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...
In the famous passage of the butcher, the brewer and the baker, after having pointed out that one can obtain one’s subsistence not from “benevolence”, but from the interest of others, Smith maintains that only beggars depend on the “benevolence of their fellow citizens”. However, he adds that, to be precise, even they must resort to the market.
Both beggars and domestic animals, such as dogs,...
