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Richard cantillon pronunciation

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Tragically, despite being a significant influence on the early development of the Physiocrat and Classical schools of economic thought, Cantillon’s Essai was largely forgotten until the late nineteenth century, when it was rediscovered by the celebrated British economist William Stanley Jevons. A series of mishaps, beginning with a sloppy English translation, were to result in the Essai being poorly received outside France. Added to this, the first English publisher somehow inverted the names of the book’s author and its original French publisher in his initial publication. The date of publication was also confused, so that the work was for a time assumed to have copied the theories of the Scottish economist David Hume, when in fact Hume’s ideas were anticipated by Cantillon.

In 1734, a year after arriving in London, Cantillon’s home on Albemarle Street was mysteriously burned to the ground. Many of his papers were destroyed and it is generally assumed that he died in the fire. While the fire’s cause is unclear, the most widely accepted theory is that Cantillon was murdered. It

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Introduction

Richard Cantillon is now acknowledged as the first economic theorist and rightly deserves to be known as the father of economics. William Stanley Jevons, who is credited for rediscovering Cantillon and one of the co-founders of the Marginal Revolution called the Essai “a systematic and connected treatise, going over in a concise manner nearly the whole field of economics… It is thus the first treatise on economics.” Joseph Schumpeter called the Essai “the first systematic penetration of the field of economics. It bears the stamp of a scientific spirit.” Joseph J. Spengler famously dubbed Cantillon the “first of the moderns.” F.A. Hayek described Cantillon as “the first person to succeed in penetrating and surveying nearly the entire range of what today we call economics.” Murray N. Rothbard named Cantillon “the founding father of modern economics.” Thornton (1998) provides a full description of Cantillon as the originator of economic theory.

Despite all this high praise from the leaders of the field

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Resources on Cantillon

Contemporary

  • Cantillon's signature (from Higgs, 1891 EJ)
  • 1734 London Magazine - notice of fire (May 14), coroner confirms murder (July 24), trial of servants (Sep 18)
  • 1735 Political State - notice of discovery of Cantillon's cook & suicide in Surinam (July, 1735)
  • 1762 memoirs Henri Cochin, at La Tournelle court, 1729/30case of Cantillon against Jean & Remi Carol (p.52)
  • 1794 Reports of cases in English Chancery court (involving Cantillon as third party): Gage against Bulkeley (1744: p.263), Gage against Bulkeley (1745, p.278), Herbert against Bulkeley (1745: p.296)

19th-20th Century

  • "Cantillon, Richard", in C. Coquelin and G.U. Guillaumin, editors, 1852, Dictionnaire de l'économie politique [1894 ed.]
  • "Richard Cantillon and the Nationality of Political Economy", by W.S. Jevons, 1881, Contemporary Review, p.61 [repr. in Jevons, 1905]
  • "Jevons on Cantillon", 1881, The Economist, Jan 1, 1881, p.14
  • "Cantillon, Richard" in Leslie Stephen & Stephen Lee,

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