The Physiocrats exerted a profound influence on Adam Smith, who had spent time in France in the 1760s and whose classic "The Wealth of Nations" embodied the Physiocratic attack on mercantilism and argued that nations get rich by practicing free trade. Of Smith, Turgot, and the Physiocrats, the great French political leader and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) wrote: The basis of their whole economic system may be truly said to lie in the principle of self-interest. . .. ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate