Editing Charles Ganilh

{{Short description|French economist and politician (1758–1836)}}
'''Charles Ganilh''' (6 January 1758 – 1836) was a French [[economist]] and politician. Ganilh was born at [[Allanche]] in [[Cantal]]. He was educated for a profession in law and practised as ''avocat''. During the troubled period which culminated in the [[storming of the Bastille]] on 14 July 1789, he became prominent in public affairs and was one of the seven members of the permanent [[Committee of Public Safety]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Ganilh, Charles|volume=11|page=452}}</ref> Ganilh was imprisoned during the [[Reign of Terror]] and was only released by the counter-revolution of the [[9th Thermidor]]. During the [[first consulate]] he was called to the [[tribunate]] but was excluded in 1802. In 1815 he was elected deputy for Cantal and finally left the Chamber on its dissolution in 1823.<ref name="EB1911" /> 

Ganilh is best known as the most vigorous defender of the [[mercantile school]] in opposition to the views of [[Adam Smith]] and the English economists.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref>See biographical note in the ''Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 31'' (International Publishers: New York, 1989) p. 603.</ref> The [[Mercantilism|mercantilists]] were believers in nations keeping a positive balance of trade at all times in order to prosper, economically. However, they also valued the maximization of the national domestic resources of that nation and a total ban on the export of gold and silver. In pursuit of the positive balance of trade they recommended expansion of the colonial system, exclusivity of trade with the colonies and forbidding trade carried in foreign ships. Britain attempted to follow the mercantilists' suggestions and found themselves involved in frequent trade wars like the four [[Anglo-Dutch Wars|Anglo-Dutch Navigation Wars]].

On the scale of the individual sale, the mercantilists believed that profit arose only during the sale of commodities by the seller over-charging the buyer.  Thus, Ganilh says that "exchange or trade alone gives value to things."<ref>From the second (1821) edition of Ganilh's, ''Des systems d' economie politique'' quoted in the "Theories of Surplus Value" by Karl Marx contained in the ''Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 31'', p. 98.</ref> In his mercantile outlook, Ganilh rejected the general labor theory of Adam Smith and [[David Ricardo]] in which commodities have value from the beginning. Commodities obtain value only through the labor that is used to prepare the commodity for market.<ref>Karl Marx, "Theories of Surplus Value" contained in the ''Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 31'', p. 99.</ref>   
 
His works on [[political economy]] include ''Essai politique sur le revenue des peuples de l'antiquité, du moyen âge, &c.'' (1808), ''Des systèmes d'économie politique'' (1809), ''Théorie d'économie politique'' (1815), and ''Dictionnaire analytique d'économie politique'' (1826).<ref name="EB1911" />

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[[Category:French economists]]
[[Category:19th-century French politicians]]
[[Category:1758 births]]
[[Category:1836 deaths]]


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