An Explanation of the Relation of Evolution of Power Structure and Economic Thought

Many theories have so far explored the evolution of economic thought. In this paper, by reviewing these theories critically, we show that in general any of the theoretical explanations has some weaknesses and Humanities, especially economics, has major differences with empirical sciences. Therefore, in its explanations, attention must be paid to the causes of the theoretical evolution of Humanities. Then, for the first time in the existing economic studies about the evolution of economic thought we show (by relying on Foucault's knowledge-power theory) that there has been a relation between the evolution of economic thought and the evolution of power structure between 17th and 19th century. We conclude that the evolution of economic theory is related to social changes, specially the structure of power. The classical theories can also be assessed from the viewpoint of Foucault knowledge-power theory.