IN 1804 Jean-Baptiste Say enrolled in the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris to learn the principles of spinning cotton. The new student was 37 years old, points out his biographer, Evert Schoorl, with a pregnant wife, four children and a successful career in politics and letters trailing behind him. To resume his studies, he had turned down two lucrative offers from France's most powerful man, Napoleon Bonaparte. The ruler would have paid him handsomely to write in support of his policies. But rather than "deliver orations in favour of the usurper", Say decided instead to build a cotton mill, spinning yarn not policy.
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