classical economists


classical economists

the major economic theorists, including Adam SMITH, Thomas MALTHUS, David Ricardo, John Stuart MILL, who, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were responsible for the foundation of modern ECONOMICS. The classical economists analysed the working of the capitalist economy as the outcome of the economic interaction of landowners, capitalists and labour. Thus, the early economists were involved in a form of CLASS analysis which remains central to modern sociology, especially as the result of the work of MARX (see also MARXIAN ECONOMICS). Subsequently, with the ‘marginalist revolution’ in economics from the 1870s onwards (see NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS), development of the paths of sociology and mainstream economics tended to diverge, and economics became associated with the conduct of economic analysis in terms of the behaviour of abstract individuals (see also POLITICAL ECONOMY, ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY, INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS).