Adam Smith
1723 to 1790
Self-interest, channeled by competition, serves ends no one intends; the famous phrase is an invisible hand.
See sources.
Full theory
Theory and thinkers.
Capitalism was named, defended, and attacked by a small set of thinkers whose arguments still frame every debate on this site. Here is each one in a line, defenders and critics together.
For the canonical definition itself, see what capitalism is. For where the word came from, the same page covers it.
One line each
The thinkers.
David Ricardo
1772 to 1823
Comparative advantage, the case for trade even when one side is better at everything.
See sources.
Karl Marx
1818 to 1883
Capitalism's most influential critic; treated it as a historically progressive stage that produces the conditions, and the class, that end it.
See sources.
Joseph Schumpeter
1883 to 1950
Creative destruction; the competition that matters arrives as the new technology, not the rival price.
See sources.
John Maynard Keynes
1883 to 1946
The modifier, not the opponent; manage aggregate demand to save capitalism from its own cycles.
See sources.
Friedrich Hayek
1899 to 1992
The knowledge problem; planning fails because knowledge lives dispersed in millions of heads.
See sources.
Milton Friedman
1912 to 2006
Capitalism and Freedom (1962); economic freedom as a precondition of political freedom.
See sources.
Where the arguments go
From thinkers to debates.
These positions do not sit still. Where they collide, on externalities, on cronyism, on what actually reduced poverty, and on whether state capitalism misallocates, we take them to the debates and argue each side at its strongest.