Pierre Boisguillebert

Born Feb. 17, 1646; died Oct. 10, 1714. French economist; founder of the classical school of bourgeois political economy in France; one of the founders of the theory of labor value.

Boisguillebert distinguished between the market price and the “true value, ” considering the measure of the latter the work time needed to produce a commodity. In characterizing Boisguillebert’s view on value, K. Marx wrote: “Boisguillebert … reduces, if not deliberately then in effect, the exchange value of a commodity to the working time, determining the true value’(la juste valeur)by the true proportion into which the working time of individuals is divided between different branches of production” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 13, p. 40). Boisguillebert considered money the fundamental evil and the cause of national calamities, and he believed that to eradicate the power of money its role must be reduced to that of a simple means of circulation. Boisguillebert was a forerunner of the physiocrats. K. Marx highly valued Boisguillebert’s works, which were directed against feudal oppression and against mercantilism.