Great Economic Thinkers from Antiquity to the Historical School

Bertram Schefold is Professor of Economics at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany.

• Introduction 1. Antiquity 1.1 Xenophon’s "Oikonomikos": The Beginning of an Economic Science? 1.2 Aristotle: The Classical Thinker of Ancient Economic Theory 1.3 Cicero’s "De Officiis": The Moral Duties of Mankind 2. Middle Ages and Scholasticism 2.1 Nicholas Oresme: Monetary Theory in the Late Medieval Era 2.2 Economy and Money in the Age of Reformation 2.3 Leonard Lessius: From the Practical Virtue of Justice to Economic Theory 3. Mercantilism 3.1 Spanish Economic Thought at the Dawn of the Modern Era 3.2 Antonio Serra: The Founder of Economic Theory? 3.3 Jacques Savary’s "Parfait négociant": The Organization of Markets by Merchants and the State 3.4 Philipp Wilhelm von Hörnigk: "Austria Above All, if She Only so Wishes" 3.5 William Petty’s "Political Arithmetick" 3.6 Justi’s "Grundsaetze der Policey-Wissenschaft" [Principles of the Science of Police]: Happiness and Economics 3.7 The Connection Between Theory, History and Policy in James Steuart’s "Principles" 4. Historical School, Old and Young 4.1 Bruno Hildebrand: The Historical Perspective of a Liberal Economist" 4.2 Wilhelm Roscher’s "Perspectives on the Economy from a Historical Standpoint 4.3 Hans von Mangoldt’s: "Grundriss der Volkswirtschaftslehre" 4.4 Karl Knies’ "Das Geld" [Money] 4.5 Wilhelm Roscher’s "Geschichte der National-Oekonomik in Deutschland" [The History of Economics in Germany] 4.6 Adolph Wagner’s "Grundlegung" [Foundation] 4.7 Wilhelm Launhardt’s "Mathematische Begruendung der Volkswirtschaftslehre" [The Mathematical Foundation of Economic Theory] 4.8 Max Weber’s "Protestant Ethic" as an Inquiry into Economics 5. Asian Classics 5.1 Asian Classics in a Western Collection of the History of Economic Thought 5.2 Ibn Khaldun’s Socio-Economic Synthesis: Rise and Fall in Economic Development

Schefold invites the reader to understand the history of economic thought not as a discipline which primarily wants to discover the earliest author to have expressed a thought which might still be important today. "The texts are really interesting only if we recognise a ‘political’ dimension and try to interpret them as expressions of the will to shape, to preserve or to change the world", he writes. Schefold [...] tries to build a bridge from the traditional history of economic theories to a universal history of economic thought.- Gerald Braunberger, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)"...this is a truly great achievement in the history of economic thought; it is comparable to that of Schumpeter’s when he wrote the History of Economic Analysis in the middle of the previous century."- Kiichiro Yagi, Setsunan University, Neyagawa city, Osaka, Japan