Why we call it prehistory

The birth of political economy did not take place at any precise time. It was a very complex process evolving over centuries. We must look back at least to the classical Greek period, and from there look ahead to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which can be considered as the culminating stage in the long formative process of our discipline.

Political economy began to be recognised as an autonomous discipline, distinct from other social sciences, very gradually, beginning in the seventeenth century. Only in the nineteenth century, with the creation of the first economics chairs in universities, was the economist recognised as an autonomous professional figure.

Obviously, references to issues now commonly considered as belonging to economics already made their appearance in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. Authors such as Diodorus Siculus, Xenophon or Plato, for instance, considered the economic aspects of the division of labour, maintaining among other things that it favours a better product quality.

On the whole, however, for a long period – at least up to the seventeenth century – the approach to economic issues was substantially different from present-day practice. Indeed, the very economic mechanisms regulating production and income distribution have since seen radical transformation.