Title

Benjamin Franklin: A Liberal Practitioner of Political Economy

Document Type

Working Paper

Date of This Version

9-1-1994

Keywords

Benjamin Franklin, economic history, history of economic thought, physiocrats, political economy

Abstract

Few eighteenth century practitioners of political economy have been as misunderstood or stereotyped as Benjamin Franklin. His economic essays which spanned a sixty-one year period (1729-1790), still create disagreement among scholars even on the doctrinal origins of Franklin's economic ideas. If Franklin was not a mercantilist, neither was he exclusively a physiocrat nor an early classical economist, especially if both of these schools or early "research programs" in economics are viewed as mutually exclusive. As this paper will show, there was a unity and consistency in Franklin's political economy, and it reflected the content and liberal character of physiocratic and early classical thought.

Working Paper Number

9404

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