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Classical economics, also known as the classical school of economics, [1] or classical political economy, is a school of thought in political economy that flourished, primarily in Britain, in the late 18th and early-to-mid 19th century. It includes both the Smithian and Ricardian schools. [2]
Of the relationship between population and economics, Malthus wrote that when the population of laborers grows faster than the production of food, real wages fall because the growing population causes the cost of living (i.e., the cost of food) to go up. Difficulties of raising a family eventually reduce the rate of population growth, until the ...
The ordinary classical economist has no part in this tour de force. But if, on behalf of the ordinary classical economist, we declare that we would have preferred to investigate many of those problems in money terms, Mr. Keynes will reply that there is no classical theory of money wages and unemployment.
Classical economics focuses on the tendency of markets to move to equilibrium and on objective theories of value. Neo-classical economics differs from classical economics primarily in being utilitarian in its value theory and using marginal theory as the basis of its models and equations. Marxian economics also descends from classical theory.
Classical economists had believed in Say's law, which, simply put, states that "supply creates its demand", and that in a free-market workers would always be willing to lower their wages to a level where employers could profitably offer them jobs. [53]
Keynes summarizes the view of classical economists that the economy should be self-adjusting if wages are fluid, and that they blame rigidity in wages for problems like unemployment. He disagrees with what he says is the orthodox view, based on the quantity theory of money , is that wage reductions have a small effect on aggregate demand, but ...
Keynes's interpretation is rejected by many economists as a misinterpretation or caricature of Say's law — see Say's law: Keynes vs. Say — and the advocacy of the phrase "supply creates its own demand" is today most associated with supply-side economics, which retorts that "Keynes turned Say on his head and instead stated that 'demand ...
Classical economists such as David Ricardo proposed a labour theory of value that states there is a direct correlation between the value of a good and the labour required to produce the good, concluding "The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production, and not on the ...