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SAY, JEAN BAPTISTE (1767–1832)

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 275 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SAY, See also:

JEAN See also:BAPTISTE (1767–1832) , See also:French economist, was See also:born at See also:Lyons on the 5th of See also:January 1767. His See also:father, Jean See also:Etienne Say, was of a See also:Protestant See also:family which had originally belonged to See also:Nimes, but had removed to See also:Geneva for some See also:time in consequence of the revocation of the See also:edict of See also:Nantes. See also:Young Say was intended to follow a commercial career, and was sent, with his See also:brother See also:Horace, to See also:England, and lived first at See also:Croydon, in the See also:house of a See also:merchant, to whom he acted as clerk, and afterwards in `See also:London, where he was in the service of another employer. When, on the See also:death of the latter, he returned to See also:France, he was employed in the See also:office of a See also:life assurance See also:company directed by E. Claviere, afterwards known in politics. Claviere called his See also:attention to the See also:Wealth of Nations, and the study of that See also:work revealed to him his vocation. His first See also:literary See also:attempt was a pamphlet on the See also:liberty of the See also:press, published in 1789. He worked under See also:Mirabeau on the Courrier de See also:Provence. In 1792 he took See also:part as a volunteer in the See also:campaign of See also:Champagne; in 1793 he assumed, in conformity with the Revolutionary See also:fashion, the pre-name of See also:Atticus, and became secretary to Claviere, then See also:finance See also:minister. He married in 1793 Mlle Deloche, daughter of a former avocat au conseil; the young pair were greatly straitened in means in consequence of the depreciation of the See also:assignats. From 1794 to'800 Say edited a periodicalentitled La See also:Decade philosophique, litteraire, et politique, in which he expounded the doctrines of See also:Adam See also:Smith. He had by this time established his reputation as a publicist, and, when the consular See also:government was established in the See also:year VIII (1799), he was selected as one of the See also:hundred members of the tribunate, and resigned, in consequence, the direction of the Decade.

He published in 'Soo Olbie, ou essai sur See also:

les moyens de reformer les meeurs d'une nation. In 1803 appeared his See also:principal work, the Traite d'economie politique. In 1804, having shown his unwillingness to See also:sacrifice his convictions for the purpose of furthering the designs of See also:Napoleon, he was removed from the office of See also:tribune, being at the same time nominated to a lucrative See also:post, which, however, he thought it his See also:duty to resign. He then turned to See also:industrial pursuits, and, having made himself acquainted with the processes of the See also:cotton manufacture, founded at Auchy, in the Pas de See also:Calais, a See also:spinning-See also:mill which employed four or five hundred persons, principally See also:women and See also:children. He devoted his leisure to the improvement of his economic See also:treatise, which had for some time been out of See also:print, but which the censorship did not permit him to republish; and in 1814 he availed himself (to use his own words) of the sort of liberty arising from the entrance of the allied See also:powers into France to bring out a second edition of the work, dedicated to the See also:emperor See also:Alexander, who had professed himself his See also:pupil. In the same year the French government sent him to study the economic See also:condition of See also:Great See also:Britain. The results of his observations during his See also:journey through England and See also:Scotland appeared in a See also:tract De l'Angleterre et See also:des Anglais; and his conversations with distinguished men in those countries contributed to greater correctness in the exposition of principles in the third edition of the Traite, which appeared in 1817. A See also:chair of industrial See also:economy was founded for him in 1819 at the See also:Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. In 1831 he was made See also:professor of See also:political economy at the See also:College de France. He published in 1828–183o his Cours complet d'economie politique pratique, which is in the See also:main an expansion of the Traite, with See also:practical applications. In his later years he became subject to attacks of See also:nervous See also:apoplexy. He lost his wife in January 1830; and from that time his See also:health constantly declined.

