Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

2. Economics, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXI: Meaning in the Social Sciences

The study of the way in which man makes a living — a short definition of economics — or of how he makes use of limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants -- another definition — has been traced in this work from Aristotle through the Middle Ages and mercantilism to the nineteenth century, when the classicists and their numerous critics, under the influence of industrialization and the intellectual trends of the day, created a large body of economic thought. In Chapter XIV we saw how, at the end of the century, Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) attempted to reformulate classical theory to …