Economic Philosopher Presentation

You will create a Google Slides presentation* in which you research and identify different
philosophers and ideas from the 18th to 21st century.

For each philosopher you will include

1. A brief bio slide

2. Summary for 3 of their key ideas
3. Your personal evaluation of each of their ideas (to what extent do you agree or disagree
with their assessments)
4. Images

For citations, create a hyperlink to the website where you found your information in the
slideshow. No need for a citations page.

Due Thursday night*

Economic Philosopher Presentation
18th century: (1) Adam Smith and Classical Economics

19th century: (2) David Ricardo and Classical Economics, (3) Karl Marx
and Communism

20th century: (4) John Maynard Keynes and Keynesian Economics

21st century: (5) Milton Friedman and Monetarism, (6) Richard Thaler
and Behavioral Economics
DELETE THE
INSTRUCTION SLIDES
BEFORE SUBMITTING
YOUR WORK
Main Economic
Philosophers
Hani Khayatei
Adam Smith
Birth 1723 Add food and books and portrait

Death 1790

Education University of Glasgow and Oxford

Books: Wealth of Nations, Theory of Moral

Sentiments

Country: Scotland

Fun fact: Corn, herring, and wine were some of

his favorite foods.

Bio Favorite food

Idea 1:
There should be a free market with limited government although
government should be responsible for defence and other sectors.
I agree with this idea because letting people do what they want often is
more efficient than pushing them around and yields a lot more. The
government should be involved in some sectors like safety and rights
as well as the military because corporations would have a conflict of
interest or be unqualified for such tasks.
Idea 2
Invisible hand pushes society and economy towards efficiency as
everyone seeks to improve their own condition.
I agree that there is a sort of force that pushes things to an
equilibrium or efficiency. People want to maximize their own benefit
and this causes them to take advantage of situations until they even
out or are as efficient as possible.
Idea 3
Countries should be evaluated for their production and commerce,
not gold or silver deposits.
Smith is correct in wanting to measure economies this way
because deposits aren’t likely the best way to grow economies and Image above: the famous
gold and silver are symbols for the economy whereas the invisible hand.
production and exchange is the economy, so it is what should be
measured. Adam smith explained.
David Ricardo
Birth 1772 Add food and books and portrait
Death 1823

Education University of Glasgow and Oxford

Books: Principles of Political economy and taxation,

Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the
Profits of Stock

Country: England

Fun fact: Became rich and retired after speculation

on the battle of Waterloo

Biography
Idea 1:
Ricardian equivalence: gov deficit spending doesn’t really help economy
because people can sense future taxes coming to make up for this.
While this may be true for short term government behaviors, I think most
governments accumulate a lot of debt before they start taxing people to pay
it off, if they ever do, so people don’t fear future tax raises as much.
Ricardian equilibrium seems to work best for rational specimens, which as
we will see, humans might not always qualify as.

Idea 2
Comparative Advantage theory: trading goods that have low production
opportunity cost is best for country’s benefit.
As we saw with circular flow of money, exports are injections. If the use of
resources that creates exports is better than all alternatives, it’s a great
way to inject money. If countries can trade these goods, they are injecting
wealth, if they couldn’t trade, the economy would be lesser in size.

Idea 3
Iron Law of Wages Theory that wages shouldn’t be increased because they
would always settle down to subsistence levels.
I think this is too much of a simplification because it assumes that paying low
class workers more means they’ll spend it or change their lifestyle in ways that
cause them to be at the same level of wellbeing. Higher wages don’t always
Image above: Circular flow
mean this. He was being classist, assuming the lower class would have more and Comp Advantage
children with more wealth causing them to return to the same level of ruin.
Ricardian thoughts
Theory
Karl Marx
Birth 1818 Add food and books and portrait
Death 1883

Education Friedrich Wilhelm university in Berlin and University

of Bonn

Books: Communist Manifesto (Engels and Marx), The Capital

Country: Prussia

Fun fact: His beard was shaved off in the last year of his life.

Barber

Bio

After the fact reconstruction

of his clean shave.
Idea 1:
Society is divided into two groups: proletariat and bourgeoisie.
I disagree with this interpretation of society as I think there are more
nuances to people. Other groups exist and I don’t think humans are
necessarily divided based on their wealth. Religion and culture can be as
divisive if not more than class.

Idea 2
Following the Labor Theory of Value-which states that the value of a good
can be determined objectively by time that went into producing it- there
can’t be any profit if goods are sold at true value unless workers are
exploited.
While this is true in some cases, there are other alternatives to getting
profit from the sale of goods. One can simply sell goods at price higher
than true value to guarantee profits.

