Jean-Baptiste Say is generally portrayed as an unrelenting champion of laissez faire who believed commercial activity promoted economic well-being. However, I develop a more nuanced portrait of Say’s thinking by showing that he did not believe that free trade was an unmitigated good. He thus identified several exceptions to free international trade that justified government intervention in the form of restrictions on imports, and public subsidies to domestic industries. Going beyond Adam Smith’s arguments for protective tariffs, Say maintained that government could play a role to protect infant industries, insisting on the fact that protectionism could only be gradually and carefully removed. Drawing upon Say’s published writings and archival sources, I show that Say developed original views on domestic and international trade, several of which were distinct from those of Smith. Overall, Say’s analysis of free trade sheds greater light on his conception of the role of government in a market economy. It illustrates under what conditions the government should intervene in order to achieve both economic efficiency and social justice.

中文翻译：

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让-巴蒂斯特谈自由贸易

让-巴蒂斯特·萨伊通常被描绘为自由放任的坚定拥护者，他相信商业活动促进了经济福祉。然而，我通过表明他不相信自由贸易是一种完全的好处，对萨伊的思想进行了更细致的描述。因此，他确定了自由国际贸易的几个例外情况，这些例外情况证明政府以限制进口和公共补贴的形式对国内产业进行干预是合理的。超越亚当·斯密关于保护性关税的论点，萨伊坚持认为政府可以发挥保护新兴产业的作用，坚持保护主义只能逐步和谨慎地消除。借鉴萨伊发表的著作和档案资料，我表明萨伊对国内和国际贸易提出了独到的见解，其中一些与史密斯的不同。总的来说，萨伊对自由贸易的分析更能阐明他对政府在市场经济中的作用的概念。它说明了在什么条件下政府应该进行干预以实现经济效率和社会正义。