Turgot, forerunner of Adam Smith? Life, ideas and posthumous influence

Like many other French liberal economists, Turgot is one of those figures more acknowledged abroad than in his home country, where he is mainly remembered as Louis XVI’s ephemeral minister of finance. His political work was undoubtedly considerable, so much so that Edgar Faure, his biographer and head of government during the 1950s, wrote that had Turgot been longer in power, the French Revolution may not have occurred.

Essais Économie Histoire