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Economist. Alfred Marshall was born on July 26, 1842, in London, England, to a middle-class family. His parents were William Marshall, a cashier at the Bank of England, and Rebecca Oliver Marshall, who came from a family of butchers. Alfred Marshall. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Classical economics is the basis for a variety of modern economic schools of thought. It revolves around the self-correcting nature of the market and the "invisible hand." Classical economics advocates government being as uninvolved with the free market as possible and theorizes that rational consumers will drive economic innovation. Classical theory was influential to the formation of the modern free market system.