The Economic Thought of A. Genovesi in the Late Spanish Enlightenment: R. De Salas’s Critical Analysis

Abstract

Ramón de Salas, a teacher of law at the University of Salamanca in Spain, wrote his Apuntaciones al Genovesi in the second half of the 1780s. It was an exhaustive analysis of the economic and political thought contained in Genovesi’s Lezioni di commercio (1765–1767). Although never published, the work enjoyed enormous success due to its length, the unquestionable intellectual stature of its author (Salas was destined to play a leading role in Spanish liberalism) and the value added by Salas’s ‘comments’: his Apuntaciones amounted to a detailed critique of the economic thought contained in Genovesi’s Lezioni. This article examines Salas’s economic thought and his critical engagement with the work of Genovesi.