Jean-Baptiste Say
See also: Say
Jean-Baptiste Say , (born with Lyon, the January 5th 1767 and died with Paris the November 14th 1832), is a traditional, journalist and industrial economist French. He is known to have worked out the Loi of Say (or law of the outlets).
Formation
Say are originating in the district of Florac, in Lozere. The ascending ones of Jean-Etienne Say since 1570 are Master dressmaker or main tailor, then merchant-clothier.
From Jean-Etienne Say this one passes from trader to broker of bank to Paris and stockbroker always to Paris. At the end of four years it will have to belong to the committee charged to supervise the delivery of the assignats.
The Say family is of Protestant origin. She leaves the town of Nimes after the revocation of the edict of Nantes and persecutions which follow. It is in Geneva that it takes refuge and that will be born the father from J.B. Say. The large paternal father of J.B. Say, Jean Say, " in Geneva a trade of drapery had, which, without enriching it, had gotten some ease to him.
The family is shared between a Protestant branch starting from J.B. Say with some exceptions near and the other starting from his/her Louis brother, the founder of the Say sugar refineries, catholic.
The grandfather of J.B. Say had a fore-mentioned brother François-Samuel who was Pasteur in Geneva, then in London. The two brothers were accepted middle-class from Geneva in August 1730.
The father of J.B. Say is born in Geneva on May 7th, 1739. It goes back to Lyon where he becomes the employee of a trader, Castanet, born Protestant parents from Nimes and from which he will marry the Francoise girl in 1765. In connection with his/her large maternal father, J.B. Say written " that he was a very enlightened trader, man of direction and spirit and enjoying a very high reputation of probity. He had left a manufacture which he had in Nimes to establish a house of commission in Lyon. In the debates which rose between the traders of the city, it was often taken for referee and the courts deferred the decision of the difficult cases to him. In a city where the trade is so wide and so credit, the attention which it gave to the businesses others harmed the success of the siennes." a little;
J.B. Say establishes a filiation marked with his/her large maternal father while locating well what separates it from the mentality of the traders of the time. Ambition of J.B. Say forever be to grow rich. Each time, it chose the free activity of the scientist whatever is the price, without never missing realism when the obstacles as in 1803 were too important.
The father of J.B. Say practices the trade of the silk trade. Its " activity; consisted in sending the silk trade of Lyon abroad. It dispatched them in Holland, in Germany, in Italy and as far as Turkey; but there remained guaranteeing near the manufacturers of the value of the goods; its debtors were in whole Europe and its creditors were with his door; a few years unfavorable to the sale, exposed it to considerable losses. It was necessary that it paid not being paid and he saw himself constrained to deposit his bilan."
This trade of the trade comprised at the time a great number of operations of bank. At the 18th century the bank is an activity free and opened with all, remained apart from the regulation of the royal State. To practice the operations of bank, it is enough to have a residence, which explains why one finds many Genevese installed in Lyon and practitioner for half the trade and half the bank. At the beginning of the century arrive from Switzerland, in particular of Geneva, Mallet, Thélusson, Delessert who pass from Lyon to Paris in 1777 (the Say family was in relation to them). In the creation of its JB.Say company was associated with J.I. Grivel which had bought the buildings of the company like national goods with Delessert.
the departure of the family in Paris after the bankruptcy of the paternal trade in Lyon. It went to Paris. There it did what one then called the broking of bank, while waiting for that it obtained a place of stockbroker in title and its benefit were such as at the end of four years it discharged towards all its creditors, paid even the share of his associates of which it was the guaranteeing one and obtained a complete rehabilitation "
All later relations of the family, like besides the activity of the brother Louis Say and the son of J.B. Say confirm that the family ascents of international business related to the bank were well the essence of the culture of the family trade relations. The years 1780 during which the father of J.B.Say reconstitutes family fortune and discharges its debts are those of a fever of stock exchange speculations where Clavière (another Genevese) is illustrated particularly.
