The paper considers how thinkers from different eras offered to «optimize» the economic life of society and increase the amount of public good. In the era of Antiquity, the term «economy» is introduced. There is a division of production and usury. In the Middle Ages, usury and interest are declared sinful. In the era of Renaissance and the times of great geographical discoveries the flowering of mercantilism. The main thing is the accumulation of money and powerful exports. The views of mercantilists were criticized by economists of the classical school, representatives of the theory of economic liberalism. From the views of Smith, the doctrine laissez-faire was born, which formed the basis of the theory of a minimal state («the state is a night watchman»). In the nineteenth century the economic theory of Karl Marx emerged - being determines consciousness, «basis» (economy) defines «superstructure». The theory of marginalism, developed in the works of A. Marshall, K. Menger and others, analyzes the marginal values in the economy. It was the school of marginalists who deduced the postulate that the marginal utility of the good for a single act of consumption has the property of diminishing. In the 1930s, Keisianism was developed. The main determinant is demand stimulation and «interventionism». Later, the theories of neoclassicism, monetarism, neo-Weissianism develop. It must be recognized that there is no single correct recipe; only combining the advantages of certain theories, we can get a good result.