Frank William Taussig (1839-1940) Frank William Taussig was an American economist, spent his academic life teaching at Harvard. Between 1917 and 1919 he chaired the US Tariffs Commission. Important books are Tariff History of the United States (1888), Wages and Capital (1896), Principles of Economics (1911), and International Trade. His work shows influences from Ricardo […]

 Socialism Socialism, economic and social doctrine, political movement inspired by this doctrine, and system or order established when this doctrine is organized in a society. The socialist doctrine demands state ownership and control of the fundamental means of production and distribution of wealth, to be achieved by reconstruction of the existing capitalist or other political […]

The Physiocrats Physiocracy is the term applied to a school of economic thought that suggested the existence of a natural order in economics, one that does not require direction from the state for people to be prosperous. The leader of the physiocrats, the economist Franois, set forth the basic principles in his Tableau conomique (1758), […]

Mercantilism (15th-18th center) From the 15th to the 18th century, when the modern nation- state was being born, capitalism not only took on a commercial flavor but also developed in another special direction known as mercantilism. This peculiar form of capitalism attained its highe st level in England. The mercantilist system rested on private property […]

Karl Marx (1818-1883) Karl Marx was a German political philosopher and revolutionist, co-founder with Friedrich Engels of scientific socialism (modern communism), and, as such, one of the most influential thinkers of all times who has seriously disrupted the course of economics itself. Marx was born in Trier on May 5, 1818, and educated at the […]

Communism Under Construction

Collectivism Collectivism, term used to denote a political or economic system in which the means of production and the distribution of goods and services are controlled by the people as a group. Generally this refers to the state. Collectivism is the opposite of capitalism or free enterprise, in which the means of production are owned […]

Modern Capitalism Two developments paved the way for the emergence of modern capitalism; both took place in the latter half of the 18th century. The first was the appearance of the physiocrats in France after 1750; and the second was the devastating impact that the id eas of Adam Smith had on the principles and […]

Capitalism Capitalism, economic system in which private individuals and business firms carry on the production and exchange of goods and services through a complex network of prices and markets. Although rooted in antiquity, capitalism is primarily European in its origins; it evolved through a number of stages, reaching its zenith in the 19th century. From […]

Bourgeoisie Bourgeoisie, originally, the free residents of European towns during the Middle Ages. The bourgeoisie later became synonymous with the middle class. History The term was first applied to those inhabitants of medieval towns in France who occupied a position somewhere between the peasants and the landowning nobility; soon it was extended to the middle […]