1 Reading Questions  
  • Unit 2: European Thought: Scholastics & Mercantilists  

    The late scholastics, a school of thought active in Spain from the 14th to the 17th centuries, sought to reconcile economic logic with the Christian morality of their day and argued that markets were both practically and morally superior to state-run economies.  The school was ahead of its time in formulating concepts, such as marginal utility, and in investigating the ideas of subjective value, prices, and the quantity theory of money.  Nearly 400 years before Adam Smith, San Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) asserted that prices were a function of relative scarcity.  Similarly, the Jesuit scholar Luis de Molina (1535-1600) argued that a “just” price was a price set on a voluntary market. At the same time, Islamic economic scholars in the Muslim empire, having continued the work of Greco-Roman economic thought from the lands under its domain, sought to integrate the principles developed from that tradition with the teachings of their Holy Book – the Qu’ran, thus paralleling the effort of the scholastics.

    The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a transition from local to national economies, the collapse of feudalism and the subsequent rise of merchant capitalism, and the emergence of extensive foreign commerce.  The opening of silver mines in the Americas increased the flow of metal, meaning that there was more metal that could be used as currency.  These new sources of wealth effectively expanded the scope of economic activities across time and distance, replacing barter trade and extending the division of labor beyond local boundaries.

    Within this context, economists began to subscribe to a theory known as “mercantilism.”  Mercantilism favors the establishment of a strong, central state that helps to expand markets and protect trade and commercial interests.  According to the theory, individuals are considered subservient to the state, an entity that should control wages, interest, and prices, grant monopoly privileges, and impose various restrictions on the actions of individuals.  Mercantilists assert that the primary focus of economic activity should be the accumulation of wealth in the form of precious metals.

    Mercantilist doctrine seeks to assure a surplus of precious metals by favoring the export of goods and services over their import.  As Adam Smith and others subsequently pointed out, the aim of mercantilism was a well-stocked royal treasury; rising consumption levels could be more easily achieved through free exchange.  In time, observers pointed out various negative effects of mercantilism, and a host of critics began to consider mercantilist policies a hindrance to economic progress.  The single greatest assault on mercantilist thinking is Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776).

    Unit 2 Time Advisory   show close
    Unit 2 Learning Outcomes   show close
  • 2.1 The Scholastics  
  • 2.1.1 Overview  
  • 2.1.2 St. Thomas Aquinas  
  • 2.2 Mercantilism  
  • 2.2.1 Overview  
  • 2.2.2 Sir William Petty  
    • Reading: Project Gutenberg’s version of Sir William Petty’s “Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic”

      Link:  Project Gutenberg’s version of Sir William Petty’s “Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic” (PDF)
       
      Also available in:
      EPUB

      Instructions:  This is a lengthy series of essays.  Read through them, paying particular attention to his methods for calculating economic phenomena.
       
      Petty may be considered one of the first econometricians (an econometrician uses mathematical techniques to develop economic statistics).  He was an articulate proponent of mercantilism and lived during a vibrant period of English colonial expansion.  The 1600s were a time of great wealth building, but also of significant disparity.  This text is concerned with collecting taxes and maximizing the nation’s colonization interests. 
       
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  • 2.3 Rebuke of the Mercantilists: Adam Smith, John Locke, Richard Cantillon, and Jacques Turgot  
  • 2.3.1 Adam Smith  
  • 2.3.2 John Locke  
  • 2.3.3 Richard Cantillon  
    • Reading: New World Encyclopedia: Richard Cantillon

      Link: New World Encyclopedia: Richard Cantillon (HTML)
       
      Instructions: Please read the entire article.  This is one of the more comprehensive presentations on a little-known yet quite innovative economic thinker.  Truly a post-Mercantilist thinker, Cantillon entered areas of economic analysis few had traveled to that point.  Considered to be part of the French school of thought known as the Physiocrats, his work had more influence on British and Austrian economic thinkers coming after him than any one of his contemporaries.
       
