Speakers
Description
From the very first pages of his Traité d'économie politique, Jean-Baptiste Say, holder of the first chair of political economy in France, set about interpreting and disseminating the ideas of Adam Smith, which he had learnt about at an early age and which had inspired him to study political economy. Say praised Smith's wisdom in explaining production in agriculture and manufacturing, but criticised his treatment of trade and distribution (pp. 38-9). At the same time, he appreciated the subtlety of his historical analysis, but concluded that Smith's great merit lay in his criticism of earlier writers, especially the mercantilists and physiocrats, while his pars construens had some drawbacks, such as lack of clarity or incomplete analysis. In this way, Say made his own contribution to the development and completion of what Smith had begun, namely the study of how wealth is created, distributed and destroyed.
We can thus see that Say intended to continue along the path laid out by Smith, beginning with appreciation and criticism. In our paper, we show that Say radically departed from Smith on some issues, such as the theory of value and demand, while on other issues, such as income distribution and the protection of the weaker classes, he followed Smith's basic lines, even if he hardly quoted him. Say's positions on economic policy, freedom of trade and the "minimal state" were close to Smith's, but had facets that can be clarified by comparing the two authors. We come to the conclusion that Smith's thinking exerted a significant influence on the development of Say's liberalism. The French author's works, published at a time when Bentham's utilitarian theory was gaining ground, expressed a liberal thought in which Smith's influence remained absolutely relevant.
| Organization | Università di Torino; Università di Genova |
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