Note 567 — Chapter IV · : FRIEDRICH LIST AND THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

We refer to two of them only: Augustin Cournot and Louis Say of Nantes. The former, in his Recherches sur les Principes mathématiques de la Théorie des Richesses (1838), a work that is celebrated to-day but which passed unnoticed at the time of its publication, has criticised the theory of Free Trade. But the reputation which he subsequently achieved was not based upon this part of the book. Louis Say (1774-1840) was a brother of J. B. Say. He published a number of works, now quite forgotten, in which he criticised several doctrines upheld by his brother, whose displeasure he thus incurred. We refer to his last work, Études sur la Richesse des Nations et Réfutation des principales Erreurs en Économie politique (1836), for this is the work to which List alludes. It is probable that Louis Say’s name would have remained in oblivion but for List. Richelot, in his translation of List (second edition, p. 477), quotes some of the more important passages of Say’s book.