History of Economic Thought
(The Ancient & The Medieval)
By: Pavel Vassiljev
MSc International Marketing
& Brand Management
• What is economics for you?
• Why there was a need to start creating
economics?
• How would you define the history of
economics?
• History of economic thought made a basis for
creating such subjects like: political economy
and economics.
• The history of economic thought deals with
thinkers and theories from the ancient time to
present day and the history is being written as
we speak.
Ancient Near East
• Effective distribution of resources was one of
the needs that needed thoughts upon.
• Mesopotamia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Egypt
(Fertile Crescent) were driven by the need of
growing crops near rivers, which needed
space, labor power, management.
• The city-states of Sumer developed a trade
and market economy based originally on
the commodity money of the Shekel which
was a certain weight measure of barley, while
the Babylonians and their city-state neighbors
later developed the earliest system
of economics using a metric of
various commodities, that was fixed in a legal
code.
Greko-Roman
• Speaking of recourses were:
•
•
•
•
Hesiod
Xenophon
Aristotle
Plato
• Plato: “Mind, body, estate”
• Necessary VS Luxury
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)
• was a Greek philosopher and polymath,
a student of Plato and teacher
of Alexander the Great. His writings
cover many subjects:
physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater,
music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics,
government, ethics, biology, and zoology.
• Aristotle: “The art of wealth
acquisition”
• Aristotle also thought on the question
in whose hands property should also
be.
Ancient China
• Fan Li discussed seasonal effects on markets,
and business strategy. Imagine that !?
• Government role and monopolies were things
discussed amongst Confucian factions.
Ancient India
• Lord Mahavira describes the nature of man
under the four main aspects without which it
would be difficult to understand humans fully.
– Passion
– Lust or greed for wealth
– Faith in Religion
– Emotion
• The aspects of human nature leads us to the basic elements
of Mahavira's economics. In modern economics, there are
three basic elements – Desires
– Needs
– Demands
• However under Mahavira's economics, there are four more
elements to those of modern economic thoughts :
–
–
–
–
Means of convenience
Attachment
Luxury
Fame (or Ego)
Medieval Islamic world
• Islamic economics is the practice of economics
in accordance with Islamic law. The origins can
be traced back to the Caliphate, where an
early market economy and some of the
earliest forms of merchant capitalism took
root between the 8th–12th centuries, which
some refer to as "Islamic capitalism"
• Nasir al-Din al-Tusi: "the
study of universal laws
governing the public
interest (welfare?) in so
far as they are directed,
through cooperation,
toward the optimal
(perfection)."
• Persian philosopher Ibn Miskawayh: "The
creditor desires the well-being of the debtor in
order to get his money back rather than
because of his love for him. The debtor, on the
other hand, does not take great interest in the
creditor."
• Abu Yusuf (731-798) discussed proportional
tax on produce instead of fixed taxes on
property as being superior as an incentive to
bring more land into cultivation. He also
advocated forgiving tax policies which favor
the producer and a centralized tax
administration to reduce corruption.
• Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) the greater the social
cohesion, the more complex the successful
division may be, the greater the economic
growth. He noted that growth and
development positively stimulate both supply
and demand, and that the forces of supply
and demand are what determine the prices of
goods
Medieval Times
Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 7 March 1274)
• Was an Italian Dominican priest and
an influential philosopher and
theologian.
• In the medieval times Thomas
Aquinas argued that it was a moral
obligation of businesses to sell goods
at just price.
• Summarize the thoughts and approaches from
different cultures and answer the question:
– What similarities or differences were in the
thoughts and approaches?
Thank You For Your Attention!