I have studied part of “The History of Economic Doctrines,” which mentions Say, the patriarch of bourgeois vulgar political economy. In the history of political economy, Say holds a place. Not because his theories are correct, but because his errors are so classic that they became models for all subsequent vulgar political economists (although Say himself was just a plagiarist, piecing together others’ mistakes to form his vulgar political economy). Vulgar political economists like Pombal, Keynes, etc., all based their vulgar economics on Say’s vulgar political economy, adding their own fabrications. It can be said that Say is the “forefather of bourgeois vulgar political economy, always imitated but never surpassed.” He was also a reactionary, opposing the French Revolution and the bourgeois dictatorship during Napoleon’s era. When the bourgeoisie had not yet established its economic dominance, he sought to justify the existence of landlords. He aimed for a grand alliance between landlords and the bourgeoisie, even after the failure of the French Revolution, he was still appreciated by the Bourbon monarchy, making him a thoroughly reactionary figure. Below is a brief introduction to Say’s vulgar political economy and how contemporary imperialist countries use his vulgar theories to deceive.
History
Classical bourgeois political economy originated in Britain because the British bourgeois revolution happened early. When the contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat had not yet developed, and the main contradiction was between the landlord class and the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie needed scientific theories to attack the landlord class and eliminate the legitimacy of collecting land rent. This was to enable the bourgeoisie to monopolize surplus value without sharing part of it with landlords through forms like land rent. At the same time, the bourgeoisie needed to defend its activities of exploitation and profit-making, which made classical bourgeois political economy not entirely scientific.
Say was active mainly around the 19th century. At that time in Britain, the main contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the landlord class was over the “Corn Laws”, i.e., whether to import cheap foreign grain. Due to high land rents, grain produced domestically in Britain was expensive, which increased the value of necessary living materials for the proletariat, preventing the bourgeoisie from lowering wages, reducing variable capital expenditures, and increasing profits. If foreign cheap grain was imported, it would harm landlords but benefit the bourgeoisie. However, the “Corn Laws” prevented Britain from importing foreign cheap grain, leading to a struggle between the bourgeoisie and landlords over whether to abolish or retain the laws.
Unscientific, reactionary vulgar economics emerged in France. This was because class struggle in France was sharper and more thorough. During the French bourgeois revolution—the French Revolution—armed sans-culottes pushed the revolution to its peak. But many large capitalists, unwilling to push the revolution further, defended bourgeois production relations with vulgar economics. Say was such a reactionary. Although he was not a large capitalist himself, he served as a secretary to Clavière (the Girondist finance minister) during the French Revolution, serving the bourgeoisie and joining the Girondists. When the revolutionary French people elected the more revolutionary Jacobins to power and suppressed the Girondists, Say became counter-revolutionary, opposing the revolution and the Jacobins. Later, when Napoleon came to power and implemented protective tariffs to safeguard France’s emerging capitalist industry from destruction by British goods, Say refused to amend the parts of his “Introduction to Political Economy” that boasted of free trade, and was eventually dismissed from government. However, because Say fervently promoted class harmony in capitalist society—fictitiously justifying land rent even for landlords—he rose with the Bourbon restoration and became a distinguished guest at many French universities.
Jean-Baptiste Say and His Political Economy Theory
1. The object of Say’s study and his methods: Before Say, there was no “economics” as a vulgar discipline, only “political economy.” But frightened by the Great Revolution, Say believed political economy should not study politics, and he distorted the definition, claiming economics was a natural science, studying wealth, production, distribution, and consumption, completely denying that political economy was a historical science, a science of the development of productive and economic relations. Although Say tried to erase the class nature of political economy, he himself said he studied it to prevent “the people from risking everything”, which was actually to prevent revolution. This shows that in class society, there is no economy detached from politics.
This distortion of the definition of political economy was later adopted by vulgar political economists and has now reached its peak. Today, in major capitalist countries, there are only “economics departments,” and no “political economy departments.” Except for some universities in the bourgeoisie that maintain a facade of Marxism and include a “political economy” course under the “economics” department, countries like Russia have also set up “political economy” influenced by socialist Soviet Union. But in the US, France, Germany, the UK, Japan, etc., there are no “political economy” departments; instead, courses like microeconomics, macroeconomics, and econometrics are popular. However, this play on words to deny the political nature of economics is futile. For Say, and for contemporary bourgeois scholars and universities, they try to embellish the political nature of economics while secretly injecting bourgeois interests—such as using aging and demographic issues to gloss over capitalist exploitation, claiming that too many proletarians lead to low wages; or ignoring class struggle altogether, using pure mathematics to analyze the impact of new laws, leading people away from social reality and class conflict, thus maintaining capitalist exploitation.
(To be continued)