physiocracy

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physiocracy

a school of thought or set of economic ideas based on the writings of QUESNAY and other 18th-century French economists and philosophers. The physiocrats felt that land was the single source of income and wealth in society capable of producing a ‘net product’. They also believed in the idea of a ‘natural order’ in society, which harmonized the particular interests of individual citizens with the common interests of society. This made them strong proponents of individual liberty and strong opponents of government intervention in society, other than to protect the individual and his property rights. Adam SMITH was strongly influenced by physiocratic ideas, and in his hands the ‘natural order’ was spelled out in the form of the workings of the market mechanism. See also PRIVATE-ENTERPRISE ECONOMY.

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Quesnay, François

References in periodicals archive ?

The influence of Adam Smith's direct/indirect distinction was probably greater than that of the physiocrats.

What the Constitution means by "duties, imposts, and excises" - and "taxes" direct or otherwise

The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment.

From reformism to Utopia? Pablo de Olavide's socioeconomic project in: El Evangelio en Triunfo (1797)

It is Marxist, Maritainian, or inspired by some recognized group of thinkers (the Physiocrats, the Cambridge Platonists).

Neff, Stephen C. Justice Among Nations: A History of International Law

By the end of the 18th century, first in Germany and then in Russia, cameralism gradually began to give way to more liberal ideas of autonomy and self-determination (Adam Smith, the French physiocrats, Kant).

Nineteenth-century Russian liberalism: ideals and realities

That capital could enhance the productivity of labour was a 'Marxian' idea that had been adopted earlier by the physiocrats and, of course, by Adam Smith.

Marx, Keynes and heterodoxy

As he argues at the end of the book with reference to the Physiocrats and Adam Smith, "political economy is constituted .

Spaces of benevolent abandonment: the German Air Security decision of 2006

251) "The Age of Revolutions had begun," observed historian Durand Echeverria, "and the literary symbol of America fashioned by the Physiocrats and Philosophes was transformed almost overnight into a popular enthusiasm which fired all of France.

The revolutionary portfolio: constitution-making and the wider world in the American Revolution

Against the French physiocrats who privileged agriculture, Hamilton found Smith's argument for the efficacy of the division of labor quite useful, even employing the very words of The Wealth of Nations (Bourne 1894, pp.

Hamilton, Harvard, and the German Historical School: a short note on a curious history

Some scholars perceive a contradiction between The Theory of Moral Sentiments, his first published work, and The Wealth of Nations that he completes after his visit to France in the period 1764-66 and his contact with Francois Quesnay who with his Tableau economique formulated in 1758 provided the analytical foundations for the Physiocrats.

Four contexts for philosophy of education and its relation to economic policy

The Physiocrats believed that an economy's power derived from its agricultural sector.

Problematizing liberal cosmopolitanisms: foucault and neoliberal cosmopolitan governmentality

The Greeks held that "agriculture is morally better than trade and industry," a prejudice that would persist well into the late 18th century among French physiocrats and Jeffersonian democrats.

Mind vs. Money: The War between Intellectuals and Capitalism

It was the French physiocrats who considered land the principal input, while the mercantilists often stressed the importance of a favorable trade balance for the process of wealth accumulation.