Jane Marcet is not writing for the working classes, but for women and men of the educated classes of the nineteenth century. She draws her principles and materials from the writings of the great masters who have written about political economy, particularly Adam Smith, Thomas Robert Malthus, Jean-Baptise Say, Jean Charles Leonard de Sismondi, and David Ricardo. Marcet consolidates the ideas of bankers as well as professional political economists. She makes their ideas accessible, not only to the young people she identifies as her audience in the book's preface, but also to the middle...