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67-510: François Quesnay (1694–1774), the marquis de Mirabeau (1715–1789) and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) dominated the movement, which immediately preceded the first modern school, classical economics , which began with the publication of Adam Smith 's The Wealth of Nations in 1776. The physiocrats made a significant contribution in their emphasis on productive work as the source of national wealth. This contrasted with earlier schools, in particular mercantilism , which often focused on

134-415: A cadre of naturalists and administrators serving as experts engaging in economic activity, that were not necessarily administrative officials, although, associated with the state and utilising the well developed administration. In Sweden, this is exemplified by the botanist Carl Linnaeus and his pupils, who were prominent advocates of cameralism and strove both to cultivate foreign cash crops such as tea and

201-416: A cameralist education was also directed towards the gentry as a way to instill the values of thrift and prudence among landowners, thus increasing incomes from their estates. Prussian cameralism was focused on the state, enhancing its efficiency and increasing its revenue through strengthening the power of the developing bureaucracy, by means of standardisation of both the bureaucracy’s own practices as well as

268-443: A diminishing rate until it reaches a maximum." This was a recognition that the productivity gains required to increase national wealth had an ultimate limit, and, therefore, wealth could not be infinite. Both Quesnay and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune recognized that capital was needed by farmers to start the production process, and both were proponents of using some of each year's profits to increase productivity. Capital

335-608: A doctor of medicine; he became the physician in ordinary to the king, and afterwards his first consulting physician, and was installed in the Palace of Versailles . His apartments were on the entresol , whence the Réunions de l'entresol received their name. Louis XV esteemed Quesnay highly, and used to call him his thinker. When he ennobled him he gave him for arms three flowers of the pansy (derived from pensée , in French meaning thought ), with

402-633: A facsimile reprint of the Tableau économique , from the original MS., was published by the British Economic Association (London, 1895). His other writings were the article "Évidence" in the Encyclopédie , and Recherches sur l'évidence des vérites geometriques , with a Projet de nouveaux éléments de géometrie , 1773. Quesnay's Eloge was pronounced in the Academy of Sciences by Grandjean de Fouchy (see

469-402: A part of the early modern concept of economy, gave rise to a wide range of activity today associated with public and social policy. Around the highly developed Swedish bureaucracy coalesced a structure of entrepreneurs, educators and scientists that strove to mobilise the resources of the country for the betterment of the population and strengthening of the state. Cameralism in this sense fostered

536-400: A perfect harmony exists between the "Way of Man" (governmental institutions) and the "Way of Nature" (Quesnay's natural order). The physiocrats, especially Turgot, believed that self-interest was the motivation for each segment of the economy to play its role. Each individual is best suited to determine what goods they want and what work would provide them with what they want out of life. While

603-432: A person might labor for the benefit of others, they will work harder for their own benefit; however, each person's needs are being supplied by many other people. The system works best when there is a complementary relationship between one person's needs and another person's desires, and so trade restrictions place an unnatural barrier to achieving one's goals. Laissez-faire was popularized by physiocrat Vincent de Gournay who

670-596: A son and a daughter; his grandson by the former was a member of the first Legislative Assembly. He died on 16 December 1774, having lived long enough to see his great pupil, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune , in office as minister of finance. His economic writings are collected in the 2nd vol. of the Principaux économistes , published by Guillaumin, Paris, with preface and notes by Eugène Daire; also his Oeuvres économiques et philosophiques were collected with an introduction and note by August Oncken (Frankfort, 1888);

737-470: A source of criticism. Carol Blum, in her book Strength in Numbers on 18th century France, labels Quesnay an "apologist for Oriental despotism ." Because of his admiration of Confucianism , Quesnay's followers bestowed him with the title "Confucius of Europe." Quesnay's infatuation for Chinese culture, as described by Jesuits, led him to persuade the son of Louis XV to mirror the "plowing of sacred land" by