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  • 2.3.4 Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot  
  • Unit 2 Reading Questions  
  • Unit 3: Classical Economics  

    The Classical Economics period spanned from 1776 to the mid-nineteenth century.  Economists of the time tried to explain the changes in their environment as workers moved from farms to factories.  Markets became more developed, and new pricing models were developed to explain the value of goods and services.  Adam Smith plays a special role in the transition from Mercantilism to Classical Economics: his work is much like a pair of bookends.  In the last unit, we examined the role that Adam Smith played in ending mercantilist thought.  As you will learn in this unit, he also paved the way for intellectual inquiry into the Classical Era.  His masterwork, titled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, was a clarion call for liberating human initiative and channeling it through the mechanism of the market (or what Smith metaphorically called “the invisible hand”). 

    Adam Smith influenced David Ricardo as he developed many of the principle ideas of Classical Economics, including the labor theory of value, the law of diminishing returns in agricultural production, and the law of comparative advantage.   Jeremy Bentham later emerged as a prominent economic and social thinker; his theory of utilitarianism famously framed the role and nature of government.  Meanwhile, another Classical Economist, Karl Marx, analyzed communal economics and the relationship between capital (factories and machines) and human labor.  The work of these Classical Economists echoes to modern times: Ricardo’s theories form the basis for theories of globalization; Bentham’s philosophy is the bedrock of liberal democracy; and Marx’s ideas would famously constitute the foundation of communism.   In addition you will read the works of Jean-Baptiste Say (the “French” Ricardo) and become acquainted with the Manchester school as well as the thought of our own Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, all of whom wrote during this period.

    Unit 3 Time Advisory   show close
    Unit 3 Learning Outcomes   show close
  • 3.1 Adam Smith Revisited  
  • 3.2 David Ricardo  
    • Lecture: YouTube: University of Oregon: Mark Thoma’s “Lecture 6,” “Lecture 7,” and “Lecture 8”

      Link: YouTube: University of Oregon: Mark Thoma’s “Lecture 6,” (YouTube) “Lecture 7,” (YouTube) and “Lecture 8” (YouTube)
       
      Instructions: View the lectures linked above in their entirety (each video lecture is about 1 hour and 15 minutes).  The beginning of Lecture Six contains some materials relating to Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus, an Anticlassical economist.  Please note that Lecture 8 also covers subunit 3.3.  The last few minutes of Lecture 8 introduces the concept of utilitarianism, or the belief that government and society ought to make those choices that maximize the “greatest happiness for the greatest number.”  
       
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    • Reading: Project Gutenberg’s version of David Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

      Link:  Project Gutenberg’s version of David Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (PDF)
       
      Also available in:
      Google Books
      EPUB
       
      Instructions:  Read the entire document.  This work provides a fundamental framework for describing a wide range of economic activities.  His labor theory of value, for example, in turn explains the concept of “comparative advantage” and specialization of labor.  These concepts can be applied to free trade among nations or to the division of household labor. 
      Staunch capitalists often cite Ricardo and his work as evidence of the power of free markets.  Curiously, Marxists and Communists have also pointed to Ricardo’s work to justify their own theories.  The flexibility of his theory is a testament to his timeless contribution to economics. As you read, consider how Ricardo assigns value to labor and his description of how taxation affects wellbeing.  Note the way in which he cites Smith repeatedly throughout the document.
       
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  • 3.3 Jeremy Bentham  
  • 3.4 Karl Marx  
  • 3.5 Jean –Baptiste Say  
  • 3.6 Applications of Classical Political Economy: Hamilton, Jefferson, and the Manchester School  
  • 3.6.1 Hamilton and Jefferson  
  • 3.6.2 The Manchester School (The Anti-Corn League)  
    • Reading: The Peel Web: Dr. Marjie Bloy’s “The Anti-Corn-Law League”

      Link:  The Peel Web: Dr. Marjie Bloy’s “The Anti-Corn-Law League” (HTML)
       
      Instructions: Please read the entire webpage linked above.  The Manchester School was formed by businessmen/economists on that city to fight the English Corn Laws, laws which essentially restricted trade in an effort to control wheat (corn in British) prices.  The school modeled its views after David Ricardo.
       
