Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I was reading Say's

Treatise on Political Economy (gigantic pdf linked there) when I came upon this gem:
During the long peace maintained by cardinal Fleury, France recovered a little; the insignificant administration of this weak minister at least proving, that the ruler of a nation may achieve much good by abstaining from the commission of evil.

Italics mine. I wanted to cut what I italicized out and paste it here, but I figured I'd throw in a little context. He's talking about the aftermath of the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

Say had a pretty low opinion of Mandeville, apparently.

BTW, you can read the Treatise without downloading a monster file here.

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