Idea 3
Historical materialism states that all of history and its developments
can be explained by the struggle between proletariat and
bourgeoisie.
While almost every situation in history could be framed as
proletariat vs. bourgeoisie, I don’t think this is the best way to
analyze everything, especially in early history.
Marx and his ideas
John Maynard Keynes
Birth 1883 Add food and books and portrait

Death 1946

Education Eton College, King’s College

Books: The general theory of employment,

interest, and money. A treatise on money

Country: England

Fun fact: He was bisexual.

Facts

Textbook also used.

Idea 1:
Keynes thought that the great depression wasn’t a supply issue, it was a demand
problem. To fix it, the government had to spend more and cut taxes so people could
get back to work and spending, fixing the economy.
This was a good idea because following his reasoning, the US government was
able to fix the great depression. The idea that supply creates its own demand is
challenged here. Perhaps during major economic downturns, stimulus is necessary
for consumers to get back on their feet and restart the economy.

Idea 2
Keynes argued that governments should go into deficit spending when
economy is struggling and then tax people when economy is going well to
make up the debts.
This reminds me of the Ricardian equivalence principle. If people sense
taxes they might not follow the expected behaviours of the government.
The Ricardian idea probably doesn’t hold up when situations are really
dire and people aren’t able to obtain their needs. People will buy food and
housing even if they fear future taxes.
Idea 3
After noticing the economy ran in business cycles, he advocated that
governments should act in a counter cyclical manner to stabilize the economy.
This much intervention seems hard to justify since, as previous economists
thought, the economy stabilizes and reaches equilibria on its own. Keynes
must’ve been opposed to the side effects of waiting too long for Image above: Counter
self-stabilization, time during which negative consequences were felt. It seems
that Keynes believed that laissez-faire the economy worked but that cyclical policy
intervention could make it smoother.
Textbook as source.
Milton Friedman
Birth 1912 Colleges
Death 2006
Education Rutgers University, University of
Chicago, Columbia
Books: The counter-revolution in monetary
theory
Country: USA
Fun fact: He wanted to be a mathematician, but
due to the great depression, he decided to
become an economist.
Wiki Friedman
Idea 1:
He thought that the main determinant of economic growth was total amount
of money in the economy.
The scarcity of money in the economy is definitely a key factor in how people
behave. When it is more scarce, people will be more conservative and
vice-versa. The government gains a lot more responsibility for the economy
in this framework since it is responsible for money.
Idea 2
Government shouldn’t try to manage demand side of economy but
instead create incentives for supply side.
This goes into the circular economy model, arguing that supplying
properly will give money to workers resulting in spending which keeps the
supply going in a perhaps positive feedback loop. I think both demand
and supply side policies should be implemented in hard times so that the
economy gets back up quicker. It will take longer if only demand or supply
side are incentivized but not both.
Idea 3
He expects people to act in a rational manner so that when government
spends in deficit, people start wanting higher wages because they
predict inflation.
This shows the beginning of economics looking into real people’s minds
closely although it makes a key flaw, since people aren’t rational. In
general people will behave predictably and rationally, but to fully predict Inflation
behaviors, economics might have to look into another science…
psychology!
Richard Thaler
Birth 1945

Death -

Education Case Western Reserve University,

University of Rochester

Books: Quasi Rational Economics, Nudge:

improving decisions about health, wealth, and
happiness (Sunstein)

Country: USA

Fun fact: He is 5’8’’

Wiki Thaler
Very high quality photograph of Thaler and
his nobel.
Idea 1:
People aren’t rational so they should be helped by being nudged to make
better decisions.
The idea that people should be helped to make better decisions is
importantly focused on economic well-being. Adding nudges does interfere
with people’s natural decision making, which could be used for the better or
for the worse.
Idea 2
People engage in mental accounting: depending on origin and purpose people
spend and behave differently.
This idea seems logical but is founded on humans’ constant mental organization.
After all, money is money no matter its origin and shouldn’t be used differently.
However, behaving irrationally causes people to behave in weird ways when
their income is affected unexpectedly. Taking steps back to look at spending
might be better but is rarer in our non-rational beings.

Idea 3
Many other psycho-economic findings, such as the fact people value
things they own more than what they don’t and that people are more hurt
by loss than they benefit from equal gain(aversion to loss). These are
suboptimal behaviours economically.
Understanding that human behaviours haven’t adapted
evolutionarily to our current economy is key to understanding why
we behave frequently in inefficient and foolish ways. If we can learn Nudge
to behave more rationally in situations where our minds are biased,
the economy will operate with less hickups.
Thaler explained.