ABSTRACT
This chapter asks whether classifying economic theories in distinct analytical approaches to certain economic problems and even in different schools of economic thought is a futile enterprise. The view that the economics of the classical authors from Adam Smith to David Ricardo is essentially just an early variant of neoclassical theory, that is, an explanation of quantities and relative prices, including the prices of factor services, in terms of demand and supply functions, was advocated by Alfred Marshall. The attention focused on the factors affecting the pace with which capital accumulates and the economy expands and how the growing social product is shared out between the different classes of society: workers, capitalists and landowners. The ingenious device of the classical authors to see through the complexities and intricacies consisted of distinguishing between market and actual values of the relevant variables.
