If a short list of keywords had to be proposed in order to explain why John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a great liberal thinker, it would certainly include utility, liberty, and equality. These concepts express his view of liberalism, which lies between classical liberalism and a social, if not...

Karl Marx (born May 5, 1818; died March 14, 1883) left an indelible mark on the study of globalization. While he initially intended to examine the "world market" (Marx 1987 [1859]: 261), he was unable to complete his study. This has not prevented future researchers from incorporating his analysis to...

This chapter on the political thought of Edmund Burke (1729-1797) will mainly focus on British politics and history in the context and in contrast to the French Revolution of 1789. Writing at the height of the Enlightenment period and alongside great thinkers, such as David Hume (1711-1776),...

There is a familiar way to appeal to Adam Smith (1723-1790), the famous philosopher and great economic thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is often considered as the father of modern economics and capitalism. We must also consider the frequent references to him. "What would Adam Smith...

If there is one economist of the twentieth century whose ideas speak to us today, it is Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950). Looking at the number of articles and books quoting his name, it seems that researchers and analysts have recently rediscovered Schumpeter and his work.

In 1971, US President Richard Nixon announced his "New Economic Policy." The world was stunned as it learnt that the New World Order that had been created at Bretton Woods in 1944 was over. Governments no longer knew the value of their major reserve currency, the dollar that they held in their...

Hayek is one of the most important liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. Born in 1899 in Vienna, he became with Ludwig von Mises, who was his mentor during his time at Vienna, one of the main representatives of the Austrian School of liberal economic thought. In 1931 he emigrated to Britain...

Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) is a revolutionary figure in the landscape of contemporary economics for several reasons. First, she is the first and still only woman ever to receive the "Nobel" Prize in Economics (or "the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" to be...

In his article on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (born 1906), Joan Martinez-Alier (Ecol Econ 22:225-238, 1997) points out that when meeting him in 1980 in Barcelona, he was stunned by Georgescu-Roegen's humbleness and vitality (We are also stunned by the humbleness and vitality of Martinez-Alier)....