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804-406: A tree and its branches, as social institutions. They actually stated that landlords must enjoy 2/5 on the land surpluses. They also advocated that landlords should be given dues, otherwise they would take the land away from the cultivators. Turgot was one of the first to recognize that "successive applications of the variable input will cause the product to grow, first at an increasing rate, later at

871-506: A wide discipline aimed at creating an overview of knowledge needed by an enlightened administrator. It also illustrates that practitioners of cameralism were a heterogeneous group that not only served the interest of the state but also that of the growing cadres of academics, scientists and technological experts striving for the favour of the state in order to further their own interests as well as being oeconomic patriots. There are some similarities between cameralism as an economic theory and

938-408: Is evident in the work of David Lindenfeld and Andre Wakefield, which illustrates the dynamics between theory and practice among cameralists. Although the precise legacy and nature of Cameralism remains disputed, it has affected modern public finance, not only by shaping the formation of state administration but also by giving rise to cameralistic accounting, a particular system predominately used in

1005-416: Is no decline in output. Quesnay wanted proprietors to bear the full burden of the tax in the country as taxing cultivators is a negative consequence for everyone. Removing incentive from cultivators reduces agricultural production and the agricultural surplus Quesnay believed to be the heart of the economy [14]. Quesnay also opposed indirect taxes in contrast to direct taxes. These "indirect taxes" are placed on

1072-469: Is said to have adopted the term from François Quesnay 's writings on China. None of the theories concerning the value of land could work without strong legal support for the ownership of private property. Combined with the strong sense of individualism, private property becomes a critical component of the Tableau's functioning. The physiocrats believed in the institution of private property. They saw property as

1139-510: The Intendant du commerce , brought together a group of young researchers including François Véron Duverger de Forbonnais (1722–1800) and one of the two most famous physiocrats, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1781). The other, François Quesnay (1694–1774), was among those writing prolifically in contemporaneous journals. The Tableau économique or Economic Table is an economic model first described by François Quesnay in 1759, which laid

1206-460: The Latin motto Propter cogitationem mentis . He now devoted himself principally to economic studies , taking no part in the court intrigues which were perpetually going on around him. Around 1750 he became acquainted with Jacques C. M. V. de Gournay (1712–1759), who was also an earnest inquirer in the economic field; and round these two distinguished men was gradually formed the philosophic sect of

1273-512: The Physiocratie of Dupont de Nemours. Quesnay is known for his writings on Chinese politics and society. His book Le Despotisme de la Chine , written in 1767, describes his views of the Chinese imperial system. He was supportive of the meritocratic concept of giving scholars political power, without the cumbersome aristocracy that characterized French politics, and the importance of agriculture to

1340-530: The Chinese emperor to symbolize the link between government and agriculture. On Taxation Quesnay acknowledged three economic classes in France: the "proprietary" class consisting of only landowners, the "productive" class of agricultural workers, and the "sterile" class of merchants. Quesnay saw no benefit to the sterile class and believed the productive to be all important. Quesnay viewed France's agriculture as backward and unproductive compared to Britain during

1407-518: The Chinese imperial bureaucracy. The growth of cameralist studies, which played an important role in Prussian civil service training, may be traced to Justi's admiration for the Imperial examinations of China. Justi, like other cameralists, also lauded many Chinese public policies apart from its administrative system. Defunct Defunct The first academic chairs in the cameral sciences were created at

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1474-540: The French mercantilist school of Jean-Baptiste Colbert , which has sometimes caused cameralism to be viewed as a German version of mercantilism , as both emphasised import substitution and a strong state-directed economic life. However, cameralism was developed with regard to the landlocked nature of many of the German states of the 18th century and attempted to substitute the whole production process , whereas mercantilism relied on access to raw materials and goods from

1541-445: The French public by proprietors whose greed demands immunity from taxation. Direct taxes on proprietors has no impact on reproduction and economic decline [14]. Reducing indirect taxes and increasing direct taxes gives the French a surplus of agriculture and the funding the country needs. However, this opinion was not very popular among the wealthy of which Quesnay spent time regularly with. He spent some of his time fearing for his life in

