ABSTRACT
This chapter concludes the volume devoted to the Enlightenment period. It first stresses the importance and meaning, in the second half of the eighteenth century, of translations into French of works published in other languages. During the 1750s, J.C.M. Vincent de Gournay and a significant group of disciples published many translations of British and Spanish works mainly dealing with the “science of trade”. Of particular importance were also, during the same years, translations of works of David Hume, as well as, later, of writings of Pietro Verri, Adam Smith and, at the end of the period, James Steuart. The chapter then deals with the way in which political economy was progressively accepted in political discussions during the 1789 Revolution, as well as in the teaching programmes of the new system of public instruction and in the newly created Institut national des sciences et des arts. Finally, some last theoretical developments are examined, regarding utility, productive or unproductive labour, the instability of an economy based on manufactures and the negative aspects of the division of labour.
