Louis SAY (1774–1840), a sugar industrialist from Nantes and - Lot 127

Louis SAY (1774–1840), a sugar industrialist from Nantes and an economist, brother of Jean-Baptiste. 2 letters, Nantes, October 1 and 9, 1827, to Charles Dunoyer in Paris; 3 pages, each in-4, with addresses. On his new work, *Elementary Treatise on Individual Wealth and Public Wealth*, and his differences of opinion with his brother Jean-Baptiste and Adam Smith. [The letter is addressed to the publicist and liberal economist Charles Dunoyer (1786–1862).] October 1. He sends him his new work, *Elementary Treatise on Wealth and Public Wealth*, and would like a critical analysis to appear in the *Revue encyclopédique*. He seeks to “eradicate the false notion, so widely held, that useful goods form part of general wealth by virtue of their market or exchange value—a principle adopted by Adam Smith”—a principle that may certainly apply to individual wealth, but not to the wealth of nations… His brother, in his *Treatise on Economics* of 1803, argued that “there is no true production of wealth except where there is creation or increase of utility.” He himself was convinced of this principle, and if he did not cite his brother in his work, it was because he attacks Adam Smith, an author in whom his brother “has almost religious faith, and he might have believed that I was distorting his ideas by quoting them in an unfavorable light. […] No one can deny that Adam Smith was the first to clear the ground for the science of general wealth, but I believe that my brother was the first to sow the good seed, which must bear fruit, by proclaiming that there is no increase or decrease in public wealth unless there is an increase or decrease in the utility of the things that constitute it”… October 9. He acknowledges that, in his previous works, he disagreed with his brother on the sole point of “how one should measure the value of a thing; I thought at the time that it should be evaluated by a degree of utility, whereas my brother believes that the value of a thing is measured by the quantity of anything else one is willing to give in exchange to obtain it.” He has since come to agree with his brother, and in his new book, he states this principle of political economy: “There is no true production of wealth except where there is creation or increase; let us therefore understand how this utility is produced.” His brother, while approving of his work, “fears that by challenging certain principles of Adam Smith, I may be in the wrong. Sharing my brother’s opinion on this point would not be taking sides against me. [...] The true way to displease me, to take sides against me, is to refuse to tell me one’s opinion on the ideas I publish.” He did not send his book to Dunoyer as “a conditional gift,” but “to an old friend and a competent judge”; he therefore expects to receive a review.