NAQT: Economists
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- (Karl )Marx
- (1818-1883) German economist, historian, and social philosopher. Marx's principal contribution to economic thought was extending the labor theory of value to its logical conclusion, his theory of surplus value. This theory, along with his defense of economic materialism, appeared in Das Kapital (1867, 1885, 1894).
- (David )Ricardo
- (1772-1823) English economist. Ricardo is best known for Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, which introduced more-or-less modern notions of comparative advantage and its theoretical justification for unfettered international trade. He also put forth the so-called iron law of wages.
- (John Maynard )Keynes
- (1883-1946) English economist. He is most famous for The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), which judged most of classical economic analysis to be a special case (hence "General Theory") and argued that the best way to deal with prolonged recessions was deficit spending.
- (Vilfredo )Pareto
- Italy; (1800s-1900s); Mind and Society; theory of a superior elite class
- (John Stuart )Mill
- (1806-1873) British economist and social philosopher. Mill is mainly known today (in economic circles) for his work extending the ideas of Ricardo in Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (1844) (for example, the relationship between profits and wages) but also for exhaustively examining the necessity of private property in his Principles of Political Economy (1848).
- (Jean Baptiste )Say
- France; Say's Law of Markets says that supply creates its own demand
- (David )Ricardo
- Britain; (1700s-1800s); Principles of Political Economy and Taxation; theory of rent; labor theory of value; iron law of wages; theory of distribution of wealth
- (Henry )George
- US; (1800s); single-tax movement; Progress and Poverty
- (James )Laughlin
- US; (1800s-1900s); Helped establish Federal Reserve
- (Thorstein )Veblen
- (1857-1929) American economist (of Norwegian heritage). Veblen is primarily remembered for his The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) that introduced phrases like "conspicuous consumption." He is remembered for likening the ostentation of the rich to the Darwinian proofs-of-virility found in the animal kingdom.
- (Frank )Taussig
- US; (1800s-1900s); international trade theory, esp tariffs; Principles of Economics; Some Aspects of the Tarif Question; editor of Quarterly Journal of Economics in late 1800s; opposed Marginal Revolution
- (Thomas )Malthus
- Britain (1700s-1800s); Essay on the Principle of Population; geometric population growth v. arithmetic resource growth would cause huge class warfare
- (Francois )Quesnay
- (1694-1774) French economist. Quesnay was the undisputed leader of the Physiocrats, the first systematic school of economic thought. Among its tenets were the economic and moral righteousness of laissez-faire policies and the notion that land was the ultimate source of all wealth.
- (John Kenneth )Galbraith
- Canada-US; (1900s); ambassador to India; American Capitalism, A Tenured Professor, The Affluent Society
- (John Maynard )Keynes
- Indian Currency and Finance; The Economic Consequences of the Peace (anti-Versaille); The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
- (Milton )Friedman
- Capitalism and Freedom
- (Adam )Smith
- (1723-1790) Scottish philosopher and economist. Though he wrote on nearly every subject of moral and social philosophy, he is remembered as the author of An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) and as the creator of the metaphor of the "invisible hand." This work more-or-less single-handedly founded the Classical school of economics.
- (William )Sumner
- US; (1800s-1990s); advocated laissez-faire and Social Darwinism
- (Adam )Smith
- Theory of Moral Sentiments
- (Irving )Fisher
- US; (1800s-1900s); developed monetary theory and eclectic theory of capital
- (John Kenneth )Galbraith
- (1908- ) Canadian economist. Galbraith probably wouldn't make this list if contributions to economic theory were all that mattered; as it is, his liberal popular writings like The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State (with their emphasis on public service and the limitations of the marketplace) ensure his coming up again and again.
- (Francois )Quesnay
- France; (1700s); "natural law" of economics in his Economic Table; only agriculture can increase wealth
- (Alfred )Marshall
- (1842-1924) English economist. Marshall's magnum opus, 1890's Principles of Economics, introduced the notions of consumer surplus, quasi-rent, demand curves, and elasticity, all fundamental concepts in introductory macro- and microeconomics.
- (Milton )Friedman
- (1912) American; Conservative advocate of monetarism (an revision of the quantity theory of money) in works like A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (1963). strongly laissez-faire
- (Jack )Barbash
- US; (1900s); labor economist; helped create AFL-CIO
- (Hjalmar )Schacht
- Germany; (1900s); president of Reichsbank under Nazis; acquitted at Nuremberg
- (Joseph )Schumpeter
- Czech-US; (1900s); "creative destruction" of entrepeneurs, leading to Socialism
- (Milton )Friedman
- Dollars and Deficit
- (John )Commons
- US; (1800s-1900s); wrote Legal Foundations of Capitalism, and History of Labor in the US