The French economist Jean Baptiste Say (1767-1832), one of the founders of the classical school, is best known for his law of markets. He was the first academic teacher of economics in France.

Jean Baptiste Say was born on Jan. 5, 1767, in Lyons of a Protestant merchant family. Though he became a deist, he retained the deep-rooted sense of moral earnestness he inherited from the martyrs of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His outlook was no less affected by his mercantile upbringing and education. After serving two business apprenticeships in England, he entered an insurance firm in Paris, and at the suggestion of his employer he read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Thereupon he decided to become an economist, abandoning business to write economic articles for a republican periodical, La Décade philosophique, of which he was editor.

During the French Revolution, Say espoused its principles...