The word "economy" hails from ancient Greece. It combines "oikos" (household) and "nemein" (management and dispensation). Picture the ancient Greeks managing their resources like a super-organized mom managing her kitchen. Today's economics has grown beyond the household but, hey, we all started somewhere, right?

Adam Smith is the Mick Jagger of economics. He strutted onto the scene in 1776 with "Wealth of Nations", belting out new tunes about individual self-interest and market mechanisms. Think of it like this: You don't go to a concert because you love the band (benevolence), but because you love their music and how it makes you feel (self-interest). His metaphor of the "invisible hand" also rocked the stage, symbolizing how individual decisions could lead to organized results without any direct intervention.

While Smith was all for the free market, he wasn't anti-government. He believed in a solid government that ensured the smooth functioning of markets.

Building on Smith's legacy, classical economists, like Alfred Marshall, William Stanley Jevons, and Jean-Baptiste Say, gave us hits like supply and demand, marginal utility, and Say's Law.

Imagine you're at a mall. You want a cool shirt (demand), and there's a store that sells it (supply). The price you're willing to pay and the price the store sets meet somewhere in the middle – the equilibrium. That's Marshall's supply and demand.

Jevons gave us marginal utility – how each additional shirt brings you less and less joy. It's like eating ice cream. The first scoop is heavenly, but by the third or fourth scoop, you're getting pretty full.

Say’s Law suggests that supply creates its own demand. Think of it as making lemonade from lemons - you grow lemons (supply), and then sell lemonade (creates demand).

Now cue the rebellious rocker Karl Marx, who turned things upside down by highlighting class struggles and predicting capitalism's downfall. His work was like the punk rock of the economic world, inciting radical social and economic changes.