Where do the current theories of ​‘modern’ economics come from? If current theories had a definite historical beginning, what schools of thought did they supplant? Are there alternative or dissident views which subsist alongside mainstream economics today? This course seeks to answer such questions. And, in doing so, it provides an overview of the development of classical (the surplus approach) and marginalist (the scarcity approach) economic theories — notably their respective theories of value and distribution, and theories of output and growth — from the seventeenth century to the present.