[Revised entry by Margaret Schabas on March 1, 2026.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Economic discourse of the early modern period offers probing accounts of inequality and distributive justice, in addition to detailed analyses of specific core phenomena: property, money, commerce, trade, public finance, population growth, and economic development. Many of the leading early modern philosophers, from Nicholas Copernicus to Adam Smith, made significant contributions to economics. This list includes Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Etienne Bonnot…

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