Classical Economists :: essays research papers

As a coherent economic theory, classical economic science start with smith, continues with the BritishEconomists Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo. Although differences of opinion were numerous among the classical economists in the time span between Smiths Wealth of Nations (1776) and Ricardos Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), they all mainly agreed on major principles. All believed in confidential property, free markets, and, in Smiths words, The individual pursuit of private gain to ontogeny the earthly concern hefty. They shared Smiths strong suspicion of government and his evangelical confidence in the power of self-interest represented by his noted invisible collapse, which reconciled public benefit with personal quest of private gain. From Ricardo, classicists derived the notion of diminishing returns, which held that as more labor and capital were utilize to land yields after a certain and not very mature stage in the progress of agricultu re steadily diminished. The central thesis of The Wealth of Nations is that capital is best employed for the production and distribution of wealthiness under conditions of governmental noninterference, or individualism, and free trade. In Smiths view, the production and exchange of goods can be stimulated, and a consequent raising in the general standard of living attained, only through the high-octane operations of private industrial and commercial entrepreneurs acting with a lower limit of regulation and control by the governments. To explain this concept of government maintaining laissez-faire attitude toward the commercial endeavors, Smith proclaimed the principle of the invisible hand Every individual in pursuing his or her own good is led, as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good for all. whence any interference with free competition by government is closely certain to be injurious.Although this view has undergone considerable modification by economists in t he light of historical developments since Smiths time, many sections of The Wealth of Nations notably those relating to the sources of income and the nature of capital, have continued to form the basis of theoretical determine of the field of political economy. The Wealth of Nations has also served as a pass by to the formulation of governmental economic policies.Malthus, on the other hand, in his al-Quran An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) imparted a tone of dreariness. Malthuss main contribution to economics was his theory that a population tends to increase faster than the supply of food available for its needs.