ABSTRACT
Reflections about the history of economics and its method
The first chapter of this book suggested that human minds undoubtedly entertained thoughts and ideas about the material aspects of life from the beginning of mankind. However, it was not until the eighteenth century that speculation about economic phenomena developed as economic analysis rather than economic thought. In previous centuries ideas relating to the material aspects of human life were simply incorporated into religious, philosophical, ethical, political and legal thought forms to which economic questions, while certainly not irrelevant, were nevertheless peripheral. The kinds of activities and events which gave individuals control over the material aspects of their lives were so limited that there was neither a basis or a need for systematic explanation. It was not until the latter part of the seventeenth century that the then rising merchant class was able to gain sufficient economic and political power to wrest away a portion of the economy’s increasing surplus (or rent) from the Tudor kings and their fellow aristocrats. It was only then that individuals were able to engage in activities which reflected what John Locke expressed as ‘the right to life, liberty and property.’
