The great economists of the classical era, writes Linda Yueh, were generalists, who focused on the biggest challenges of the time—for Adam Smith, that was setting out how the market economy worked at the dawn of the industrial age; for David Ricardo, it was making sense of international commerce. But if the founding fathers had breadth in common, they also disagreed vehemently, not least when Marx rejected capitalism. Were they alive today, what would Smith, Ricardo and Marx advise?
ADAM SMITH
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