A Dominican friar, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, considered one of the Catholic Church’s greatest theologians and philosophers. Of wide influence, much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his thought. He embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle, whom he called simply ‘the Philosopher’.
Bernardino of Sienna 1380-1444
An Italian priest and Franciscan missionary. He was a systematiser of Scholastic economics. His popular preaching made him famous during his own lifetime, although it was frequently directed against sorcery, gambling, infanticide, witchcraft, sodomy (homosexuality) and usury (as commonly practiced by Jews).
Bernardino was later canonised by the Catholic Church as a saint – where is also referred to as “the Apostle of Italy” for his efforts to revive the country’s Catholic faith during the 15th century.
Francis Bacon 1561 – 1626
Was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. His works argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive and careful observation of events in nature.
Most importantly, he argued this could be achieved by use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. While his own practical ideas about the inductive method did not have a long lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a sceptical methodology makes Bacon the father of scientific method.
Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832
An English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Bentham defined as the “fundamental axiom” of his philosophy the principle that “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong”.
He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated for individual and economic freedoms, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts. He called for the abolition of slavery, the death penalty, and physical punishment, including that of children. He has also become known in recent years as an early advocate of animal rights. Though strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights (both seen as “divine” or “God-given” in origin), calling them “nonsense upon stilts”.
Bentham’s students included his secretary and collaborator James Mill, the latter’s son, John Stuart Mill, the legal philosopher John Austin, as well as Robert Owen, one of the founders of utopian socialism.
Maurice Dobb 1900 to 1976
An influential marxian economist who worked at Cambridge University alongside Joan Robinson and others.
Adam Fergusson 1723 – 1816
A Scottish philosopher and historian of the Scottish Enlightenment, sympathetic to traditional societies, such as the Highlands, for producing courage and loyalty. He criticized commercial society as making men weak, dishonourable and unconcerned for their community.
Ferguson has been called “the father of modern sociology” for his contributions to the early development of the discipline. His most well known work is his Essay on the History of Civil Society.
Henry George 1839 – 1897
An American political economist, journalist, and philosopher. George is famous for popularizing the idea that land/resource rents be captured for public use or shared, in lieu of harmful taxes on labour and productive investment. The philosophy and reform movement were known in George’s time as ‘Single-Tax’.
His immensely popular writing is credited with sparking several reform movements of the Progressive Era and ultimately inspiring the broad economic philosophy that is today often referred to as Georgism, the main tenet of which is that people legitimately own value they fairly create, but that natural resources and common opportunities, most importantly the value of land or location, are rightfully owned in common by individuals in a community, rather than titleholders.
Thomas Hobbes 1588 –1679
Considered one of the founders of modern political philosophy, Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, which established the social contract theory that has served as the foundation for most later Western political philosophy.
In addition to political philosophy, Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, the physics of gases, theology, ethics, and general philosophy.
Though on rational grounds a champion of absolutism for the sovereign, Hobbes also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be “representative” and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.
Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of radical philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. His empiricist approach to philosophy places him with John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes as a British Empiricist.
Hume strove to create a total naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Against philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passion rather than reason governs human behaviour and argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge is ultimately founded solely in experience.
William Stanley Jevons 1835 – 1882
An English economist and logician. His book – A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy (1862) – has been called the start of the mathematical method in economics. It made the case that economics as a science concerned with quantities is necessarily mathematical. In so doing, it expounded upon the “final” (marginal) utility theory of value.
For Jevons, the utility or value to a consumer of an additional unit of a product is inversely related to the number of units of that product he already owns, at least beyond some critical quantity.
John Locke 1632 – 1704
An English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism”. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory.
His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and his writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.
Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 – 1834
An English cleric and scholar, known as a classical political economist and for his work on population growth.
He was a contemporary of Ricardo, with whom in an 1820’s set piece discussion, an examination of the nature and methods of political economy was debated, while the field was simultaneously under attack from others.
Alfred Marshal 1842 – 1924
Was one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, Principles of Economics (1890), was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. It brings the ideas of supply and demand, marginal utility, and costs of production into a coherent whole. He is known as one of the founders of neoclassical economics.
John Ramsey McCulloch 1789 –1864
A Scottish economist, author and editor, widely regarded as the leader of the Ricardian school of economists after the death of David Ricardo in 1823. He was appointed the first professor of political economy at University College London in 1828. He wrote extensively on economic policy, and was a pioneer in the collection, statistical analysis and publication of economic data.
McCulloch was a co-founder, and one of the first editors, of The Scotsman newspaper, and worked on the Edinburgh Review. He edited the 1828 edition of The Wealth of Nations.
Ronald Lindley Meek 1917 – 1978
A Marxian economist and social scientist known especially for his scholarly studies of classical political economy and the labour theory of value. Meek seems to have been held in high regard by just about everyone; known to his students and colleagues simply as ‘Ron’, Lionel Robbins – hardly an economic ally – referred to him as ‘Professor Meek’ and said his death was a “great loss to the history of our subject”.
Meek was born in Wellington, New Zealand, where he attended school and entered Victoria University in the mid-1930s, initially to study law, and later economics. There he became interested in the thought of Karl Marx, theatre and local left-wing politics. He went on to reveal himself to be the brightest Marxian thinker of his generation in New Zealand; his first monograph, a pamphlet called “Maori Problems Today” (1943) discussed a topic which had previously been largely ignored by the Communist Party of New Zealand.
In1946 Meek moved to Cambridge, with a Strathcona studentship to read for a Ph.D. under Piero Sraffa and Maurice Dobb. He later moved to Glasgow, where he became lecturer in the Department of Political Economy, and finished his doctoral thesis. His first major work, Studies in the Labour Theory of Value, was published in 1956, in which year he quit the Communist Party; though he continued to be a Marxist until his last years, he later called himself a ‘Meeksist’. He was acknowledged to be a scholarly authority on Marx, Adam Smith and the Physiocrats.