School education
First years of the existence of J.B. Say occur in the town of Lyon. His/her father was to be as it itself will be well later worried about other things that only trade because it " benefitted from its moments of leisures to take along his/her son " with lessons of experimental physics that gave to the oratory the Lefèvre father, oratorien ". But the difference between education of the Say young person and that of the boys in his age also results in the will of the father to withdraw his sons from the influence of the Church and its system of education. It is undoubtedly one of the reasons why J.B. Say will go in pension in Ecully to follow there the courses of two Italian whose teaching differed appreciably from the heavy rules of the framework controlled by the Church, rejecting some of the practices followed in the colleges and the masterly instruction of then ". However the quality of the exempted studies does not seem notable if one grows about it what J.B. Say itself pays some in its outline of autobiography.
Voyages and training
The removal of the family in Paris marks a turning in the life of JB.Say. It begins at 15 years its training while working like grouillot in a commercial firm, because of the family reverses of fortune. It seems well that the father did not intend to put his son directly at work but envisaged to perfect still his formation in particular with England.
It is what will be done 3 years later in 1785 when it goes in England accompanied by his Horace brother then 14 years old. The objective of the voyage is to be formed with the English business practices and the language. The stay will last two years, it lives the village of Croydon beside London. During these years 1785/86 England knows one of its most brilliant periods of industrial development.
Of this stay in England it brings back an anecdote, in relation to its concerns at the time when it writes and tries to fight the tendency of the State to increase the taxes: " One day I live between at home a couple of masons with bricks and mortar. I did not see any repair to be made; but I had two windows with my room: the Parliament or rather the minister had just issued the tax of the doors and windows and my host having calculated that a window was enough for our work and our toilet, he made wall the other. I reflect whereas I would have a pleasure of less and that my walled window would not bring back anything to the treasury. It is perhaps the first of my reflections on the economy politique."
The stay in England will be completed in a rather dramatic way because in 1787 JB.Say in Bordeaux its employer accompanies back who goes there and who will die at the time of this voyage. Of return to Paris it is necessary for him to find a new employer. It is Clavière protesting Genevois like his/her father and administrator managing of an insurance company on the life which will provide him its new employment, as bank clerk. He is then 21 years old.
In 1789 he writes a short part " the aunt and the prétendu" , then " the Priest amoureux" part which will be represented in a theater of the boulevard; recovery thereafter by another author it will be rejouée several times. The tonality of the part is that of the air of time marked by the fight anticlerical. Its activity of writer of theater will extend until 1795 when he writes a comic opera: " both perdrix" .le medium in which it evolves/moves then is that of young writers artists and literary men of the time. These bonds with the latter were to be rather strong since it leaves with them in the company arts to make the countryside of year II out of Champagne.
The Of Gironde ones
The entry of J.B. Say in the insurance company of Clavière does not mark only one change of employer but also a true turning in its life. While becoming one of the collaborators of Clavière it enters the group of Of Gironde and approaches the Workshop of Mirabeau.
At 21 years, J.B. Say is an enthusiastic partisan of the Revolution. It is republican and will never cease being it. It will fill during this same period of the functions of grouillot (dealing with the subscriptions) in the newspaper of Mirabeau which is the Courrier of Provence. It is thus plunged in the middle of the political action even if it is by an any small door.
The erudite political economy which nourished the revolutionary political community partly coexists among part of financial and Protestants in particular with other sources, English especially, since it is at Clavière that the young JB. Say will read for the first English time the Richesse of the Nations of Adam Smith. Beside a national culture accessible to the only cultivated elite and from that, popular, largely opposed to the first, one finds a culture more cosmopolitan or more open towards the foreigner and especially into the Anglo-Saxons by the means of the Protestants. It is of the latter that J.B. Say is resulting. Its later opposition to the theses of physiocracy is coherent with all its experiment of trade and all its family culture.
