François Quesnay

June 4, 1694 (age 80)

Mere, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium

The founder of the physiocratic school, he did not write on economics until he was in his sixties. His two Encyclopédie articles introduced the characteristic argument that only agriculture could produce a ‘produitnet’. Despite his position close to the seat of power, he wrote articles critical of the régime, some of which were collected in A Physiocratie. Arguing from a concept of natural laws, in effect a description of the elements of a free enterprise system, he developed a version of society in which a strong monarch regulates affairs so that the natural order of things can operate freely. Because farmers and landowners were considered the truly productive classes in the physiocratie system, there was a counterbalancing disregard for the contributions of the merchant and industrialist. The criticism of privileged and unproductive groups, which were closely associated with the monarchy as it existed, was what made physiocracy a somewhat subversive doctrine. His Tableau économique was first hailed by Marx, and has since come to be regarded as a crude version of input-output analysis, pointing towards general equilibrium theory. Doctor; Consulting physician to Louis XV.

François Quesnay

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economist

Background

QUESNAY, François was born in 1694 in Mèrè, France.

Career

The founder of the physiocratic school, he did not write on economics until he was in his sixties. His two Encyclopédie articles introduced the characteristic argument that only agriculture could produce a ‘produitnet’. Despite his position close to the seat of power, he wrote articles critical of the régime, some of which were collected in A Physiocratie.

Arguing from a concept of natural laws, in effect a description of the elements of a free enterprise system, he developed a version of society in which a strong monarch regulates affairs so that the natural order of things can operate freely. Because farmers and landowners were considered the truly productive classes in the physiocratie system, there was a counterbalancing disregard for the contributions of the

merchant and industrialist. The criticism of privileged and unproductive groups, which were closely associated with the monarchy as it existed, was what made physiocracy a somewhat subversive doctrine.

His Tableau économique was first hailed by Marx, and has since come to be regarded as a crude version of input-output analysis, pointing towards general equilibrium theory. Doctor; Consulting physician to Louis XV.

Works

article
- Évidence
- Recherches sur l'évidence des vérites geometriques
- Projet de nouveaux éléments de géometrie
- Maximes générales de gouvernement economique d'un royaume agricole
- Tableau économique avec son explication, ou extrait des économies royales de Sully
- Dialogue sur le commerce et les travaux des artisans
book
- Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients
- Le Despotisme de la Chine

Politics

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 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 stardardized system of taxation and universal education."

Membership

Physiocrates

Interests

Confucianism

Connections

work:: Louis XV
Club member:: Jean C. M. V. de Gournay
Club member:: Victor de Riquetti, marquis de Mirabeau
Club member:: Nicolas Baudeau
Club member:: Guillaume-François Le Trosne
Club member:: André Morellet
Club member:: Mercier Larivière
Club member:: Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch and 5th Duke of Queensberry
pupil:: Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
pupil:: Baron de Laune
Collegue :: Adam Smith

Main Photo