1608-530: The German public sector which has outlived the rest of the science. The system has been deemed suitable for bookkeeping under conditions posed by public enterprises or services, such as constructing and maintaining infrastructure, and providing healthcare or education, since these services, if paid for, constitute a form of indirect taxation rather than a transaction on an open market. Justi based much of his inspiration for cameralistic studies to contemporary accounts of

1675-472: The Palace. Cameralism Cameralism ( German : Kameralismus ) was a German science of public administration in the 18th and early 19th centuries that aimed at strong management of a centralized economy for the benefit mainly of the state . The discipline in its most narrow definition concerned the management of the state's finances. Throughout the 18th and the first half of the 19th century, cameralism

1742-555: The Prussian Universities of Halle and Frankfurt an der Oder , in 1727, by Frederick William I , who perceived a need for greater administrative skill in the growing Prussian bureaucracy. Cameralist teachings departed from the traditional legal and experience-based education usually given to civil servants and focused instead on a broad overview of classical philosophy, natural sciences and economic practices such as husbandry, farming, mining and accounting. However, provision of

1809-588: The Recueil of that Academy, 1774, p. 134). See also F.J. Marmontel , Mémoires ; Mémoires de Mme. du Hausset ; H. Higgs, The Physiocrats (London, 1897). In 1758 he published the Tableau économique (Economic Table), which provided the foundations of the ideas of the Physiocrats. This was perhaps the first work to attempt to describe the workings of the economy in an analytical way, and as such can be viewed as one of

1876-468: The buyer is revenue for the producer). Thus he realized that lowering prices in times of shortage – common at the time – was dangerous economically as it acted as a disincentive to production. Generally, Le Pesant advocated less government interference in the grain market, as any such interference would generate "anticipations" which would prevent the policy from working. For instance, if the government bought corn abroad, some people would speculate that there

1943-585: The colonial periphery. Furthermore, defining cameralism as an early modern school of economy does not accurately portray the scope of the body of knowledge included in cameralism. During the 18th century cameralism spread through the lands of Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire and beyond. Professorial chairs in Cameralism were also created in Sweden and Denmark–Norway Foremost among the professors in cameralism

2010-414: The context of the predominantly rural, pre-industrial European society of the time. In the late Roman Republic , the dominant senatorial class was not allowed to engage in banking or commerce but relied on their latifundia , large plantations, for income. They circumvented this rule through freedmen proxies who sold surplus agricultural goods. Other inspiration came from China's economic system , then

2077-447: The development of bureaucracy in the early modern period because it was a method aimed at increasing the efficiency of cameralists—not only referring to the academics devoted to the science but to those employed in the Kammer , the state administration. Cameralism was associated with the early modern term oeconomics, which had a broader meaning than the modern term economics as it entailed

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2144-577: The economy, enabling greater extraction of wealth. There is, however, considerable debate about whether cameralist policy reflected the stated goals of academic cameralism. Defunct Former Cameralism gained traction in Sweden after the country had lost most of its possessions in Pomerania and the Baltic region after its defeat in the Great Northern War . The Swedish example shows how cameralism, as

2211-436: The evil results arising to the whole society from different degrees of such violations of the natural order. It follows from Quesnay's theoretic views that the one thing deserving the solicitude of the practical economist and the statesman is the increase of the net product; and he infers also what Smith afterwards affirmed, on not quite the same ground, that the interest of the landowner is strictly and indissolubly connected with

2278-404: The farm produced a surplus that added to the nation's wealth. Physiocrats viewed the production of goods and services as equivalent to the consumption of the agricultural surplus, since human or animal muscle provided the main source of power and all energy derived from the surplus from agricultural production. Profit in capitalist production was really only the "rent" obtained by the owner of

2345-488: The first important contributions to economic thought. The publications in which Quesnay expounded his system were the following: two articles, on "Fermiers" (Farmers) and on "Grains", in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1756, 1757); a discourse on the law of nature in the Physiocratie of Dupont de Nemours (1768); Maximes générales de gouvernement economique d'un royaume agricole (1758), and

