The physiocracy (étymologiquement: government of nature) is a economic school of thought and policy born in France towards 1750, which knew its apogee during second half of the XVIIIe century, and which is at the origin of the modern design of the economy.

History

One agrees to think that the founder of this school is François Quesnay, which will become the uncontested leader about it after the publication of the economic Tableau in 1758, where it represents the circulation of the richnesses in the economy.

The Physiocrats were called between them the Economists. The term of physiocrat, literally meaning “government” (of the Greek “kratos”) by nature (of the Greek “physio”). was forged by one of them, Pierre Samuel of the Bridge of Nemours. The principles of the physiocratic school were elaborate in first by Vincent de Gournay and Richard Cantillon, an alive Irish banker in France, in its Essai publication on the nature of the trade in general of 1756. They take as a starting point the work of Boisguilbert and Vauban with the XVIIe century.

Built on the critic of the Mercenary attitude (and the Colbertisme), physiocracy is probably the first general and systematic theory of political economy, heralding the classical economics founded by Adam Smith.

Turgot, Catherine II Large the, the king Stanislas II makes also party of this school of thought.

Principles of the physiocratic school

Richness

In opposition to the ideas mercantilists, the physiocrats consider that the richness of a country consists of the richness of all its inhabitants and not only that of the State. This richness is made of all the goods which satisfy a Besoin and not of noble metals which would be needed thésauriser. The richness must be produced by the work.

For the physiocrats, the only really productive activity is the Agriculture. The ground multiplies the goods: a sown seed produces several seeds. With final, the ground leaves a Net profit or Surplus. On the contrary the Industry and the Commerce are regarded as sterile activities because they are satisfied to transform the raw materials produced by agriculture.

Physiocracy distinguishes three Classes from Economic agents:

  1. the class of the peasants, which is the only productive one (land producers),
  2. the second class is called sterile and is made up of the merchants and " industriels".
  3. the third class is that of the owners.

This vision of the economy is natural at one time when the vast majority of the population is formed farmers who produce what just to ensure their own survival. The thesis according to which the ground is the only source of richness, which distinguishes the Physiocrats from their traditional successors, is nevertheless secondary compared to the other contributions by which the Physiocrats are characterized from their predecessors, who were taken again by the traditional ones and who found the modern economy.

Let make the men, let pass the goods

In the controversy on the trade of the grains which marks the medium of the XVIIIe century, the Physiocrats take party against the governmental restrictions on the trade of the corns (which are at the time the base of the food). More generally, they affirm that the best way of maximizing the richness of all is to let each one act with its own way according to its means and thus put at the foreground the freedom of the trade like principle of economic policy.

Vincent de Gournay popularized the famous sentence “Laissez to make to the men, let pass the goods”, probably due to the Marquis d' Argenson, and which will pass to the posterity. This program summarized in a sentence will know a particular revival with the setting in front of the liberal ideas in the last quarter of the XXe century, the partisans of the Libre-échange recognizing the physiocrats like precursors of the economic liberalism.

Natural order

According to the physiocrats, there exists a natural order controlled by Lois which are clean for him, and which rests on the natural Right. For example, each man is entitled so that it acquires freely by the work and the exchange. The role of the economists is to reveal these natural laws. The Liberté and the Propriété are natural rights that the Souverain must respect and protect by devoting them in the positive Droit. The role of the to be able is to guarantee the application of the natural Right.

The physiocrats do not call in question the Monarchie, but want that the sovereign, far from behaving as an absolute monarch or arbitrary Despote, subjects himself to the natural right and makes it respect. On the other hand, to make respect this natural right which is essential on all, it must use of all its authority. It is the direction of the expression " legal Despotism " used by Lemercier of the River, which is connected more with the liberal concept of minimum State than with the current meaning of the word Despotisme.

Quotations

  • “ the doctrines of the Physiocrate S is a mixture of Economic liberalism and of enlightened Despotisme the thought of the physiocrats is ordered around four broad topics: nature, freedom, the ground, the “legal Despotisme” the State must be controlled by landowners; they only have a fatherland; fatherland and inheritance are joined. The physiocrats are thus hostile with any regulation. Their formula east “let make, let pass” the physiocrats are in favor of the Absolute monarchy. ” History of the political ideas , Tome2, Of the XVIII éme century at our days, Jean Touchard , PUF, 1958.

List (nonexhaustive) physiocrats

See too

References and notes

Random links:Allene | Gandeuillot | Quinquempoix | Ogilvy' S | Puerto Ordaz

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