ECONOMIC THOUGHT WITHIN ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT: A REVISION OF THE EIGHTEEN CENTURY

Résumé

The 18th century went from a state of economic stagnation, which occurred in the last century, caused by rampant inflation, climate change and the Thirty Years' War, to a state of economic growth based on population growth, banking expansion and commercial and agricultural. revolution. These changes founded the technological and social elements necessary for an era of industrialization that would take shape in the next century. Within this historical context, the foundations of classical economic thought appear, represented by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, etc. The writing carries out a bibliographic and hermeneutical analysis of the economic thought of the eighteenth century through, on the one hand, the review of the theoretical contributions of these thinkers and the most important conclusions made by later scholars, on the other hand, the theoretical interpretation of the foundations of the economic thought of the eighteenth century. This analysis is built on six arguments: law and natural order, income, the value of work, trade, demography, and freedom. The objective of the article is to present the arguments of the most important thinkers of the eighteenth century as the foundation of a Modernity characterized by the economic growth based on the free market.