ABSTRACT
The first volume of this History of Economic Thought in France is devoted to the period of Enlightenment, during which political economy started to develop as a new discipline – the number of publications on economic matters dramatically increased in the second half of the eighteenth century. The main features of the period are defined, and a kind of “review of the troops” proposed, mainly focusing on two main lines of thought: “commerce politique” – a French adaptation of the British “science of trade” – and what properly forms the novelty of the period, “philosophie économique”. The first group of authors includes, for example, Jean-François Melon, Richard Cantillon, J.C.M. Vincent de Gournay and François Véron de Forbonnais. The second group includes Pierre de Boisguilbert, François Quesnay and the physiocrats, or A.-R.-J. Turgot and sensationist political economy. The theories proposed during this period, however, benefited from the developments made during the previous centuries: this chapter identifies such themes, stressing in particular the importance of Scholastic writings.
