1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ganilh, Charles

GANILH, CHARLES (1758–1836), French economist and politician, was born at Allanche in Cantal on the 6th of January 1758. He was educated for the profession of law and practised as avocat. During the troubled period which culminated in the taking of the Bastille on the 14th of July 1789, he came prominently forward in public affairs, and was one of the seven members of the permanent Committee of Public Safety which sat at the hôtel de ville. 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. He died in 1836. 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.

His works, though interesting from the clearness and precision with which these peculiar opinions are presented, do not now possess much value for the student of political economy. He wrote Essai politique sur le revenue des peuples de l’antiquité, du moyen âge, &c. (1808); Des systèmes d’économie politique (1809); Théorie d’économie politique (1815); Dictionnaire analytique de l’économie politique (1826).