The Political Economy of French Decline

Abstract

Abstract Exiled from France after the Bourbon restoration, the aged arch-priest of physiocracy, Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours, spent his journey across the Atlantic analysing the second edition of Jean-Baptiste Say’s Traite d’economie politique (Paris, 1814). From the schooner Fingal, on 22 April 1815, he sent a detailed critique to Say in Paris. It is one of the most candid and revealing documents in the annals of French political economy Dupont began by lamenting the dearth of disciples for what he dubbed Quesnay’s science of political economy, and the vicious ridicule directed at the physiocratic movement, particularly by Say’s ‘satire’ in the Traite. Nevertheless, Dupont retained the hope of converting Say to the old cause, and sought to combat despair by trying to force Say to recognize that he too was an economiste.