TURGOT, Anne Robert Jacques.

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Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses. First edition in book form of Turgot's most substantial work, a milestone in the history of economic thought, and a major influence on Adam Smith. Réflexions is a wide-ranging study of the production and distribution of wealth in the ancien régime, drawing on Turgot's experience as chief administrator of Limoges. While the work shares several concepts with the Wealth of Nations (including the division of labour), Turgot goes beyond Smith in his absolute insistence on minimal government intervention in market forces.Turgot's conclusions, that land is the source of wealth, accord with those of the physiocrats; it was only his repugnance to all "sects" that kept him from the inner circle of the school.The editor of this posthumous edition is unknown, although Condorcet and Du Pont are known to have republished several of Turgot's major economic writings at this time. The Réflexions were written in 1766 and serialized in the Ephémérides du Citoyen from 1769 to 1770.

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