Jean-Baptiste Say vs. Thomas Paine
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Jean-Baptiste Say
1767 – 1832
Jean-Baptiste Say was a liberal French economist and businessman who argued in favor of competition, free trade, and lifting restraints on business. He is best known for Say's law—also known as the law of markets—which he popularized, although scholars disagree as to whether it was Say who first articulated the theory. Moreover, he was one of the first economists to study entrepreneurship and conceptualized entrepreneurs as organizers and leaders of the economy.
"Demand and supply are the opposite extremes of the beam, whence depend the scales of dearness and cheapness; the price is the point of equilibrium, where the mo…"
Thomas Paine
1737 – 1809
Thomas Paine was an English-born American Founding Father, French Revolutionary, inventor, political philosopher, and statesman. His pamphlets Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783) framed the Patriot argument for independence from Great Britain at the outset of the American Revolution. Paine advanced Enlightenment-era arguments for human rights that shaped revolutionary discourse on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."
Connections
Both wrote about: