Classical Economics Universality

Classical economics, which claims universality and progress for everyone, is a class biased from the start. Reflect on this statement.

Introduction

There is a general notion that classical economics is being commonly considered to be the first modern school of economic thought. The major founders and contributors to the concept of classical economics include Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus and John Stuart Mill. “The Wealth of Nations” written by Adam Smith in the year 1776 marks the commencement of the era of classical economics. Classical economists do stress for unregulated markets and claims that free markets will regulate themselves in absence of state intervention. Adam Smith introduces us to the term “invisible

Economists are widely respected around in the society as they are believed to speak about certain vital issues with regard to economy, growth, employment and development which all have a scientific base. But still this widely accepted and valued knowledge and wisdom was based on a highly uncertain philosophy. It responded only to a certain class’ reaction to the uprising modern market mechanism. Classical economics is an economics whose commitment has always been to serve to the interest of a “specific” class. Yet we see that classical economics, which exhibits biasness, has been universalised as a scientifically proved path and it has been commonly agreed to be valid for all sections of the society in each and every situation that would guarantee progress for everyone. Economic ideas were developed by nurturing and putting together the earlier ideas of traditional western scientific rationalism. But still the ideas that were being developed using the traditional inputs doesn’t adhere to the real life situations and are not scientifically neutral. Classical economics was developed having a negative attitude towards the earlier feudal order, the landed aristocracy and the mercantilism. Whereas it had a positive and partial attitude towards the capitalist class. Being backed by the policy framework of the classical economists this new set of people labelled as the capitalists grew in volume and dominance. Profit

Legitimacy on being selfish and being guided by profit motive was being acknowledged by the classical economists and termed it as being “natural”. Based on the assumption that profits are being earned by the capitalists’, rent is paid for the use of land and wages being what the labour is entitled to get. But it is a widely accepted notion that profits of the capitalists are distinctively higher than the wages of the workers. So we see that the risk taking venture of the capitalists is valued highly as compared to the physical work of the labourers. Thus the above notions are “class-committed” rather than being “class-neutral”. On an historical account the classical economists were committed to the affairs of the British industrialist class not only in its struggle against the landlord class but also in its fight against the labourers as they considered this class of people to be the torch-bearers of progress and development as it would lead to the welfare of the state as a whole. Ricardo’s arguments in his model of comparative advantage theory showcases us some of the unrealistic and irrational assumptions. He stated that specialisation which is based on domestic comparative advantage is either naturally or artificially determined, but it is unrealistic to think that specialisation can be