History
Adam Smith in Context: Moral Philosopher, Not Propagandist
What The Theory of Moral Sentiments changes about how you read The Wealth of Nations—sympathy, approbation, and why the father of political economy was a philosopher first.
Classical Economics
Foundational ideas from Smith through Ricardo—division of labor, value, rents, wages, profits, trade, and the growth of nations.
History
The Bullion Controversy and the Birth of Modern Monetary Debates
How Regency-era arguments over paper money, the gold standard, and the exchange rate set the emotional tone for every later fight about inflation, central-bank independence, and 'sound money'—in language that is eerily familiar.
Policy Analysis
Classical Public Finance: Canons of Taxation That Still Haunt Us
From Adam Smith’s famous maxims to modern tax fights over equity, efficiency, and administration—how the classical school framed problems we still cannot settle with spreadsheets alone.
Theory
Classical Wages, Profits, and the 'Reserve Army': A Map Before Marx
How Smith, Ricardo, and Malthus described class structure, the labor market, and long-run distributional conflict—setting the table for later Marxian language without the same politics.
History
The Decline of the Labor Theory of Value: From Smith to the Marginal Turn
How classical political economy linked prices to work, why that story strained under scrutiny, and how the marginal revolution of the 1870s redefined 'value'—without erasing the questions the labor tradition raised.
Theory
Ricardo vs. the Landed Interest: Rent as a Wedge
David Ricardo’s theory of land rent is more than a footnote in trade. It is a way to see how a scarce input can capture a growing share of value—and why the struggle between ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ classes shaped classical politics and still echoes in housing and resource debates today.
History
The Iron Law, Ironed Out: Malthus, Population, and Food Systems
Thomas Malthus predicted that population would outrun food supply. He was wrong about the timeline but keeps returning to relevance — here is why, and what his critics got right too.
Theory
Ricardo's Comparative Advantage: A User's Guide
The logic of comparative advantage explained properly, the common misuses exposed, and the real-world complications that make trade policy harder than any textbook model suggests.
History
The South Sea Bubble: When Britain Lost Its Mind
In 1720, a fraudulent scheme to consolidate Britain's national debt triggered one of history's most spectacular financial manias — and the crash that followed reshaped how governments and markets relate forever.
Theory
The Simple Story of the Division of Labor
From pin factories to global supply chains: what Adam Smith got right about specialization, what he worried about, and why the division of labor remains the quiet engine of modern prosperity.
Commentary
Three Centuries of Thinking About Inequality
From Adam Smith's observation that 'no society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor' to Piketty's r > g — a history of how economists have understood the gap between rich and poor.