The Dallas Fed has short article highlighting the contributions of Jean Baptiste Say to free trade in their publication Economic Insights. Robert Formaini is the main contributor. Below is a small excerpt.

Given France’s current attitude toward free trade, some might find it surprising that the nation was home to an influential group of pro-free trade political economists from the early 18th to early 19th centuries. Jean-Baptiste Say, a writer who popularized Adam Smith in France, is squarely in that tradition. He is also responsible for one of the great, ongoing macroeconomic controversies–his famous Law of Markets. Say was much more than a Smith follower, and his ideas have always prompted scholarly investigation. We offer readers this issue of Economic Insights as an introduction to one of France’s great free trade advocates.

(Say’s Treatise is still in print!)

Krugman seems to think that the French are better off overall because they work less and spend more time with their families. He grants that this makes them poorer but “to the extent that the French have less income than we do, it’s mainly a matter of choice.”

Not really. Krugman must believe that we need government to tell us to spend time with our families. Consider this rundown of French labor law: “Statutory working hours in France are 35 actual hours worked per week. Maximum working hours are 10 hours per day and 48 hours per week. Over a 12-week period, the maximum is an average of 44 hours per week…. Hours worked in excess of statutory working hours are counted as overtime. Overtime pay is at least 10% more than regular pay and 25% more in most cases. The regulatory limit on overtime is 180 hours per year, which increases annual working hours to 1,780, which works out to 39 hours per week for 45 weeks. Government authorization is required to exceed this overtime limit. In addition to extra pay, working overtime may also give employees a statutory right to extra time off. Extra time off in lieu of overtime pay is also a possibility. Time off in lieu of overtime pay must be added to the statutory time off entitlement.”