Journalist under the Revolution
The death of Clavière and the development of the Terreur mark for J.B. Say a new turning in its life. Chamfort, Guinguené and Andrieux propose to him to found a review appearing every ten during the days and having an encyclopedic ambition: The philosophical, literary and political Decade. It is founded the 10 Floréal, year II. The true promoter of the review is Guinguené. He published a newspaper bound for the peasants, the village Sheet, of which he must stop the publication at the time of Terror. Guinguené reserved the articles of general orientation relating to philosophy (what means at the time the general political orientation on the company and the instruction). J.B.Say contributes to the review under the signature of S, JBS, or Boniface Véridick. It writes articles of circumstances on the literary questions, theater, poetry or account-returned works. J.B. Say will preserve the function of the general drafting until its nomination at Tribunat. References that J.B. Say uses in the Decade testify to its personal experience and its bonds with the Anglo-Saxon culture. It refers more easily to Swift or Franklin more than with Rome or Athens. It will translate several texts of Franklin for the review. With J.B. Say, one finds his two year old younger brother, Horace, born in 1769, died in 1799 in the armies of Napoleon, with the seat of Saint-Jean-in Acre.
Industrialist under the Empire
Say began as an employee in a Parisian Bank directed by Clavière (which will become Minister for Finance thereafter). In 1803, it published its most known work, " Treated political economy ". Napoleon Bonaparte required of him to rewrite certain parts of its treaty in order to propose the saving in war based on the Protectionnisme and the regulations. The refusal of Say prevented it from publishing one second edition of the treaty, and it was revoked of Tribunat in 1804, after having spent four years with the head of the financial section.
JB. Industrial Say with Auchy
The elimination of constrained Tribunat JB. Say, since it does not agree to be let buy by the mode and to occupy the position of director of the rights joined together Allier to seek it another means of existence. Indeed the provisions taken by Bonaparte prohibit any activity as journalist to him, his 2° edition of the Treaty is prohibited. The Empire thus will be for him and his/her companions of the Decade a long crossing of the Desert. But it is the only one which makes such a radical reorientation and which takes as many risks. Undoubtedly as from this moment there it is brought to join again closer links with its Protestant and Genevese relations with which with the remainder it seems that he never scrambled himself. It will prepare its experiment of industrialist carefully while initially learning how to handle the machines of the weaving looms which were in the walls of the academy of arts and trades and which had been brought back by the armies of the Revolution for some. It makes its " training with his/her Horace son. That JB Say tried its chance on the side of the production of cotton that corresponds to a situation in which the beginnings of the Empire are marked by the true starting of this industry which will be of an important weight thereafter in French industry and the definition of the marketing policy external of France.
The financing of its company is provided to him by Isaac Jules Grivel which had joined Etienne Delessert for the purchase of the abbey of Auchy in the Pas-de-Calais. The alteration work was considerable since it was necessary to use an important water fall to actuate the hydraulic machine and then to arrange a road to transport the products. It is on this occasion after work of mechanic, engineer and architect who it will come into contact with a labor directly resulting from the farming community.
We do not know so in the spinning mill of J.B. Say there were children like employees, although that is probable but what it is less (no documents which we could consult is not marked such), it is that it used the children of the hospices.
The spinning mill began with 80 workmen with trades which a hydraulic engine actuated, the business developed quickly and 1810, increased of new buildings, manufacture occupied 400 workmen; one spun there 100 kilos of cotton per day, the benefit carried out was of 10 francs per kilo is 300.000 francs per annum of which a third passed to the maintenance of mechanics. In 1810 always, the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais indicated J.B. Say to take part in a council of the factories and manufactures.
