A History of Economic Doctrines / from the time of the physiocrats to the present day

by Charles Gide; Charles Rist

It is not too much to say that this marks the beginning of a new science—the science of Political Economy. The age of forerunners is past. Quesnay and his disciples must be considered the real founders of the science. It is true that their direct descendants, the French economists, very inconsiderately allowed the title to pass to Adam Smith, but foreign economists have again restored it to France, to remain in all probability definitely hers. But, as is the case with most sciences, there is not very much to mark the date of its birth or to determine the stock from which it sprang; all that we can confidently say is that the Physiocrats were certainly the first to grasp the conception of a unified science of society. In other words, they were the first to realise that all social facts are linked together in the bonds of inevitable laws, which individuals and Governments would obey if they were once made known to them. It may, of course, be pointed out that such a providential conception of economic laws has little in common with the ordinary naturalistic or deterministic standpoint of the science, and that several of the generalisations are simply the product of their own imaginations. It must also be admitted that Smith had far greater powers of observation, as well as a superior gift of lucid exposition, and altogether made a more notable contribution to the science. Still, it was the Physiocrats who constructed the way along which Smith and the writers of the hundred years which follow have all marched. Moreover, we know that but for the death of Quesnay in 1774—two years before the publication of the Wealth of Nations—Smith would have dedicated his masterpiece to him.

The Physiocrats must also be credited with the foundation of the earliest “school” of economists in the fullest sense of the term. The entrance of this small group of men into the arena of history is a most touching and significant spectacle. So complete was the unanimity of doctrine among them that their very names and even their personal characteristics are for ever enshrouded by the anonymity of a collective name.[8]

Their publications follow each other pretty closely for a period of twenty years, from 1756 to 1778.[9]

Turgot was the only literary person among them, but like his confrères he was devoid of wit, though the age was noted for its humorists. On the whole they were a sad and solemn sect, and their curious habit of insisting upon logical consistency—as if they were the sole depositaries of eternal truth—must often have been very tiresome. They soon fell an easy prey to the caustic sarcasm of Voltaire.[10] But despite all this they enjoyed a great reputation among their more eminent contemporaries. Statesmen, ambassadors, and a whole galaxy of royal personages, including the Margrave of Baden, who attempted to apply their doctrines in his own realm, the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, the Emperor Joseph II of Austria, Catherine, the famous Empress of Russia, Stanislaus, King of Poland, and Gustavus III of Sweden, were numbered among their auditors. Lastly, and most unexpectedly of all, they were well received by the Court ladies at Versailles. In a word, Physiocracy became the rage. All this may seem strange to us, but there are several considerations which may well be kept in view. The society of the period, raffiné and licentious as it was, took the same delight in the “rural economy” of the Physiocrats as it did in the pastorals of Trianon or Watteau. Perhaps it gleaned some comfort from the thought of an unchangeable “natural order,” just when the political and social edifice was giving way beneath its feet. It may be that its curiosity was roused by that terse saying which Quesnay wrote at the head of the Tableau economique: “Pauvres paysans, pauvre royaume! Pauvre royaume, pauvre roi!” or that it felt in those words the sough of a new breeze, not very threatening as yet, but a forerunner of the coming storm.

An examination of the doctrine, or the essential principles as they called them, must precede a consideration of the system or the proposed application of those principles.

I

I: THE NATURAL ORDER

The essence of the Physiocratic system lay in their conception of the “natural order.” L’Ordre naturel et essential des Societés politiques is the title of Mercier de la Rivière’s book, and Dupont de Nemours defined Physiocracy as “the science of the natural order.”

What are we to understand by these terms?