Adam Smith (5 June 1723 OS (16 June 1723 NS) 17

July 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer ofpolitical

economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment,
[1]
Smith is
best known for two classic works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759),
and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).
The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered
his magnum opus and the first modern work ofeconomics. Smith is cited as
the "father of modern economics" and is still among the most influential
thinkers in the field of economics today.
[2]

Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol
College, Oxford, where he was one of the first students to benefit from
scholarships set up by fellow Scot, John Snell. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public
lectures at the University of Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish
Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow teaching moral philosophy, and during this
time he wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his later life, he took a tutoring position
that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day. Smith
laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory. The Wealth of Nations was a precursor to
the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he expounded upon how rational
self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his own day and
his general approach and writing style were often satirized by Tory writers in the moralizing tradition
of William Hogarth and Jonathan Swift. In 2005, The Wealth of Nations was named among the 100 Best
Scottish Books of all time.
[3]
Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, it is said, used to carry a
copy of the book in her handbag.
[4]










John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron
Keynes,
[1]
CB, FBA (/kenz/ KAYNZ; 5 June 1883 21 April 1946) was a
Britisheconomist whose ideas have fundamentally affected the theory and practice
of modern macroeconomics, and informed the economic policies of governments.
He built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and is
widely considered to be one of the founders of modern macroeconomics and the
most influential economist of the 20th century.
[2][3][4][5]
His ideas are the basis for
the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.
In the 1930s, Keynes spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking, overturning
the older ideas of neoclassical economics that held that free markets would, in the short to medium term, automatically
provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands. Keynes instead argued that aggregate
demand determined the overall level of economic activity, and that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged
periods of highunemployment. According to Keynesian economics, state intervention was necessary to moderate "boom
and bust" cycles of economic activity.
[6]
He advocated the use of fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the adverse
effects of economic recessions and depressions. Following the outbreak of World War II, Keynes's ideas concerning
economic policy were adopted by leading Western economies. In 1942, Keynes was awarded a hereditary peerage as
Baron Keynes of Tilton in the County of Sussex.
[7]
Keynes died in 1946, but during the 1950s and 1960s the success of
Keynesian economics resulted in almost all capitalist governments adopting its policy recommendations.
Keynes's influence waned in the 1970s, partly as a result of problems that began to afflict the Anglo-Americaneconomies
from the start of the decade, and partly because of critiques from Milton Friedman and other economists who were
pessimistic about the ability of governments to regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy.
[8]
However, the advent of the
global financial crisis of 200708 caused a resurgence in Keynesian thought. Keynesian economics provided the
theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the crisis by President George W. Bush of the
United States, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, and other heads of governments.
[9]

In 1999, Time magazine included Keynes in their list of the 100 most important and influential people of the 20th century,
commenting that: "His radical idea that governments should spend money they don't have may have saved
capitalism."
[10]
He has been described by The Economist as "Britain's most famous 20th-century economist."
[11]
In addition
to being an economist, Keynes was also a civil servant, a director of the Bank of England, a part of theBloomsbury
Group of intellectuals,
[12]
a patron of the arts and an art collector, a director of
the British Eugenics Society, an advisor to several charitable trusts, a successful
private investor, a writer, a philosopher, and a farmer.

David hume


HUME was born at Edinburgh on April 26, 1711 the younger son in a good but not wealthy
family. His father, "who passed for a man of parts," died when Hume was still a child, and
he was brought up by his mother at the family estate of Ninewells, near Berwick. About
1723 he entered the University of Edinburgh, and, according to his Autobiography, "passed
through the ordinary course of education with success." His letters show that when he
returned to Ninewells about three years later he had acquired a fair knowledge of Latin,
slight acquaintance with Greek, and a literary taste inclining to "books of reasoning and
philosophy, and to poetry and the polite authors." His studious disposition led his family to
believe that law was the proper profession for him, but he "found an insurmountable
aversion to everything but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning; and while they
fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I
was secretly devouring."
A too "ardent application" to his studies threatened his health, and in 1734, determined
to try a complete change of scene and occupation, Hume entered a business house in
Bristol. In a few months he found "the scene totally unsuitable," and he set out for
France, resolved "to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to
maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible,
except the improvement of my talents in literature." He visited Paris, resided for a time
at Rheims, and then settled at La Fleche, where Descartes had gone to school. During
his three years in France he wrote the 'Treatise of Human Nature', and in 1737 returned
to London to attend to its publication. It appeared in three volumes during 1739-1740.
Contrary to his expectations, his first effort "fell deadborn from the press, without
reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots."
Upon the failure of his book Hume retired to Ninewells and devoted himself to study,
mainly in politics and economics. In 1741 he published the first volume of his 'Essays,
Moral and Political', which enjoyed such success that a second edition was brought out
the following year. At that time he also issued a second volume of essays. He
continued to look about for a position that would secure him independence, and in
1744 tried hard to obtain the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh. Failing in this
attempt, he accepted the post of tutor to the Marquis of Annandale, who had been
declared a lunatic by the court. Upon his dismissal a year later, Hume accepted the
office of secretary to General St. Clair, a distant relative, who was engaged in an
"expedition which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the
coast of France." After the failure of this venture he accompanied the general on a
"military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Surin" on which he "wore the uniform of
an Officer and was introduced at these courts as aide-de-camp to the general." He
remarks that these two years (1746-48), "almost the only interruption which my studies
have received during the course of my life," enabled him to return to Scotland "master
of near a thousand pounds."
During his absence from England in 1748 his 'Philosophical Essays' was published.
Afterwards entitled 'An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding', it was a recasting
of the first part of the Treatise by which he hoped to gain a larger audience. But the
first reception of the work was little more favourable than that accorded to the
'Treatise'.

