Xenophon – wrote possibly the first ever book on economics. He was an Athenian soldier, historian, and student of Socrates whose writings preserve important accounts of Greek history, military campaigns, and Socratic philosophy. His major works, including Anabasis, Hellenica, and Memorabilia, combine first-hand experience with practical reflections on leadership, ethics, and government. In Oikonomia, he argues that true wealth depends not on possessions themselves but on the knowledge and discipline required to manage them well.
Lionel Robbins – Robbins is remembered as one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, particularly for his clear definition of economics and his role in shaping economic methodology.
Born in 1898, he began an Arts Degree at University College London in 1915. He served in the Royal Field Artillery of the British Army from 1916, being shot by a sniper in April 1918. After leaving the army in 1919 Robbins was employed for about a year by the Labour Campaign for the Nationalisation of the Drink Trade. This led him to enrol at the London School of Economics in 1920, he gained a 1st class degree (BSc Econ) in 1923.
From there spent time at Oxford and the LSE, where he was appointed Professor of Economics in 1929. He built up the department, hiring Friedrich August von Hayek, the Austrian Economist and Philosopher.
In October 1930 a small working group chaired by John Maynard Keynes was set up to discuss economic policy to deal with the impact of the Great Depression. Robbins refused to sign a draft of proposals including tariffs and wanted to submit a minority report, Keynes as the chair refused to grant his request and so Robbins walked out of the meeting. This was the origin of the bad feeling that persisted between the LSE and Cambridge economists for a number of years.
Whilst Robbins initially opposed Keynes’ 1936 General Theory, he later accepted the need for government intervention.