ABSTRACT
The chapter considers the works of Jean-Baptiste Say, the leading French economist of that time, who developed an articulated view of the connection between the new industrial world and the waning of war – a real tour de force in a period plagued with war. However, Benjamin Constant, a leading contemporary political thinker, took up some of these ideas in several books published towards the end of the Empire, connecting the economic and political dimensions of the liberal worldview. Industrialism thus became an explicit political philosophy. Finally, Auguste Comte’s positive philosophy introduced the thesis of industrial peace to a broad audience, explaining why warfare would fade away in the course of human history.
