An Essay on Economic Theory (Large Print Edition): An English translation of the author's Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général

LARGE PRINT EDITION More at LargePrintLiberty.com At last, and finally, here is the first accurate and beautiful translation of Richard Cantillon's 1755 masterpiece on economics. This treatise is widely credited with being the first to describe the market process as one driven by entrepreneurship. William Stanley Jevons, in the first blush of discovery, proclaimed Cantillon's Essai, 'the cradle of political economy.'A cradle holds new life; and there can be little doubt that the Essai added new life to the organizing principles of economics. But 'political economy' does not accurately describe the subject Cantillon addressed. Indeed, he scrupulously avoided political issues in order to concentrate on the mechanics of eighteenth-century economic life. When confronted by 'extraneous' factors, such as politics, Cantillon insisted that such considerations be put aside, 'so as not to complicate our subject,' he said, thus invoking a kind of ceteris paribus assumption before it became