The Great Economists

Father of Economics

Adam Smith

Author of The Wealth of Nations?

Adam Smith

How can society function if we are self-interested creatures?

competition

Adam Smith's policy

Laissez-Faire - abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market

How will the market will figure itself out, according to Smith?

The invisible hand

What are the 3 components of the invisible hand?

Supply and Demand, Competition, and Entry and Exit

Das Kapital

A written piece by Marx that lays out his views on history and the best government system (theory of surplus value)

Father of communism?

Karl Marx

Marx's view on capitalism

He saw the economy as a class struggle and believed that economic growth was filled with trouble

Surplus value

the excess of value produced by the labor of workers over the wages they are paid.

Karl Marx's views on surplus value

Unpaid labor was the source of profit and that the proletariat was exploited

Father of the mixed economy

John Maynard Kenes

Author of The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

Keynes

Who argued that for a nation to recovery fully from a depression, the govt had to spend money to encourage investment and consumption?

John Maynard Keynes

Main cause that pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression

the massive government spending during wartime which compensated for the money that would be spent by consumers and businesses