Richard Cantillon As a Proto-Austrian

06/23/2019 Jeff Deist Mark Thornton

Dr. Mark Thornton, our in-house Cantillon expert, joins the Human Action Podcast to discuss the contributions of this important proto-Austrian thinker. Cantillon may well have written the first true economic treatise, one which lays out a comprehensive theory of production, money, interest, value, method, and trade—almost 150 years before Menger’s Principles. And along with the other French physiocrats, Cantillon gave us the concept of lassez-faire that later influenced Adam’s Smith’s invisible hand. If you want to understand economics today, and the precursors to the Austrian school, you need to know Cantillon and his work.

Cantillon’s An Essay on Economic Theory, edited by Mark Thornton. Free PDF available.

A biography of Cantillon by Mark Thornton.

“More on Cantillon as A Proto-Austrian” by Guido Hülsmann.

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