PINTO, Isaac de.

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Traité de la circulation et du crédit. First edition of "one of the great documents in the history of political economy" (Encyclopaedia Judaica, p. 533), arguing that an expanding system of national debt would lead to economic prosperity.Written in refutation of the physiocrats, the treatise contended that public debt, when managed responsibly, could support commercial growth by increasing liquidity, credit, and monetary circulation. Britain, Pinto argued, showed the model for a high debt as a bedrock of economic success. Beyond this, he defended credit and circulation as the basic form of economic endeavour against what he termed the physiocrats' "frenzy of the soil". Implicitly, he was defending the Jews, who had long been denigrated for their role in the financial sphere. One of the most prominent Jewish economic writers of the 18th century, Pinto's importance has long been recognized. "Marx called him 'the Pindar of the Amsterdam stock exchange' for his advocacy of speculation. Werner Sombart regarded him as the beginner of the modern age of economics, and the first to understand the growth of credit. Sée claimed he was the first to say that speculation was useful" (Encyclopaedia Judaica).Provenance: Arnold Heertje (1934-2020), Dutch economist, with his bookplate; "W. Fredsberg", with their ownership signature on the front free endpaper and initial blank versos (dated 1821 and 1818 respectively) and again to title, all struck through in an early hand.

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