During the transition from the subsistence economy to the market economy, the focus of economic theory turned out to be the patterns of relationships between different economies and the issues of the functioning of the state economic system as a whole. In the Renaissance, an economic theory as such was completely absent, but the premises of mercantilism of the 17th-18th centuries were indirectly formed. In its development, economic liberalism has gone through three main stages, which correspond to such schools and doctrines as classical liberalism, neoclassical marginalism and Keynesianism. The first doctrine presents a human model with the decisive role of self-interest in motivating economic behaviour. In the second doctrine, the idea that economic values can be interpreted as incentive motives and measured by money price is promoted and the role of person in the light of the classification of goods is determined. The third doctrine presupposes that economic development is determined by human behaviour and the latter does not always contribute to the former, which determines the need for state regulation. In the philosophy of economics, the anthropological approach plays a key role, since it assumes that a person, his needs and interests are determining in social and economic activity.