De la critique des corporations à la libération des forces productives : l'économie politique de Jean-Baptiste Say

In the Traité d?Economie Politique and in the Cours Complet d?Economie Politique, Jean-Baptiste Say develops a criticism of corporations and other industrial regulations. According to him, these regulations are barriers to the entrepreneurial freedom and to the progress of arts. They are almost always tools of individual and collective oppression and at the origin of various economic, social and political ills. In this paper, we detail Say?s argumentation against corporations and show that it is part of more general framework based on the influence of institutions on the economy and of machines on commerce. His critical analysis leads us to present his conception of a necessary liberation of the forces of production, which requires the creation of a general framework favorable to the freedom to undertake and a blossoming of the forces of production (machines). These elements also constitute the foundations of his political economy. JEL Codes : A11, B12, B30, K11, N01, P14, P16