Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 30, 2010

Richard Cantillon (1680s–1734) was an Irish economist and author of Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En Général (Essay on the Nature of Trade in General), a book considered by William Stanley Jevons to be the "cradle of political economy". Although little information exists on Cantillon's life, it is known that he became a successful banker and merchant at an early age. Essai remains Cantillon's only surviving contribution to economics. It was written around 1730 and circulated widely in manuscript form, but was not published until 1755. Despite having much influence on the early development of the physiocrat and classical schools of thought, Essai was largely forgotten until its rediscovery by Jevons in the late 19th century. During the late 1710s and early 1720s, Cantillon speculated in, and later helped fund, John Law's Mississippi Company, from which he acquired great wealth. Cantillon's entrepreneurial success, however, came at a cost to his debtors, who pursued him with lawsuits, criminal charges, and even murder plots until his death in 1734. (more...)

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