This paper deals with the debate which opposed Sismondi and the Ricardian economists, in the first half of the nineteenth century, on the equilibrium of markets, the role of competition and the effects of machinery in industrial societies. At the initial section, the main content of Sismondi?s...

This article discusses the intellectual procedures underlying the building of economic orthodoxy. The attempt of Senior, Jevons and Walras to provide ?scientific fundaments? to economic reflection rests on an improper abstraction: the relationship between individual needs and nature?s...

This article discusses the intellectual and historic circumstances of Smith´s major work. The principle of the "invisible hand" represents a synthesis between the methodological individualism (typically Anglo-Saxon) and the naturalistic view of society (the successor of rationalism): the free...

This paper analyses J.S. Mill?s conceptions on what would be the proper form of government and the proper scope of State intervention in economic life. It is argued that, for Mill, the answer depended on the type of society in question. In ?backward? societies, in which the population...