When the revolution of that year See also:

broke out, he was named a member of the See also:council-See also:general of the See also:department of the See also:Seine, but found it necessary to resign. He died at See also:Paris on the 15th of See also:November 1832. Say was essentially a propagandist, not an originator. His great service to mankind See also:lay in the fact that he disseminated throughout See also:Europe by means of the French See also:language, and popularized by his clear and easy See also:style, the economic doctrines of Adam Smith. It is true that his French panegyrists (and he is not himself See also:free from censure on this See also:score) are unjust in their estimate of Smith as an expositor and extol too highly the merits of Say. On the See also:side of the See also:philosophy of See also:science his observations are usually See also:commonplace or superficial. Thus he accepts the shallow dictum of See also:Condillac that toute science se reduit a une longue bien faite. He recognizes political economy and See also:statistics as alike sciences, and represents the distinction between them as having never been made before him, though he quotes what Smith had said of political See also:arithmetic. While deserving the praise of honesty, sincerity and See also:independence, he is inferior to his predecessor in breadth of view on moral and political questions. In his general conception of human affairs there is a tendency to regard too exclusively the material side of things, which made him pre-eminently the economist of the French liberal bourgeoisie. He is inspired with the dislike and See also:jealousy of governments so often See also:felt and expressed by thinkers formed in the social See also:atmosphere of the 18th See also:century. Soldiers are for him not merely unproductive labourers, as Smith called them; they are rather " destructive labourers." Taxes are uncompensated payments; they may be described as of the nature of See also:robbery.

Say is considered to have brought out the importance of See also:

capital as a See also:factor in See also:production more distinctly than the See also:English economists, who unduly emphasized labour. The See also:special doctrines most commonly mentioned as due to him are—(1) that of " immaterial products," and (2) what is called his " theorie des debouches." Objecting, as Germain Garner had, to Smith's distinction between productive and unproductive labour, he maintains that, production consisting in the creation or addition of a utility, all useful labour is productive. He is thus led to recognize immaterial products, whose characteristic quality is that they are consumed immediately and are incapable of See also:accumulation; under this See also:head are to be ranged the services rendered either by a See also:person, a capital or a portion of The eopranino to F The See also:soprano in C . The See also:alto in F . The See also:tenor in C . . The baryton in F . The See also:bass in C . . -~ See also:land, as, e.g., the advantages derived from medical attendance, or from a hired house or from a beautiful view. But in working out the consequences of this view Say is not free from obscurities and inconsistencies; and by his comprehension of these immaterial See also:pro-ducts within the domain of See also:economics he is confirmed in the See also:error of regarding that science as filling the whole See also:sphere which really belongs to See also:sociology. His " theorie des debouches " amounts to this, that, products being, in last See also:analysis, See also:purchased only with products,'the extent of the markets (or outlets) for See also:home products Is proportional to the quantity of See also:foreign productions; when the See also:sale of any commodity is dull, it is because there is not a sufficient number, or rather value, of other commodities produced with which it could be purchased. Another proposition on which Say insists is that every value is consumed and is created only to be consumed. Values can therefore be accumulated only by being reproduced in the course or, as often happens, by the very See also:act of See also:consumption; hence his distinction between reproductive and unproductive consumption.

We find in him other corrections or new presentations of views previously accepted, and some useful suggestions for the improvement of nomenclature. Say's writings occupy vols. ix.-xii. of Guillaumin's Collection des principaux economistes. Among them are, in addition to those already mentioned, Catechisme d'economie politique (1815); See also:

Petit See also:Volume contenant quelques apercus des hommes et de la societe, lettres d See also:Malthus See also:sus differens sujets d'economie politique (182o); See also:Epitome des principes de l'economie politique (1831). A volume of Melanges et correspondance was published posthumously by See also:Charles See also:Comte, author of the Traile de legislation, who was his son-in-See also:law. To the above must be added an edition of Storch's Cows d'economie politique, which Say published in 1823 without Storch's authorization, with notes embodying a " critique amere et virulente," a proceeding which Storch justly resented. The last edition of the Traite d'economie politique which appeared during the life of the author was the 5th (1826); the 6th, with the author's final corrections, was edited by the eldest son, Horace Emile Say, himself known as an economist, in 1846. The work was translated into English " from the 4th edition of the French " by C. R. See also:Prinsep (1821), into See also:German by See also:Ludwig Heinrich von See also:Jakob (1807) and by C. Ed. Morstadt (1818 and 1830), and, as Say himself informs us, into See also:Spanish by Jose Queypo. The Cours d'economie politique pralique, from which Morstadt had given extracts, was translated Into German by Max Stirner (1845).

The Catechisme and the Petit Volume have also been translated into several See also:

European See also:languages. An English version of the Lettres a Malthus appears in vol. xvii. of the Pamphleteer (1821). See also Jean Baptiste Say, by A. Liesse (Paris, 1901). (J. K.

End of Article: SAY, JEAN BAPTISTE (1767–1832)

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