An Inquiry into Physiocracy (Routledge Revivals)

Max Beer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781138779600
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317674689
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Economics

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.

INDEX

Agriculture, regarded as the only source of wealth, 13–14; Socrates and Aristotle on, 63–64; Cicero’s view, 64, 115–116; Boisguillebert on, 92; Quesnay on, 108, 120; conditions of its prosperity, 154–155; source of extra-profit (rent), 174; Adam Smith’s view of, 173–174

Aquinas, see St. Thomas

Aristotle, 14; on exchanges, 57; natural occupations, 63–64; price, 66; economics as ethics, 187, 188

Ashley, William, on Tory Free Trade, 18, 77

Balance of trade policy, 13, 135; morally and economically wrong, 135–137

Baudeau, Abbé, friend of Quesnay, 108, 186; editor of Ephémérides du Citoyen, 186; emendation of Tableau Economique, 165, 166

Bauer, Stephan, published facsimile of Quesnay’s Tableau Economique, 105

Blanqui, J. A., French economist, 49

Bodin, Jean, on free trade, 27–28; economic conditions of France, 28; on rise of prices, 35, 37

Boisguillebert, 5; opposed to mercantilism, 26, 46, 47, 79; precursor of Quesnay, 83; life, 83–84; his works, 85; universalism, 86; his law of nature doctrines, 86 sq.; first to use the term laisser-faire, 89; freedom of trade, 88–89; theory of money, 89–91; social critic, 92–94; his standing as an economist, 94–95, 108; influenced Quesnay, 99; comparison with Quesnay and Adam Smith, 108

Bonar, James, 7

Bounty Act (1689), 76

Briefs, G., on the meaning of physiocratic doctrines, 189 (footnote)

Britannia Languens (1680), treatise on mercantilism, 41; on productive and unproductive labour, 110

Calvin, 23

Cantillon, Richard, on condition of France, 47, 100, 174; Quesnay’s opinion of, 183

Cassiodor, Latin scholar and statesman (sixth century), on gainful trading, 60

Chaucer on traffickers, 132

Child, Josiah, Tory free trader, 18

Chrysostom (or pseudo-Chrysostom) on unlawfulness of trading, 60

Cicero on property in the law of nature, 52; on agriculture, 64, 115–116; quoted by Quesnay, 100

Colbert, J. B., mercantilist statesman, 14, 26; life and work, 38–47; comparison with Cardinal Wolsey, 45; his critics and defenders, 46–47, 48, 94, 146

Commerce (as distinguished from traffic) is beneficial, 56 passim, 128

Commutative justice, 14, 55 passim

Corn exportation, English, 77

Corn Trade, in medieval England, 19; regulations of, 20

Corn Trade, in medieval France, 22–26

Council of Commerce (in France), 29; influence on Colbert, 31

Davenant, Charles, Tory free trade view, 18; on English corn trade, 76–77; free trade principle, 77–78

Descartes, 2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Table of Contents
• I Physiocracy as a Problem
• II. French Mercantilism
• III. The Economics of the Law of Nature
• IV. Pioneers of Physiocracy
• V. François Quesnay
• VI. Quesnay's Economics
• VII. Recapitulation
• VIII. The Physiocratic Realm
• IX. The Physiocratic School
• Index