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Physiocrats believed that wealth came exclusively from the land, that nature was fecund and man could harness its reproductive forces. Capital investments in agriculture and hard work would create profits that circulated to other sectors and supported all social institutions. Physiocracy, which originated in late eighteenth-century France, is therefore widely considered a forerunner of modern economic theory. This book places the Physiocrats in context by inscribing economic theory within broader Enlightenment culture. Liana Vardi discusses three theorists - Francois Quesnay; Victor Riquetti, marquis de Mirabeau; and Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours - and shows how their understanding of mental processes, science, politics and the arts influenced their individual approach to economic writing. The difficulty in explaining the doctrine, combined with the expectation that the public would be persuaded by its arguments, mired physiocracy in endless contradictions. This work offers a framework for understanding physiocratic theory and its complicated relation to modern economics.
The birth of Physiocracy was the birth of the science of economics in the broad general form in which it is known to us today. It is surprising therefore that the Physiocrats should have received so little attention from economists in the English-speaking world. This book fills that gap. The volume begins with a deliberately non-specialist introduction. Translations of Physiocratic writings then follow and the final section of the book consists of specialized essays, dealing with certain aspects of the Physiocratic doctrine, its history and its influence.
Physiocracy, or the economic theory that a nation’s wealth comes from is agricultural and land development, was a popular school of thought in France in the 18th century. The contribution and significance of the Physiocrats and Antiphysiocrats are explored in detail through chapter contributions by economists, philosophers, and social historians. The book concludes that neither the Physiocrats, nor the Antiphysiocrats were pure profit maximizers and that they all had the well-being of the commonwealth in mind. It brings to light previous studies only conducted in German and is the first analysis of Pfeiffer in a century, making the book of interest to any student or scholar of political economy and the history of economic thought. The contribution and significance of the Physiocrats and Antiphysiocrats are explored in detail through chapter contributions by economists, philosophers, and social historians. It brings to light previous studies only conducted in German and is the first analysis of Pfeiffer in a century, making the book of interest to any student or scholar of political economy and the history of economic thought.
The common understanding of physiocracy – the school of eighteenth-century political economy associated with thinkers such as Boisguillebert and Quesnay – is often confined to the view that it considered agriculture the only source of wealth, and manufacture, trade and export as unproductive. The limitations of this view are particularly acute for those wishing to chart the ancien régime as it approached 1789. First published in 1939, this study attempts to answer such questions as: What is the meaning of physiocracy? What is the provenance of its various doctrines? What were its ultimate intentions? For many it is unclear how the physiocrats could expound such views against all the arguments employed by their opponents: particularly so given that, among them, were men revered by the likes of Adam Smith, either as profound thinkers, such as Quesnay, or as statesmen, such as Turgot.
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Offers a framework for understanding physiocratic theory and the development of modern economics.
The mid-eighteenth century witnessed what might be dubbed an economic turn that resolutely changed the trajectory of world history. The discipline of economics itself emerged amidst this turn, and it is frequently traced back to the work of François Quesnay and his school of Physiocracy. Though lionized by the subsequent historiography of economics, the theoretical postulates and policy consequences of Physiocracy were disastrous at the time, resulting in a veritable subsistence trauma in France. This galvanized relentless and diverse critiques of the doctrine not only in France but also throughout the European world that have, hitherto, been largely neglected by scholars. Though Physiocracy was an integral part of the economic turn, it was rapidly overcome, both theoretically and practically, with durable and important consequences for the history of political economy. The Economic Turn brings together some of the leading historians of that moment to fundamentally recast our understanding of the origins and diverse natures of political economy in the Enlightenment.
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ...the finished product off his hands, this additional value would be irretrievably lost. But if I let you an acre of land for ten francs, you spend ten more in cultivation, and obtain a harvest of thirty francs, the acre returns you your rent and your expenses, and a surplus over and above. The r61e of industry and of commerce which makes values change hand, but does not multiply them, is thus narrowly restricted, and the main economic ideal of a nation is to maximise its...
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