‎MELON, (J.F.) ‎
‎Essai politique sur le commerce. Nouvelle édition revue et corrigée.‎

‎A Amsterdam, Chez F. Changuion, 1754. Title printed in red and black, with charming engraved title vignette. (8), 367, (1) pp. 12mo. Contemporary marbled calf, spine richly gilt with raised bands and gilt lettering, a very good copy. Kress 5374; Goldsmiths 72010; Einaudi 3820; Weulersse, i, p. xx; cf.: INED 3123; Mattioli 2356. Revised edition of one of the earliest theoretical works on mercantilism. The first edition appeared in 1734. Melon, though a metallist, quantity theorist, and exponent of other neomercantilist views, anticipated certain opinions of the physiocrats and the philosophes. He had been secretary to John Law and exercised considerable influence in his time. The depressed state of economic affairs during the period of the Regency (1715-1723) provided John Law with an opportunity to apply his theories, and contributed to the formation of the views of his onetime secretary, J.F. Melon, and of Melon's critic and Law's defender, Charles Dutot, cashier of Law's Company of the Indies. Law believed monetary control to be the key to the solution both of economic problems in general and -in so far as interested him- of the population problem. Dutot agreed in substance. Melon presented views which, though mercantilistic, are somewhat at variance with those of Law and which, according to E. Daire, reflect French upper-class opinion following the failure of Law's system (Spengler, French predecessors of Malthus). Melon's experiences were finally expressed with the publication of his Essai sur le commerce. 'A partir de 1734, une période nouvelle s'ouvre sous de meilleurs auspices. Les treize années précédentes n'avaient vu se produire aucun ouvrage économique considérable; en 1734 paraît l'Essai sur le commerce de Melon. Les purs Physiocrates porteront sur cette oeuvre des jugements sévères' (Weulersse) But in due course the book was recognized as a very important work: in 1759 the editor of the Journal du Commerce, the future 'économiste' Roubaud, wrote: 'M. Melon est le premier auteur français qui a consideré le commerce comme une science.' His views on demography were important: 'he held that the population which a kingdom can support increases in the same proportion as the grain supply expands. Melon suggested that there was alway an upper limit to the number of people which a state could support, but he did not consider this upper limit to be fixed, nor did he believe that population would always approximate this limit. Despite his approval of certain population-stimulating measures of colonial and domestic slavery (Melon defended slavery in the colonies on the ground that it was necessary to colonial development), Melon did not advocate the attainment of maximum populousness, saying that happiness and the achievment of a supra-subsistence level of existence were also important. Melon defended both liberty in consumption and the view, as yet uncommon and often under attack, that luxury is economically and morelly necessary and useful in a well-ordered society, serving therein as a growing source of employment, as a stimulus to ambition and solvent of idleness, and as a 'new motive to work'' (Spengler, French Predecessors of Malthus). ‎

Reference : 16517

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