James Mill 1773 – 1836
A British historian, political economist and theorist, and philosopher. He was the father of John Stuart Mill.
He was an ally of Jeremy Bentham, and a supporter and ally of David Ricardo.
John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873
An English philosopher, political economist and feminist. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, who made wide contributions to social and political theory.
He was a proponent of utilitarianism, and made significant contributions to the theory of scientific method.
Sir Thomas Mun 1571 – 1641
An English writer on economics and is often referred to as the last of the early mercantilists. Most notably, he is known for serving as the director of the East India Company. Due to his strong belief in the state and his prior experience as a merchant, Mun took on a prominent role during the economic depression which began in 1620. Mun published A Discourse of Trade from England unto the East-Indies to defend the East India Company and to regain England’s economic stability.
Through mercantilist principles, Mun created a proposed set of “means to enrich a kingdom” which centred on ensuring that exports exceeded imports. In other words, Mun advocated for achieving a positive balance of trade which would cause England’s wealth to steadily increase.
Thomas Mun is also widely considered to be a sophisticated thinker and has become a hugely important part of the history of economic theory.
An English economist, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver
Cromwell in Ireland. He developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell’s soldiers. He also managed to remain prominent under King Charles II and King James II, as did many others who had served Cromwell.
He was Member of the Parliament of England briefly and was also a scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, and was a charter member of the Royal Society. It is for his theories
on economics and his methods of political arithmetic that he is best remembered, however, and to him is attributed the philosophy of ‘laissez-faire’ in relation to government activity. He was knighted in 1661.
David Ricardo 1772- 1823
One of the most influential of the classical political economists along with Thomas Malthus, James Mill and Adam Smith.
He became interested in economics after reading Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in 1799, and his ideas became the economic orthodoxy of the time. He was most famous for (1) his theory of ‘comparative advantage’ that argued against Mercantilism, and in favour of free international trade; and (2) his ‘labour theory of value’.
He was also an abolitionist who spoke up against slavery, calling it a ‘stain on character of the nation’.
A British born free market economist and head of the economics department at the London School of Economics. He is known for his leadership at LSE and for his instrumental efforts in shifting Anglo-Saxon economics from its Marshallian direction. He saw his LSE as a bulwark against Cambridge economists whether Marshallians or Keynsians.
A follower of Jevons, Wicksteed and other ‘marginalist’ economists his work stressed the subjective theory of value. After gaining the chair in economics at LSE in 1929, Hayek was among his first appointments. He became involved in the ‘socialist calculation debate’ on the side of von Mises and Hayek.
In the 1960’s he authored the influential Robbins report, advocating the massive expansion of the University System.
Joan Robinson 1903 – 1983
Made many contributions to economics traversing an impressive number of the discipline’s many fields.
Among her constructive contributions, her early 1930’s work on imperfect competition and her later work in the 1960’s concerning the dynamics of capital accumulation are the most renowned and esteemed.
She was also a formidable critic, her attention largely directed towards neoclassical theory, together with a sustained and critical engagement with Marxian economics.
Murray Rothbard 1926 – 1995
Was an American ‘heterodox’ economist of the Austrian School, a revisionist historian and a political theorist. He was a central figure in the 20th C American libertarian movement, opposed central banking, and thought that all services provided by the state could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. He considered the state to be ‘the organisation of robbery systematised and writ large’
Rothbard rejected mainstream economic methodologies and instead embraced the ‘praxeology’ of his principal intellectual precursor, Ludwig von Mises.
Nassau William Senior 1790 – 1864)
An English lawyer known as an economist. He was also a government adviser over several
decades on economic and social policy on which he wrote extensively. Senior was a member of the Poor Law Inquiry Commission of 1832, and of the Royal Commission of 1837 on
handloom weavers. The report of the latter, published in 1841, was drawn up by him and had the substance of the report he had prepared some years earlier, on combinations and strikes.
Senior became a good friend of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) whom he met in 1833 for the first time before he publishing of Democracy in America.
Joseph Schumpeter 1883 – 1950
An Austrian born American economist and political scientist. One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he popularised the term ‘creative destruction’, to describe the ways in which old ways are replaced by better ways of doing things, especially during economic downturns. He argued that innovation and entrepreneurial activities are more important than ‘the invisible hand’ and price competition, for economic change.
He also argued that capitalism would eventually be so successful that it would eventually weaken itself and collapse. Unlike Marx’s view of class struggle and revolution, Schumpeter thought that capitalism’s success would lead to corporatism and a class of intellectuals who would critique things and stand up for the interests of other classes.
Best known for two classic works; The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).
The latter is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Often called the ‘the father of modern economics’, his thought is still among the most influential in economics today.
Piero Sraffa 1898 – 1983
An influential Italian economist, who worked as a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. His book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is taken as the founding of the neo-Ricardian school of economics.
He was invited to Cambridge in 1927 by John Maynard Keynes, partly due to his work on Value, but also due to his risky close friendship with the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who had already been imprisoned by the Fascist Government.
He aimed to perfect Ricardo’s theory of value in order show flaws in, and to develop an alternative to, mainstream neoclassical theory. His technique of aggregating capital as ‘dated inputs of labour’ led to the famous scholarly debate, the Cambridge capital controversy.
Léon Walras 1834 – 1910
Was a French mathematical economist famous for formulating the marginal theory of value and for pioneering general equilibrium theory. Together with William Stanley Jevons and Carl Menger he is considered to be one of the 3 leaders of marginalism, although he worked independently of them.
Profit, Wealth and Value 