CONDILLAC (Étienne Bonnot; Abbé de).
Le commerce et le gouvernement, considérés relativement l'un à l'autre.
Condillac’s principal work on economics, published in the same year as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. The present example generally considered to be the earliest of three editions published in the same year, published as two parts in one volume with continuous pagination and identifiable by the errata on p. vi. The 1772 edition referred to by Higgs (5396), repeated in Kress, is undoubtedly a ghost record. A third part, announced at the end of this volume, was never published.
‘The impetus for Condillac’s writing Le Commerce et le Gouvernement has been ascribed to a desire to assist his friend Turgot in the difficulties he faced in 1775 as finance minister over the grain riots induced by his restoration of the free trade in grain. This fits with the work’s unqualified support for free trade in general and the grain trade in particular (seems directly inspired by the Paris events of 1775). Writing the book may also be explained as a return favour for Turgot’s assistance in getting Condillac (1775) published. Despite Condillac’s strong support for this major part of Physiocratic policy and his close adherence to other aspects of Physiocracy, his argument that manufacturing was productive brought critical replies from Baudeau and Le Trosne (1777). In this context it may be noted that his work bears little direct Physiocratic influence, the major influence being Cantillon (1755), the only work directly cited apart from Plumard de Dangeul (1754). It is, however, possible to detect some influence from the economics of Turgot, Galiani and Verri on the theory of value, price and competition’ (New Palgrave).
Tchemerzine II, p. 484; Einaudi, 1209; Sraffa, 1059.