In 1751 he recast the third book of the 'Treatise' and published it as 'An Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals'. That same year he was again unsuccessful in his
attempt to obtain a professor's chair at Edinburgh, this time as the successor to his
friend, Adam Smith, in the chair of logic. The following year, despite accusations of
heresy, he received the post of librarian at the Advocates' Library, which though small
in salary provided excellent facilities for literary work.
During his years as librarian Hume attained his greatest success as a man of letters. He
continued his essays and in 1757 brought out the 'Four Dissertations', one of which
was devoted to the 'Natural History of Religion'. 'The Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion' were also completed, but on the advice of friends publication was postponed
until after his death. Most of his efforts, however, were devoted to the writing of
history, to which he may have turned his attention because of the success of his
political and economic essays. Adam Smith had recommended that he begin with
Henry VII, but he chose to start with the period of James I, "an epoch when, I thought,
the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place." Although Hume was
disappointed by the reception of the first volume, which appeared in 1753, his 'History
of England' was well received, and within a few years it brought the author a larger
revenue than had ever before been obtained in his country from literature. The work
was completed by 1761, although Hume continued to revise it throughout most of the
remainder of his life, excising from it all the "villainous seditious Whig strokes" and
"plaguy prejudices of Whiggism" that he could detect.
Although "not only independent but opulent . . . and determined never more to set foot
out of" his native country, Hume in 1763 accepted an invitation to go to Paris as acting
secretary of the embassy. For three years he enjoyed Parisian society. Meeting with
men and women of all ranks and stations, he noted "the more I resiled from their
excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them." He returned home, convinced
"there is a real satisfaction in living at Paris." Rousseau accompanied him, persuaded
by Hume to seek shelter in England. The association was of short duration; it ended in
a violent and sensational quarrel for which Rousseau seems to have been largely to
blame. Hume, after serving as undersecretary at the Foreign Office for a year (1767-
68), retired to Edinburgh, where he built himself a new house, and settled down "with
the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation."
In the spring of 1775 Hume was stricken with a troublesome though not painful illness.
Preparing himself for "a speedy dissolution," he wrote a short autobiography, in which
he drew his own character. "I am," he wrote, "or rather was (for that is the style, I must
now use in speaking of myself; which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments)
I was, I say, a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, and of an open, social,
and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity; and of
great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion,
never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments."
A visit to Bath in 1776 seemed at first to relieve his sickness, but on the return journey
more alarming symptoms developed, his strength rapidly sank, and, little more than a
month later, he died in Edinburgh on August 25, 1776.



















Thomas Robert Maltus

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 23
December 1834
[1]
) was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the
fields of political economy and demography.
[2]
Malthus himself used only
his middle name Robert.
[3]

Malthus became widely known for his theories about change in
population. His An Essay on the Principle of Populationobserved that
sooner or later population will be checked by famine and disease, leading
to what is known as aMalthusian catastrophe. He wrote in opposition to
the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as
perfectible.
[4]
He thought that the dangers of population growth precluded progress towards
autopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce

subsistence for man".
[5]
As a cleric, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teach virtuous
behaviour.
[6]
Malthus wrote:
That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,
That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and,
That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of
subsistence, by misery and vice.
[7]

Malthus placed the longer-term stability of the economy above short-term expediency. He criticized
the Poor Laws,
[8]
and (alone among important contemporary economists) supported the Corn Laws, which
introduced a system of taxes on British imports of wheat.
[9]
His views became influential, and
controversial, across economic, political, social and scientific thought. Pioneers of evolutionary
biology read him, notably Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
[10][11]
He remains a much-debated
writer.