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Category
Disciplines in Economics, Business & Politics
Economists, political economists, entrepreneurs and statesmen whose theories, firms and constitutions organise money and power.
Era
Countries (85)
9 figures
Thomas Hobbes
1588 – 1679Leviathan founded the modern theory of sovereignty and the social contract.
John Locke
1632 – 1704Consent, property and toleration — the template for liberal constitutions.
Adam Smith
1723 – 1790The Wealth of Nations founded economics as a discipline.
Mary Wollstonecraft
1759 – 1797A Vindication of the Rights of Woman founded feminist political theory.
Thomas Robert Malthus
1766 – 1834Population pressure as an economic law; the argument every food and climate debate revisits.
David Ricardo
1772 – 1823Comparative advantage and rent theory — still the core argument for trade.
John Stuart Mill
1806 – 1873Principles of Political Economy and On Liberty joined markets to individual freedom.
John Maynard Keynes
1883 – 1946Argued governments should spend in a slump — and every modern state now does.
Joan Robinson
1903 – 1983Imperfect competition and a lifelong challenge to orthodox capital theory.