ABSTRACT
The word economics comes from the Greek word, oikonomia, which was a discipline that focused on estate management and public administration. Adam Smith was the first of the classical economists to be a professor. He was a professor not of economics, but of moral philosophy. Many people view Adam Smith as an apologist for capitalism, but most economic historians view him as a true scholar concerned about analyzing the prospects for the newly emerging system. According to Thomas Malthus, economic growth will raise wages and result in increasing population. One of the economists most influential in debunking the idea of the inevitability of secular stagnation was Jean Baptiste Say. David Ricardo was so successful as an investment banker, having made a fortune while still in his twenties, that he was able to retire young and devote himself to political economy. In developing the field of welfare economics Arthur Pigou distinguished between the private and social products of an activity.