In support of its proposal, he writes in connection with J.B. Say: " Very active and very hard, it could move to attend the meetings in Paris but with sorrow because it is the heart of this establishment; it received a neat education; he was powerful orator and co-operator of a periodic work; he states himself and writes well; he enjoys strong a good reputation; this establishment, which has remained for more than five years, has always gone growing especially for four years that one adopted there a hydraulic machine which makes turn the major part of mechanics. The establishment will be doubled in two years to judge some according to the preparations which one notices. " The social question worries it even if it is from a paternalist point of view that it seems to have approached it. His/her friend Pyrame de Candolle reports that: " instead of paying its workmen saturdays, it paid them Monday. It obtained by there that their balance was used during the week to nourish their family and that there remained only the surplus for the cabaret of Sunday. " In scattered remarks, J.B. Say complains about what the workmen of its spinning mill seem to have to him no recognition for all the efforts but it makes in a management extremely different from that of its competitors. And he will say on this subject that he " is more difficult to make live 4 to 500 men, than to do them tuer." It is during this industrial working life in the Pas-de-Calais that it is brought to intervene in answer to an investigation of the government to the measures to take within the framework of the continental blockade. In the letter which he addresses to the Prefect. With the question put to know if it is appropriate " to prohibit the importation in France of the foreign twists " he answers by an argumentation detailed by considering the various cases of figure. Its position is not until one could wait: purely free exchanger. He distinguishes the case from the spinning mills which produce coarse cottons (French spinning mills) of the spinning mills which use the fine nets that the French factories do not produce. He thus puts forward measures which make it possible to favor the coarse cotton spinners without handicapping the spinning mills which need English wire. He concludes: It thus seems that to restore balance and to even get to the French spinner an advantage which can exclude for him competition at least from the Numbers, low and means, it would be advisable to double and beyond right (of customs) current. (...) But a measurement which would be at the same time favorable to all the kinds of cotton manufacture, to all the consumers and at the same time opposite with the sales from abroad, would be the abolition of the ill-advised right which is perceived with the introduction in France of wool cottons and which are currently of 66 francs per decimal quintal. " Through a tight and skilful argumentation, since it takes account of the protectionist opinion, which he proposes, it is actually a general reduction in the customs duties on cottons with the maintenance of partial rights.
Teaching under the Restoration
It published the second edition of its Treaty after the first abdication of Napoleon in 1814. The restoration of the royalty enabled him to be recognized in France. Thanks to its many works of political economy, it was invited to give conferences to the Athenaeum Royal in 1816, and was named, in 1819, professor with the pulpit of industrial economy to the Conservatoire national of arts and trades. This same year it took part in the foundation of the Special École of Trade and Industry which became ESCP-EAP thereafter, then in 1831, little time before its death, it was named with the Collège de France, where it occupied the first pulpit of economy. Jean-Baptiste Say died on November 14th, 1832 in Paris and buried with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise. With its death, he was the French economist most known.
Quotations
On the tax:
“To encourage sins it of the whale, the English government prohibits plant oils which we burn in France in the lamps with draft. What does it result from it? It is that one of these lamps, which costs a French 60 francs per year, costs 150 francs an English. It is to support the navy and to multiply the sailors, says one, that each nozzle of lamp costs to the English 90 francs more than in France. In this case, it is to multiply the sailors by the means of a trade where one loses: it would be to better multiply them by a lucrative trade. ”
“A hard workman, has one says me, had habit to work with the light. He had calculated that, in its taken care, he burned a candle of 4 pennies and gained 8 pennies by his work. A tax on tallows and another on the manufacture of the candles increased by 5 pennies the expenditure of its luminary, which became thus more expensive than the value of the product than it could light. At once the come night, the workman is remained the arms crosseds; he lost the 4 pennies which its work could get to him without the tax department perceiving anything about this production. A similar loss must be multiplied by the number of the workmen of a city and by the number of the days of the year. ”
Economy of the offer
The economy of the offer, in the tradition of Say, is opposed to the economy of the request, which is that of Malthus and later of Keynes.
According to Say, it is the supply which created its. The consumers use their income completely. To create growth, the offer thus should be stimulated. Keynes, as for him, says to us that it is because there is supply that there is: the crises of overproduction are impossible.
One owes in Jean-Baptiste Say the tripartite division which remained traditional: Production, Distribution, Consumption.
