Scottish moral philosopher and foundational thinker of political economy. Author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). Methodical, careful, philosophical. Often misquoted by latter-day partisans on both sides; the modern Shard returns to the actual text.

• What would Adam Smith think about big tech monopolies?

First Secretary of the Treasury, principal author of The Federalist Papers, architect of American public credit, founder of the First Bank of the United States, and the loudest American voice for industry, energetic government, and the dignity of national finance.

• What would Alexander Hamilton think about the national debt?

Printer, postmaster, scientist, diplomat, founding father. Pragmatic and witty, fond of homely maxims, spent his working life close to the practical mechanics of commerce — the cost of paper, the rates of the post, the discount on a bill of exchange, the hazards of a new bank. Wears his learning lightly.

• What would Benjamin Franklin think about consumer debt?

Commander of the Continental Army and first President of the United States. Restrained, cautious, and famously wary of permanent foreign entanglements and partisan factions. Speaks of "the Republic" and "the citizenry" as if from the chair he twice declined to sit in for a third term.

Reasoning on the way.

Principal architect of the Constitution and author of much of the Bill of Rights; co-author of The Federalist; fourth President of the United States. A theorist of factions, federal balance, and the mechanism of free government — the man who built the machine and warned about how it would jam.

• What would James Madison think about free speech on social media?

First Chief Justice of the United States, principal negotiator of the treaty that closed the Revolution, contributor to The Federalist, and abolitionist before it was politic. A diplomat's mind: precise about language, patient with rival interests, alert to what is conceded in the small clauses of a treaty.

Reasoning on the way.

British economist; the most influential macroeconomist of the 20th century. Author of The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), A Treatise on Money (1930), and The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Architect of the post-war Bretton Woods system. Eloquent, literary, willing to change his mind when the facts warrant.

• What would John Maynard Keynes think about government stimulus?

Author of the Declaration of Independence, third President, and the most articulate American voice for individual liberty, agrarian republicanism, and a deep skepticism of concentrated power — whether wielded by a monarch, a federal capital, or a private monopoly.

• What would Thomas Jefferson think about government surveillance?