After all, the first economists were at the same time jurists and people who addressed th~problem 9f public law. Beccaria, fO:J:"_~~p1ple, who was a theorist of public law, basically in the form ofpenal law; was-also an economist.lO You only have to read The Wealth of Nations, and not even his other works, to see that the problem ofpublic law runs through all of Adam Smith's work. Bentham; ;ipublic law theorist, was at the same time an economist and wrote books on political economy.

Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, loc. 348