Actually, the Spanish scholastics were doing better economics than Smith, a hundred years before him. Smith was correct with his invisible hand theorem, that market actors can't help but benefit others while seeking their own gain; but Smith blundered badly with his "labor theory of value".
In the 1870's Carl Menger solved the value problem by discovering "marginalist" thinking, originating the Austrian school.
Abby, with microeconomics there is pretty widespread agreement - prices are determined by supply and demand, etc. Not so with macro-phenomenone like inflation, unemployment and the business cycle. This is where the Austrian school is totally different from mainstream econ. Mainstream econ attempts to explain these things "From the top down" by way of higher mathematices. Austrians completely reject the mathematics of economics, viewing it as a fundamentally philosophical discipline. Austrians use a "bottom up " approach, as I mentioned earlier. Austrians believe that by starting with a priori axioms, all of economics, including money, inflation, unemployment, the business cycle, can be derived logically.
I would point out that the formulas of mainstream economics have been an abysmmal failure at predicting anything. I would also point out that Ludwig von Mises and Hayek wrote extensively during 1926-1928 of the coming depression, basing their prediciton on Mises' Theory of Money and Credit, and noticing the huge expansion of credit and artificially low interest rates that prevailed at that time. Austrians also predicited the dot com bust as well.
Sorry to go on, but I have a passion for economics. Somebody asked how it ties into 9/11. It doens't help much with the physics, but central banking goes a long way toward explaining how those in charge can obtain essentially unlimited funding for all sorts of projects (like war) that customers on the market would never buy.