2412-456: The foundation of the physiocrats’ economic theories. It also contains the origins of modern ideas on the circulation of wealth and the nature of interrelationships in the economy. The model Quesnay created consisted of three economic agents: the "proprietary" class consisted only of landowners; the "productive" class consisted of agricultural laborers; the "sterile" class was made up of artisans and merchants. The flow of production and cash between

2479-544: The freedom of the grain trade during the Flour War ), Lemercier de La Rivière , and du Pont de Nemours . Adam Smith , during his stay on the continent with the young Duke of Buccleuch in 1764–1766, spent some time in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Quesnay and some of his followers; he paid a high tribute to their scientific services in his Wealth of Nations . In 1717, Quesnay married Jeanne-Cathérine Dauphin, and had

2546-477: The general interest of the society. A small edition de luxe of this work, with other pieces, was printed in 1758 in the Palace of Versailles under the king's immediate supervision, some of the sheets, it is said, having been pulled by the royal hand. Already in 1767 the book had disappeared from circulation, and no copy of it is now procurable; but, the substance of it has been preserved in the Ami des hommes of Mirabeau, and

2613-426: The land on which the agricultural production took place. "The physiocrats damned cities for their artificiality and praised more natural styles of living. They celebrated farmers." They called themselves les Économistes , but are generally referred to as "physiocrats" to distinguish their beliefs from the many schools of economic thought that followed. Physiocracy is an agrarianist philosophy which developed in

2680-417: The largest in the world. Chinese society broadly distinguished four occupations , with scholar-bureaucrats (who were also agrarian landlords ) at the top and merchants at the bottom (because they did not produce but only distributed goods made by others). Leading physiocrats like François Quesnay were avid Confucianists who advocated China's agrarian policies. Some scholars have advocated connections with

2747-599: The most important were the Journal Œconomique (1721–72), which promoted agronomy and rational husbandry and the Journal du commerce (1759–62), which was heavily influenced by the Irishman Richard Cantillon (1680–1734), both dominated by physiocrats; the Journal de l'agriculture, du commerce et des finances (1765–74) and the Ephémérides du citoyen (1767–72 and 1774–76). Also, Vincent de Gournay (1712–1759),

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2814-491: The nation. A major innovation was the collection, use and interpretation of numerical and statistical data, ranging from trade statistics, harvest reports, and death notices to population censuses. Starting in the 1760s, officials in France and Germany began increasingly to rely on quantitative data for systematic planning, especially regarding long-term economic growth. It combined the utilitarian agenda of "enlightened absolutism" with

2881-500: The new ideas being developed in economics. In Germany and France, the trend was especially strong in cameralism and physiocracy . According to David F. Lindenfeld, it was divided into three: public finance, Oeconomie and Polizei . Here Oeconomie did not exactly mean ' economics ', nor did Polizei mean ' public policy ' in the modern senses. Cameralism distinguished between three subfields: cameral, oeconomie, and polizei (or Policey ). Cameral, or Cameralwissenschaft designated

2948-546: The new ideas being developed in economics. In Germany the trend was especially strong in Cameralism while in France it was an important theme in physiocracy. Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert served as a member of Louis XIV 's local administration of Paris, and wrote pamphlets and booklets on subjects related to his work: taxation, grain trade , and money. Le Pesant asserted that wealth came from self-interest and markets were connected by money flows (i.e. an expense for

3015-416: The physiocrats, only agricultural labor created this value in the products of society. All "industrial" and non-agricultural labors were "unproductive appendages" to agricultural labor. Quesnay was likely influenced by his medical training, particularly by the work of William Harvey who explained how blood flow and the circulatory system is vital to the human body; Quesnay held that the circulation of wealth

