A Sketch Of The History Of Political Economy.

It now remains to complete this sketch of the growth of political economy by a brief account of the writers on the Continent and in the United States, beginning with France. About the time of the founding of the London “Economist” (1844) and “The Statistical Journal” (1839) in England, there was established in Paris the “Journal des Économistes” (1842), which contains many valuable papers. On the whole, the most popular writer since J. B. Say has been Bastiat,56 who aspired to be the French Cobden. He especially urged [pg 028] a new57 view of value, which he defined as the relation established by an exchange of services; that nature's products are gratuitous, so that man can not exact anything except for a given service. Chiefly as a foe of protection, which he regarded as qualified socialism, he has won a reputation for popular and clever writing; and he was led to believe in a general harmony of interests between industrial classes; but in general he can not be said to have much influenced the course of French thought. On value, rent, and population, he is undoubtedly unsound. A writer of far greater depth than Bastiat, with uncommon industry and wide knowledge, was Michel Chevalier,58 easily the first among modern French economists. He has led in the discussion upon the fall of gold, protection, banking, and particularly upon money; an ardent free-trader, he had influence enough to induce France to enter into the commercial treaty of 1860 with England. One of the ablest writers on special topics is [pg 029] Levasseur,59 who has given us a history of the working-classes before and since the Revolution, and the best existing monograph on John Law. The most industrious and reliable of the recent writers is the well-known statistician, Maurice Block,60 while less profound economists were J. A. Blanqui61 and Wolowski.62 The latter devoted himself enthusiastically [pg 030] to banks of issue, and bimetallism. A small group gave