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  • Unit 3 Reading Questions  
  • Unit 4: Neo-Classicism and Keynesianism  

    Modern thinking presents many challenges to historians.  Because we lack the perspective of time, it is unclear which ideas will emerge as dominant strains of thought. Classifying new ideas into meaningful agglomerations is an uncertain and tentative process.  In the midst of a contemporary debate, it is impossible to know which theories and debates will survive and which will be overturned.  With these limitations, Unit Four will broadly discuss the two main strains of mainstream economic thought: Neo-Classicism and Keynesianism.

    There is little agreement as to how to define a neo-classical thinker.  Neo-classicism is mostly a microeconomic discourse, meaning that it only lightly considers the role of government.  In general, neo-classical thinkers assume that people will act rationally, that the information needed to make decisions is available, and that people try to maximize their utility while firms seek to maximize profit.  Each of these assumptions is simultaneously reasonable and flawed.  Much debate centers on how to modify or interpret these three concepts.

    Keynesianism is better defined, because it is derived from a single source: the writings of John Maynard Keynes.  In general, Keynesians recognize that the free market may generate inefficient outcomes on the macroeconomic level.  The economic role of government is fairly well defined as an interventionist seeking to stabilize the macroeconomy.

    The relationship between Neo-Classicism and Keynesianism has been dubbed the “Neo-Classical Synthesis.”  In other words, much of the 20th century has been devoted to understanding how these two schools of thought relate.  There is an emerging third school known as Monetarism, which is championed by the economist Milton Freedman.

    Unit 4 Time Advisory   show close
    Unit 4 Learning Outcomes   show close
  • 4.1 Neoclassicism  
  • 4.1.1 Overview  
  • 4.1.2 Alfred Marshall  
  • 4.1.3 The Cambridge School  
  • 4.2 Keynesian Thought  
  • 4.3 Monetarism  
  • 4.3.1 Overview  
    • Lecture: YouTube: University of Oregon: Mark Thoma’s “Lecture 16” and “Lecture 17”

      Link: YouTube: University of Oregon: Mark Thoma’s “Lecture 16” (YouTube) and “Lecture 17” (YouTube)
       
      Instructions: Please note that you have seen parts of these lectures before in subunit 4.1.1 (Lecture 16) and 4.2 (Lecture 17) to cover other topics in this course. View the first lecture beginning at the 35 minute marker and from the beginning of Lecture 17 to time marker 1:03.  These lectures discuss monetarism, or the theory that inflation is directly related to the amount of money that a government prints.
       
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  • 4.3.2 Milton Friedman  
    • Guest Lecture: TED talks: "Geoff Mulgan: Post-Crash, Investing in a Better World"

      Link: TED talks: “Geoff Mulgan: Post-Crash, Investing in a Better World” (YouTube)

      Instructions:  This is an optional lecture and not a requirement of the course.  In this guest lecture, the speaker emphasizes the positive impacts of social innovation and explains how capitalism is becoming increasingly social.  This talk should enable you to think about the future of capitalism, the ways in which society is changing, and—more importantly—the role of people in this emerging society.

      Terms of Use: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. It is attributed to TED and the original version can be found here.

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    • Web Media: Google Video: Milton Friedman's “Free To Choose: The Power of the Market”

      Link: Google Video: Milton Friedman's “Free To Choose: The Power of the Market” (Google Video)
       
      Instructions: Watch this video (about 58 minutes).  Milton Friedman began as a disciple of Keynes’ work on managing the economic cycle.  Over time, he came to embrace the role of the free market, particularly as it relates to consumer choice and the limitation of government power.
       
      As you read, consider how economic thought seems to move in waves.  For example, Mercantilists believed in government control of major industries and the accumulation of national wealth in the form of gold reserves.  In reaction to this, the Classical Economists extolled the virtues of the “free hand” of the marketplace and the prosperity of the individual.  The free market was effective, but it also led to booms and busts in the macroeconomy.  To smooth out these extremes, Keynes re-introduced the concept of national prosperity.  In the 1970s, a period of stagnating economic growth and high inflationemerged.  This phenomenon was in turn called stagflation, and its emergence led economists to reconsider Keynes; we subsequently saw a return to free market ideas.  Think about how Friedman’s ideas are similar to and differ from those of the Keynesians and Neo-Classicists.
       
