The Sexenio Absolutista (1814–1820): The Encounter with Smith and Say

This chapter analyses Mora’s youth and early training years. He was barely thirty years old when his career in journalism began during the 1810s. His first foray into journalism during the Sexenio Absolutista (1813–1820) was the Crónica científica y literaria (1817–1820). The periodical was a clear example of Mora’s ability to make the most of the few remaining openings for civil initiatives in Madrid under the absolutism regime. The Crónica was devoted to “the sciences and literature”, but also launched Mora’s career as a disseminator of political economy. He used brief anonymous notes, bibliographical information and especially reviews to promote this science. His ideological touchstone was neither Campomanes, Jovellanos nor other late Spanish Enlightenment writers, who were hardly mentioned in the Crónica, but Anglo-French classical economics, to which Mora would remain faithful throughout his life. Smith and Say were the two major sources of his economic thought in those years.