3082-438: The principal manifesto of the school. It was regarded by the followers of Quesnay as entitled to a place amongst the foremost products of human wisdom, and is named by the elder Mirabeau, in a passage quoted by Adam Smith , as one of the three great inventions which have contributed most to the stability of political societies, the other two being those of writing and of money. Its object was to exhibit by means of certain formulas

3149-399: The ruler's wealth, accumulation of gold, or the balance of trade . Whereas the mercantilist school of economics held that value in the products of society was created at the point of sale, by the seller exchanging his products for more money than the products had "previously" been worth, the physiocratic school of economics was the first to see labor as the sole source of value. However, for

3216-525: The school of agriculturalism , which promoted utopian communalism. One of the integral parts of physiocracy, laissez-faire , was adopted from Quesnay's writings on China, being a translation of the Chinese Taoism term wu wei . The concept natural order of physiocracy originated from "Way of Nature" of Chinese Taoism. The growing power of the centralized state control in the era of enlightened absolutism necessitated centralized, systematic information on

3283-420: The science of public finance, administered for the state's benefit. Oeconomie was not strictly economic, but designated all that encompassed the relationship between the state and society, with a goal of certain social outcomes. Polizei referred to the actual implementation of government policy- in a way it was the study of tools that the government might use. Cameralism as a science is closely connected with

3350-419: The simultaneously published Tableau économique avec son explication, ou extrait des économies royales de Sully (with the celebrated motto, Pauvres paysans, pauvre royaume; pauvre royaume, pauvre roi ); Dialogue sur le commerce et les travaux des artisans ; and other minor pieces. The Tableau économique , though on account of its dryness and abstract form it met with little general favor, may be considered

3417-499: The stewardship of households , both public, private and by extension the state itself. Thus, oeconomics was a broader domain in which the investigation of nature merged seamlessly with concerns for material and moral well-being, in which the inter-dependence of urban and rural productivity was appreciated and stewarded, in which "improvement" was simultaneously directed toward increasing the yields of agriculture, manufacturing and social responsibility . This further shaped cameralism as

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3484-614: The three classes originated with the proprietary class because they owned the land and bought from both of the other classes. The physiocrats thought there was a " natural order " that allowed human beings to live together. Men did not come together via a somewhat arbitrary " social contract ." Rather, they had to discover the laws of the natural order that would allow individuals to live in society without losing significant freedoms. This concept of natural order had originated in China. The Chinese had believed that there can be good government only when

3551-422: The time he was residing in the Palace of Versailles [13] . Despite residing in the Palace, Quesnay believed agriculture was the heart of the economy and of special importance to him. Quesnay argued that taxes placed on cultivators are only harmful to society as these taxes will reduce the incentive for agricultural production. Taxing proprietors (property holders) does not destroy the means of production meaning there

3618-459: The way in which the products of agriculture, which is the only source of wealth, would in a state of perfect liberty be distributed among the several classes of the community (namely, the productive classes of the proprietors and cultivators of land, and the unproductive class composed of manufacturers and merchants), and to represent by other formulas the modes of distribution which take place under systems of Governmental restraint and regulation, with

3685-636: The welfare of a nation. Gregory Blue writes that Quesnay "praised China as a constitutional despotism and openly advocated the adoption of Chinese institutions, including a standardized system of taxation and universal education." Blue speculates that this may have influenced the 1793 establishment of the Permanent Settlement in Bengal by the British Empire . Quesnay's interests in Orientalism has also been

3752-494: The Économistes, or, as for distinction's sake they were afterwards called, the Physiocrates. The most remarkable men in this group of disciples were the elder Mirabeau (author of L'Ami des hommes , 1756–60, and Philosophie rurale , 1763), Nicolas Baudeau ( Introduction a la philosophie économique , 1771), Guillaume-François Le Trosne ( De l'ordre social , 1777), André Morellet (best known by his controversy with Galiani on

3819-424: Was Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi (1717–1771), who linked Cameralism and the idea of natural law with each other. However, most cameralists were practitioners, not academics, and worked in the burgeoning bureaucracies sometimes supporting and other times shunning the science. Whether Cameralism was a technology that was applied to the different branches of the state and the economy decisively shaping it or whether it

