A tanzimat intellectual: Sadık Rıfat Paşa’s economic thoughts

Abstract

This thesis tries to analyze economic thoughts advocated by Sadık Rıfat Paşa, who occupied significant state positions in the first half of the nineteenth century and was accepted as one of the Tanzimat reformers. While his writings on economy represent a continuation of the classical era in terms of stye, they demonstrate western originated thoughts in their content. He could also be accepted as the first person who proposed western inspired economic policies at governmental level in the nineteenth century. His economic thoughts and proposals are disorganized in his writings and they did not establish a theoretical basis; instead they rather seem to have been targeted at practical and efficient solutions for the contemporary economic problems. In this study we firstly reviewed Sadık Rıfat Paşa’s political thoughts and then shortly described cameralist and liberal economic policies. Secondly, we touched on the basic characteristics of the Ottoman economic thinking before the nineteenth century and generally delineated Ottoman economic thought in the nineteenth century. Lastly, we tried to evaluate and contextualize Sadık Rıfat Paşa’s economic thoughts in its historical setting.