The most famous economists

economic science. In his book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Smith proposed the concept of "economic man," driven by selfishness and the pursuit of profit. This work is considered the cornerstone of capitalism. By pure coincidence, it was published in the same year 1776 as the birth of the world's main capital power, the United States. Smith is famous for the "invisible hand of the market. With this "invisible hand," Smith explained a strange paradox: by acting in our own self-interest, each of us not only gets richer, but also increases the wealth of society.

and at the same time an opponent of Adam Smith, revealed the natural tendency of the profit rate to decrease in conditions of free competition, developed a complete theory about the forms of land rents. Ricardo proved that if each country specializes in one thing, in one commodity, everybody wins. Moreover, a country will be richer if it chooses to produce one type of good and import the rest, even if it produces all the goods more efficiently than its trading partners.

by the labor expended on it. The capitalist can make a profit only if the price of the commodity exceeds the cost of production, which is achieved solely by the exploitation of the workers. And this, sooner or later, must lead to the total impoverishment of the proletariat. In the second half of the twentieth century, it finally became clear that Marx was wrong. In capitalist countries, workers achieved unprecedented living standards, while in socialist countries built according to Marxist principles, the population, instead of the promised prosperity, laid its teeth on the shelf. It is true that, after the crisis of the early twenty-first century, Marx's ideas may once again gain traction.

science.
J. M. Keynes is a central figure among economists of the 20th century because it was he who created the foundations of modern macroeconomic theory capable of serving as a basis for budgetary and monetary policy.
The Great Depression demonstrated that Smith's "invisible hand" could not always manage the economy and needed the heavy hand of the state. In hard times of crisis, the state should spend more and thereby maintain employment levels.
In addition, Keynes helped create the postwar monetary regime, which was first pegged to the gold standard and is now based entirely on the U.S. dollar.

economic thought. He popularized the terms "creative destruction" in economic theory and "elitist democracy" in political science.
Schumpeter made history with his theory of "creative destruction," according to which capitalism is a progressive movement in which everything old is constantly destroyed and new is created in its place.
The International Joseph Schumpeter Society was founded in 1986 to honor the scholar and to study his work; the Schumpeter Institute was founded in Berlin in 2001. Part of Schumpeter's personal library is kept at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo (Schumpeter Library).

new Austrian school, proponent of economic liberalism and free market. Winner of the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (1974).
F.A. von Hayek became the driving force behind organization of the Mon Pelerin Society in 1947, which united economists, philosophers, journalists and businessmen supporting classical liberalism. He was elected President of the Society and served from 1947 to 1961.
Hayek was one of the leading critics of collectivism in the twentieth century. He believed that all forms of collectivism (even theoretically based on voluntary cooperation) could exist only with state support. The methodological basis of his works was the theory of incomplete information, inevitable when describing a complex system. Later Hayek extended this theory with anthropological, cultural, and information-theoretic aspects.

Keynesian currents, one of the prominent theoretical economists of the 20th century.
In his academic writings (which read no less easily than his dispatches from India) he criticized big companies for having excessive market power, shaping consumer tastes and playing a major role in politics. On the economy, however, as on everything else, Galbraith was skeptical. In particular, he once said that the only benefit of economic forecasts was that they made alchemy a respected science.

in Economics for his research on consumption, monetary history and theory, and the complexities of stabilization policy.
There is no need for government regulation or intervention in the economy, Friedman argued. Free markets regulate themselves, just as any healthy organism regulates itself. And in order to avoid economic crises and inflation, it is necessary to control the money supply, i.e., to make sure that the economy does not have too much or too little money, just as a healthy organism should be fed healthy, wholesome food, not overfeeding, but also not keeping it on a hungry ration.

which combines the teachings of Keynes with elements of Marxian theory. Stiglitz was an economic adviser to President Clinton and chief economist at the World Bank, a position in which he criticized the actions of international economic organizations. He criticized the International Monetary Fund and his own World Bank. Stiglitz argued that excessive worship of the free market is the cause of persistent poverty in developing countries.
In 2001 Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Committee noted his research showing that information is unevenly distributed in the market and, therefore, that the "invisible hand" of the free market is far from as effective as Adam Smith's followers claim.