This paper aims at clarifying a specific period in
the history of the economic ideas: 1848. It was
an year of economic, financial, political crisis,
which inevitably led also to a crisis in the field
of economic ideas.
The classical economy at large, as the
mainstream economic school, was questioned
leaving ground to a recomposition in the field of
the economic ideas, especially concerning its
theoretical nature.
The basic features and mechanisms of that
recomposition are examined to understand the
determinant conditions for the classical school
to remain as the mainstream school, even if it
took a new configuration.
