De la richesse commerciale, ou principes d'économie politique, appliqués à la législation du commerce

Rare first edition.
Contemporary full tree calf bindings. Smooth spines decorated with two gilt tools and two grotesque panels. Red morocco title labels. Black wax volume labels, heavily rubbed and faded. Head- and tailcaps and the upper and lower joints and corners very discreetly restored. A scratch on one board. A handsome, clean copy.

A work of political economy, a discipline the author regarded as the highest of sciences, since it was – in his view – devoted to the happiness of the individual. Initially conceived as a systematic commentary on the work of Adam Smith to facilitate the application of its principles and axioms in France, the book far exceeds its original scope, seeking instead the great laws that regulate trade and capital. Mark Blaug (1927-2011), the English economist, considered Sismondi the first critic of industrial capitalism in La Pensée économique. He devised a new method for regulating exchange, employing mathematical models to explain economic phenomena. His conception of the balance of trade was also innovative, as he analyzed the effects of excess imports or excess exports. He further demonstrated the essential differences between a closed economy and a liberal economy based on international trade. The work is largely founded on Adam Smith’s fundamental thesis of labor as the productive force, with the government’s task being to liberate labor in order to increase wealth.
Blue stamp at the foot of the title-page: Carles A. S. Alfonso. Black stamp on the first leaf of the preface: Ex-libris Vieira Pinto.
Rare copy of this seminal work in the history of economics.