3886-626: Was a French economist and physician of the Physiocratic school. He is known for publishing the " Tableau économique " (Economic Table) in 1758, which provided the foundations of the ideas of the Physiocrats. This was perhaps the first work attempting to describe the workings of the economy in an analytical way, and as such can be viewed as one of the first important contributions to economic thought. His Le Despotisme de la Chine , written in 1767, describes Chinese politics and society, and his own political support for enlightened despotism . Quesnay

3953-423: Was a university science has been a major debate in modern research of Cameralism. Much debate has traditionally centered on exactly which writings classify as Cameralism. However, the work of Keith Tribe, who holds cameralism to be a university science disconnected from the actual activities of the administrators, sparked a counter-reaction and shifted the debate to include the practitioners of Cameralism. The shift

4020-483: Was also needed to sustain the laborers while they produced their product. Turgot recognizes that there is opportunity cost and risk involved in using capital for something other than land ownership, and he promotes interest as serving a "strategic function in the economy." The ideas of the Physiocrats had an influence on Adam Smith , David Ricardo , John Stuart Mill , and above all Henry George , who appears at first to have come to similar beliefs independently. George

4087-469: Was born at Méré near Versailles , the son of an advocate and small landed proprietor. Apprenticed at the age of sixteen to a surgeon, he soon went to Paris, studied medicine and surgery there, and, having qualified as a master-surgeon, settled down to practice at Mantes . In 1737 he was appointed perpetual secretary of the academy of surgery founded by François Gigot de la Peyronie , and became surgeon in ordinary to King Louis XV . In 1744 he graduated as

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4154-521: Was influential in Northern European states—for example, in Prussia and Sweden —and its academics and practitioners were pioneers in economic, environmental, and administrative knowledge and technology; for example, cameralist accounting, still used in public finance today. The growing power of centralized state control necessitated centralized systematic information on the nation. A major innovation

4221-516: Was likely to be a shortage and would buy more corn, leading to higher prices and more of a shortage. This was an early example of advocacy of free trade. In anonymously published tracts, Vauban proposed a system known as La dîme royale : this involved major simplification of the French tax code by switching to a relatively flat tax on property and trade. Vauban's use of statistics contrasted with earlier empirical methods in economics. The event that led Mirabeau to devote himself to political economy

4288-415: Was the collection, use and interpretation of numerical and statistical data, ranging from trade statistics, harvest reports, and death notices to population censuses. Starting in the 1760s, officials in France and Germany began increasingly to rely on quantitative data for systematic planning, especially regarding long-term economic growth. It combined the utilitarian agenda of " enlightened absolutism " with

4355-569: Was the driving force behind what became known as the Single Tax movement (not to be confused with Flat Tax ). The Single Tax is a proposal for the use of the annual rental value of land ( land value taxation ) as the principal or sole source of public revenue. The New Physiocratic League is a current Georgist political movement which seeks to revive elements of physiocracy. Fran%C3%A7ois Quesnay François Quesnay ( French: [fʁɑ̃swa kɛnɛ] ; 4 June 1694 – 16 December 1774)

4422-510: Was undoubtedly his work on a manuscript of Richard Cantillon 's Essai sur la nature du commerce en général , which he had in his possession as early as 1740. He elaborated a commentary of this text that gradually became his Ami des hommes . Around the time of the Seven Years' War between France and England (1756–63), the physiocracy movement grew. Several journals appeared, signaling an increasing audience in France for new economic ideas. Among

4489-446: Was vital to the economy. Societies at the time were also overwhelmingly agrarian. This may be why they viewed agriculture as the primary source of a nation's wealth. This is an idea which Quesnay purported to demonstrate with data, comparing a workshop to a farm. He analyzed "how money flowed between the three classes of farmers, proprietors, and artisans, in the same mechanical way that blood flows between different organs" and claimed only

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