ABSTRACT
The history of economic thought traditionally presents Steuart and Smith as holding diametrically opposite views. Steuart is considered as one of the last great figures of the mercantilist school. Smith is said to have founded economic science by making a clean break with the wrong tenets upheld by this school for several centuries. This tradition has its roots in the rhetoric of the Wealth of Nations (Smith [1776] 1976). Here Smith pinpoints his enemy by coining the term ‘mercantilist’, in which he rather indiscriminately lumps together all those authors who have so far had the ear of the ruling classes. In addition he lends his argument the tone of a critique, which mainly aims at disqualifying all the ideas of this enemy.
