Examples of Natural Law In Economics

The laws of economics can be viewed as natural laws of how economies "should" function since natural
law as an ethical theory can be regarded to be an extension of scientific and rational investigation into
how the universe operates. In addition, to the extent that economic analysis is applied to suggest (or
suggest) governmental policy or how enterprises should operate, the practice of applied economics
must rely at least implicitly on some ethical assumptions:

Early economists of the medieval period, including the aforementioned Aquinas as well as the Scholastic
monks of the School of Salamanca, heavily emphasized natural law as an aspect of economics in their
theories of the just price of an economic good.

John Locke based his theories related to economics on a version of natural law, arguing that people have
a natural right to claim unowned resources and land as private property, thereby transforming them
into economic goods by mixing them with their labor.

Adam Smith (1723–1790) is renowned as the father of modern economics. In Smith's first major treatise,
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he described a "system of natural liberty" as being the matrix of true
wealth. Many of Smith's ideas are still taught today, including his three natural laws of economics:

The Law of Self Interest: People work for their own good.

The Law of Competition: Competition forces people to make a better product.

The Law of Supply and Demand: Enough goods would be produced at the lowest possible price to meet
demand in a market economy.

The concept of natural law originated with the Greeks and received its most important
formulation in Stoicism. The Stoics believed that the fundamental moral principles that underlie
all the legal systems of different nations were reducible to the dictates of natural law.

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