La larga marcha de la razón económica:

Abstract

The present article provides an analytical and chronological synthesis of the evolution of economic thought, from the mercantilist doctrines of the sixteenth century to the monetarist formulations of the second half of the twentieth century. It examines the major schools of economic thought from a historical perspective, considering the social and political contexts in which they emerged. Each school and its principal representatives are analyzed in light of the historical, social, and political circumstances that shaped their development. The study offers a rigorous examination of the major intellectual traditions—Mercantilism, Physiocracy, the Classical School, Marxism, Neoclassicism, Keynesianism, Underdevelopment Theories, and Monetarism—highlighting their most influential thinkers and their enduring conceptual contributions. The analysis emphasizes how each school responded to the specific challenges of its time—including the consolidation of the nation-state, the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism, the critique of the bourgeois order, the mathematical formalization of economics, crises of overproduction, and the challenge of uneven development—while laying the foundations for debates that remain relevant today. A central conclusion of this historical survey is that the history of economic thought is not a linear accumulation of neutral discoveries but rather a field of competing paradigms in which ontological, methodological, and, above all, political assumptions converge. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that economic theories have maintained a close relationship with the historical processes and social transformations that have characterized each period.