Economic Thought

The study of economic thought is not concerned primarily with the way in the moderns evolved from ancients and learned to avoid the foolish mistakes of their more primitive forebears. Rather, this course examines the extent to which different economists have looked at the same thing in different ways. Few of the alternative approaches are out of date even if many are now out of fashion. The purpose of this option is to widen students' perspectives by examining how some of the great thinkers of the past have sought to resolve economic problems which remain the central focus of our present-day concerns. The course will proceed historically, covering the main stages, the main authors and the main paradigms: the Greeks, the Middle Ages, Islam, Mercantilism, Smith, Malthus, Marx, historicism, marginalism, Keynesianism. It will situate each in the economic circumstances of its time.