The Social Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say

Jean-Baptiste Say was one of the most influential and colourful figures of classical economics, but until now there has been no book devoted to the analysis of his economics. This book uses archival and published sources to place Say in context, at the confluence of several major currents in social philosophy. Familiar with the writers of the Scottish enlightenment, especially Adam Smith, he was profoundly influenced by the Revolution, the Terror and Bonapartes Empire, and by the republican thinkers with whom he associated. His long and vareid career included periods as a journalist, an editor, a tribune under Bonaparte, a cotton manufacturer, and, ultimately, as the most important political economist in France. The Say that emerges from this study is far from being the one dimensional popularizer of Smith and proponent of libertarian ideology that he is often depicted as. Rather he is an eighteenth-century republican trying to knit togther support for free markets and industrial development with a profound respect for the importance of the legislator, the administrator and the educator in the creation and maintenance of civil society. This book contains the only English translation of the full text of Olbie, Says Utopian novel written in the style of Rousseau for an academic competition sponsored by the Institut National and published in 1800.