OK, I jest. The great economist is Adam Smith. I was on holiday in Edinburgh when I came across this statue to Adam Smith (widely considered the father of economics for his ground breaking work – The Wealth of Nations)
Couldn’t resist the obvious tourist pose.
BTW: In the summer holidays my posting schedule tends to go down a little. It will be more frequent in term time.
Related Posts
- The Free Market
- Selfish actions and the public good – one of the principles of the Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith argued that by pursuing selfish ends it often (though not always e.g. monopoly power) led to the improvement of a nations economic welfare
There is a well researched article (URL below) which claims that Adam Smith made a big mistake in connection with the nature and origins of money. Smith accepted the conventional wisdom, namely that the value of coins from the earliest times was based on the metal content. This article shows that money was always something much more abstract: a debt that can be transferred from one person to another. The latter idea is supported by the fact that throughout history, the value of coins has had little relationship with the metal content (except of course that if the value falls BELOW the metal content, it becomes worth smelting coins down for scrap). I.e. coins have always been used much as we use £10 notes: as tokens which represent a debt.
But don’t take my word for it. Read the article:
http://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/what-is-money/