The Law of Say
See also: Law of Say
The Law of Say, or law of the outlets , provides that “more the producers are numerous and the multiple productions, plus the outlets easy, are varied and vast”. In an economy where competition is free and perfect, the crises of overproduction are impossible. There cannot be of total imbalance in the market economies and of free enterprise, there is a spontaneous balancing of economic flows (production = consumption, saving = investment). Say does not deny the possible existence of surpluses, but the crises of overproduction touch, for him, only certain sectors and are not durable. This law is sometimes reduced wrongly with the formula “any supply creates its own”. The best summarized this approach would be: “one never spends but the money which one gained”. Keynes criticized this law by regarding it as unrealistic person
Works
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Olbie, or test on the means of reforming manners of a nation, Deterville.
- 1803 Treaty of political economy or simple exposure in the way in which are formed, distribute and are composed the richnesses, lre ED., Crapelet.
- Treats political economy, 2c ED., Deterville.
- has, Of England and the English, Bertrand.
- B, political Catechism economy or familiar Instruction which show how the richnesses is produced, distributed and consumed in the company; work bases on the facts, and useful for the various classes of men, in what it indicates the advantages that each one can withdraw its position and of its talents, lre ED., Crapelet.
- has, " Letter has Ternaux aine" in Ternaux 8 1 8, pp. 33-50
- B, ship canals in the actual position of France, Deterville.
- C Of the importance of the port of the Villette, Deterville.
- Treats political economy, 4th ED., Deterville.
- Lettres has Mr. Malthus on various subjects political economy, in particular on the causes of the general stagnation of the trade, Bossange.
- political Catechism economy or familiar Instruction which shows how the richnesses is produced, distributed and consumed in the company, 2nd ED. Bossange.
- " Balance of consumption with the " productions; , in Say (1848) pp. 250-260.
- " " Examination criticizes speech of Mr. MacCulloch on the political economy " , in Say pp. 260279.
- has, political Catéchisme economy, 3rd ED., Aime Andre.
- 1826b, " Modern political economy, general draft of this science, its nomenclature, its history and its bibliography " , Progressive Encyclopedia vol. 1~ pp. 217-304.
- C Treats political economy, 5th ED., Calmann-Levy (1971).
- D, " Commercial crisis " , Encyclopedic Review, vol. 32~ pp. 40~45.
- " Report of Malthus " Definitions in Political Economy" , Encyclopedic Review, vol. 33 pp. 494-496.
- " " Opening speech to the course industrial economy " , in Say, pp. 148-161.
- complete Cours political economy practices, work intends D to put under the eyes of the statesmen, the landowners and the capitalists, the scientists of the farmers, the manufacturers, the traders and in general of all the citizens the economy of the companies, Guillaumin and Co (1852).
- Mixture and political Correspondance economy, Chamerot.
- various Works of J-B. Say, Guillaumin.
Recent edition of complete works of J.B. SAY
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Treated political economy, or simple exposure in the way in which are formed, distribute, and consume the richnesses , T. 1-2, Variorum edition of the 6 editions, published by C. Mouchot, Jean-Pierre Potier, Jean-Michel Servet. Paris, Philippe Steiner, Andre Tiran, Volume I of complete Works of J. - B. Say published by White Emmanuel, Pierre-Henri Drips, Gilles Jacoud, Claude Mouchot, Jean-Piere Potier, Michele Saquin, Philippe Steiner and André Tiran Coordonnateur.
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Works morals and policies , text introduction and notes by E. White and A. Tiran, Volume V of complete Works of J. - B. Say published by White Emmanuel, Pierre-Henri Drips, Gilles Jacoud, Claude Mouchot, Jean-Piere Potier, Michele Saquin, Philippe Steiner and André Tiran Coordonnateur.
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Lessons of political economy , text introduction and notes per G. Jacoud and pH. Steiner, Volume IV of complete Works of J. - B. Say published by White Emmanuel, Pierre-Henri Drips, Gilles Jacoud, Claude Mouchot, Jean-Piere Potier, Michele Saquin, Philippe Steiner and André Tiran Coordonnateur.
References
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