Dear Deniz,
Your query made me think of Dupont de Nemours’s criticism of Say’s Traite as presenting political economy as merely
la science des richesses. See:
Perhaps it is of interest to you.
Kind regards
Richard van den Berg
From: Societies for the History
of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Deniz T. Kilincoglu
Sent: 16 June 2015 08:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SHOE] "the science of wealth (of nations)"
Dear colleagues,
I'm trying to trace the source of translating "economics" as "the science of wealth" (and sometimes "the science of the wealth of nations") in late nineteenth-century Ottoman-Turkish.
Ottoman economists most probably rendered it from French ("la science de la richesse"), from popular sources preceding the 1860s.
I could find expressions like "l'économie politique est la science de la richesse" in many economic texts from the era, but I'm trying to understand how common it was to use "la science de la richesse" instead of or interchangeably with "l’économie politique"
referring to the discipline itself.
Many thanks in advance for your responses.
Best,
Deniz
--
Deniz T. Kilincoglu, PhD