Let's now consider the very well-known French economist, Jean-Baptiste Say.
Say's pro liberty, free-market-oriented views brought him into conflict
with the ruler of France at the time, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Say refused to support the Bonaparte regime
and, for a while, he even considered emigrating to the United States.
Say had correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, --
Jefferson was a big fan and Say had sent Jefferson a copy of his book,
"Treatise on Political Economy."
The treatise remains Say's major work.
The first edition was published in 1803, --
and Say himself passed away in 1832.
When I read Say's treatise,
I'm struck by just how much he was influenced by Adam Smith.
I think of Say as rewriting and revising Smith,
but for a French audience,
and also making it more free trade and more libertarian.
One way to think about Say is that if you want to get a sense --
of what a libertarian-oriented, classical economist
might have believed in the early 19th century,
well, Say is a good place to go to find out.
One analytical difference with Adam Smith
is that Say takes greater care to put entrepreneurship,
individuals who start businesses and risk their capital,
to put that out at the center of his economic theory.
I think of Say as having an economic approach very much
centered around a human being,
as it being fairly deductive;
Adam Smith is more empirical;
and Say's economics is based quite firmly
on there being principles of political economy which can be deduced.
Say very much believes in a supply and demand theory of value
and he criticized the labor theories of value found often in Great Britain.
In general, the French economists, during this time,
had a better understanding of the importance of utility
and they were less likely to be attracted to labor theories of value.
Above all else, Say is still known today for what is very often called
Say's law.
You can think of Say's law as being one way of stating
the principle of circular flow in an economy.
For instance, if goods are produced,
income is generated from that production
and that income very often or eventually
goes on to serve as demand for other goods and services.
Just to put this in context a bit,
Say remains famous because he was attacked, quite heartily,
by John Maynard Keynes and many of the later Keynesians.
They have a particular reading of Say where they claim what Say meant
is something like, "There is no general overproduction"
or, perhaps, "Aggregate demand is always sufficient,"
the argument being that if things are produced,
income is generated from production, and that income is spent automatically.
And if that's how you interpret Say, well, then, Say pretty much is wrong --
because income is not automatically spent.
It may be held in hordes or, to use other terminology,
the velocity of money can vary.
But, as I read Say, Say didn't have a view that it was all automatic.
I read Say is claiming more modestly that production is the source of demand.
He had a circular flow understanding of how supply could generate demand,
but he actually had a sophisticated understanding that it wasn't quite automatic,
and, in fact, Say had written Ricardo and he criticized Ricardo
for thinking that aggregate supply was automatically translated
into aggregate demand, and Say then pointed out
money can be held in hordes
especially when investment opportunities are not strong.
So, as I read Say, what he's really claiming is
if you have a problem with demand, at least start by looking at supply
and try to understand what your supply problem is.
And he's not saying that any increase in supply is automatically translated
into market demand.
In any case, these controversies continue up to the present day.
If you'd like to learn more, well, Say's treatise;
I find pretty readable and it's online.
There's a very nice addition from Liberty Fund.
You can get a cheap Kindle edition of Say's letters to Malthus --
and that shows you a very nice back and forth
between two of the most important classical economists
on the issues of Say's law in general overproduction.
A good online introduction to Say's life and ideas is by Robert Formaini
and that's called,
"Jean-Baptiste Say: Foundations of France's Free Trade Tradition."
There's also a book by Samuel Hollander on Jean-Baptiste Say
and, of course, just by googling Say's name, you'll get to other sources.