History of economic thought
Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The word 'economics' is from the Greek for οἶκος (oikos: house) and νόμος (nomos: custom or law), hence "rules of the house(hold)."
Origin of Economics takes its roots in the natural propensity of human beings to barter, to exchange or trade goods. Whilst there are no records of dogs ever having bartered bones, men has been bartering all sorts of goods since pre-history.
Economics as an independent science, and as we understand the word today, begins with the work of Adam Smith, The Wealth of the Nations. [1].
Before Smith, Economics was a chapter in political science, the art of managing a State. The list of acceptable definitions for Economics is enourmous. Economics is the study of those activities which, with or without money, involve exchange transactions among people. Economics is also the study of wealth. Several other definitions are acceptable [2]
Paul Samuelson, in his famous book Economics - An Introductory Analysis, defines Economics as:"the study of how men and society 'choose', with or without the use of money, to employ 'scarce' productive resources to produce various commodities over time and distribute them for consumption, now an in the future, among various people and groups in society" [2]
Introduction
In antiquity various philosophers have studied Economics, the most important of which being Aristotle, who was the first to create some important economic concepts, in his book Politics (350 B.C) [3]
Aristotle analyzed the economic processes around him and reasoned to delineate the place of economy within a society that included commercial buying and selling. His economic thought (especially his value theory) is inspiring but sometimes contradictory and inconsistent.
In Book I of the Politics, Aristotle distinguishes between use value and exchange value, defines value as the ability to satisfy wants and demand as being governed by the desirability of a good (i.e., its use value). According to Aristotle, exchange value is derived from use value as communicated through market demand.[4]
History
References
- ↑ SIMTH, Adam. Wealth of the Nations, The. Modern Library, 1ª edition, 2000, ISBN 0679783369
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 SAMUELSON, Paul Anthony e NORDHAUS, William D.Economics. McGraw Hill Professional, 18ª edition, 2004, ISBN 0072872055 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "ECONOMICS" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ ARISTOTLE. Politics. Translated by Benjamin Jowett, in The Internet Classics Archive
- ↑ YOUNKINS, Edward W. Aristotle and Economics, Capitalism and Commerce. Montreal: Le Québécois Libre, nº 158, 15/9/2005.