ABSTRACT
The classical economists thought of growth as the natural state of a (capitalist) economy. Harmful government policies might impede growth, or even bring it to a stop altogether, but only as a result of unnatural interference with the normal workings of the system. Growth might eventually come to a halt, as a stationary state was reached, but the classics treated that as such a distant prospect that it is not easy to tell whether they thought of the stationary state as a real future possibility or a mere analytical device.
