Charles Ganilh

Who was Charles Ganilh?

Charles Ganilh was a French economist and politician.

He was born at Allanche in Cantal. He was educated for a profession in law and practised as avocat. During the troubled period which culminated in the taking of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, he became prominent in public affairs.

He was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror and was only released by the counter-revolution of the 9th Thermidor. During the first consulate he was called to the tribunate but was excluded in 1802.

In 1815 he was elected deputy for Cantal and finally left the Chamber on its dissolution in 1823.

Ganilh is best known as the most vigorous defender of the mercantile school in opposition to the views of Adam Smith and the English economists.

The mercantilists were believers in nations keeping a positive balance of trade at all times in order to prosper, economically. However, they also valued the maximalization of the national domestic resources of that nation and a total ban on the export of gold and silver. In pursuit of the positive balance of trade they recommended expansion of the colonial system, exclusivity of trade with the colonies and forbidding trade carried in foreign ships.