LE SUFFRAGE ET LE MARCHÉ DANS LA RICHESSE DES NATIONS

Daniel Diatkine ()

Cahiers d’économie politique / Papers in Political Economy, 2007, issue 52, 31-56

Abstract: Most of the readers of the Wealth of Nations knew that the relations between Smith and economic liberalism are rather distant. Here, those relations are studied from the point of view of Smith's criticism of mercantile system. The mercantile system is inefficient and generates a rate of growth slower than the rate of growth generated by the system of natural liberty. However, the more decisive attack against the mercantile system is a political one. For Smith, the vote of taxation (the trust in the State) was a condition of the positive rate of growth. However the mercantile system itself is the result of the relations between government and merchants, and implies war and increasing public debt. The fatal consequence is public bankruptcy and the end of this relation of confidence in the State.

JEL-codes: B12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cairn.info/acheter_article.php?ID_ARTICLE=CEP_052_0031 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpo:journl:y:2007:i:52:p:31-56

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
142 rue du faubourg Saint-Martin. 75010 Paris, France.

Access Statistics for this article

Cahiers d’économie politique / Papers in Political Economy is currently edited by Claire Pignol

More articles in Cahiers d’économie politique / Papers in Political Economy from L'Harmattan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Carlos Andrés Vasco Correa ().