      As a special note, a student of economic history ought to be wary of any singular interpretation of events or ideas.  New thought emerges in response to new environmental conditions, and theories attempt to solve problems of that era.  So, when an economist takes a position that one way is always preferred to another, consider a much longer view and think about how different circumstances may call for other interpretations and solutions.
       
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  • 4.3.3 Modern Quantity Theory  
  • Unit 4 Reading Questions  
  • Unit 5: American Economic Thought  

    Aside from Jefferson and Hamilton, American political economics and its presenters largely borrowed ideas from Europe.  You can find the Ricardian ideas of rent and trade in the works of Henry George, the ideas of protectionism in trade borrowed from German thinkers like Friedrich List and early approaches to mathematical economic developed by Dupuit in the works of Charles Ellet, Jr.  However, the first truly “American” school of thought, known as institutionalism, although derived from German social economic thought, developed within the American academic community.  It dominated our economic thought until the 1930s, when Keynesian economics was adapted by economists from Harvard, serving Roosevelt’s Democratic administration to address the damage caused by the Great Depression.  The monetarist school developed at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, when combined with the presence of the great Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek, became the US antagonist of the Harvard school.  In addition the school of Neo-Marxism became active in the 1970s and attacked both the Keynesian and Monetarist perspectives.  This final section enables you to become acquainted with these three schools of thought, each of which is still active today.

    Unit 5 Time Advisory   show close
    Unit 5 Learning Outcomes   show close
  • 5.1 Institutional Economics  
    • Reading: The New World Encyclopedia: “Institutional Economics”

      Link: The New World Encyclopedia: “Institutional Economics” (HTML)
       
      Instructions: Please read the webpage in its entirety.  It is difficult to find substantive material on institutional thought, and there are so many individuals to draw from.  This presentation provides a useful summary of the key thinkers and their works.  The origins of institutionalism are presented, and the most important thinkers are highlighted.
       
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  • 5.2 Post- Keynesian Economics: Paul Samuelson  
  • 5.3 The Chicago School  
    • Reading: The University of Chicago Magazine: Michael Fitzgerald’s “Chicago Schooled”

      Link: The University of Chicago Magazine: Michael Fitzgerald’s “Chicago Schooled” (HTML)
       
      Instructions: Please read the entire article.  You already have a good grasp of the core of Monetarism from the previous unit, along with the work of Milton Friedman, the “dean” of the Chicago school.  This article will introduce you to some of the other key players and issues tackled by this American school of thought.
       
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    • Lecture: YouTube: University of Richmond: James M. Buchanan’s “Chicago School Thinking: Old and New”

      Link: YouTube: University of Richmond: James M. Buchanan’s “Chicago School Thinking: Old and New” (YouTube)
       
      Instructions: The first 38 minutes constitutes the formal presentation, and this is what you need to view for this resource.  James M. Buchanan, Nobel Prize winner and founder of the “Public Choice” school, speaks on the evolution of the Chicago school and its place in contemporary economic thinking.  Once a Chicago faculty member he left for George Mason University to develop his own brand of conservative economic thinking.  This video lecture is from his appearance at the Summer Institute for the History of Economic Thought at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies on June 2, 2010. 
       
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  • 5.4 Radical Economic Thought  
    • Reading: The Freeman: Hans Sennholz’s “Radical Economics: Old and New”

      Link: The Freeman: Hans Sennholz’s “Radical Economics: Old and New” (HTML)
       
      Instructions: Please read the entire article linked above.  There are few radical economists left today, and it is difficult to find little more than articles and blogs which simply condemn the discipline.  This is a dated but in fact quite valid review of the approach taken by these economists at a time when their ideas were new and fresh.  Professor Sennholz was a libertarian economist.  Grove City College is legendary as perhaps the best exponent of libertarian thought in this country as far as higher education is concerned.  It has never accepted any kind of government aid or support, even for research grants.
       
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  • Final Exam  

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