Beginning of the article Pour François Quesnay, la Chine est la matrice à partir de laquelle il formule sa pensée politique, en décrivant à la fois ses influences philosophiques et en mettant au cœur de sa réflexion la discipline économique. C’est ce que reflète, au printemps 1767, la publication de Despotisme de la Chine dans … Continue reading Quesnay and Le Despotisme de la Chine: the Economy of a Political Stance
Tag: Quesnay
Quesnay’s Liberty and Rationality
The thought of Quesnay and Physiocrats is ambivalent: on the one hand, it promotes free trade, on the other it develops a political doctrine based on despotism. Would there be a discontinuity of physiocratic thought where the economy is the only space of freedom? For Quesnay, liberty is not absence of constraints; it is an opportunity for calculation and the expression of rationality. It analyzes the origins of this concept through Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz and Locke. The relation between liberty and natural right is analyzed to understand the coherence of physiocratic thought. Thus we understand better the link between liberty and order.
The Optimum Government of the Physiocrats: Legal Despotism or Legitimate Despotism?
Abstract This article argues for the existence of an original analysis of Lemercier de la Rivière’s concept of legal despotism unheralded by commentators. Quesnay, leader of the physiocrats, is usually acknowledged as the main source but the literature systematically refers to Lemercier de la Rivière’s writings. Lemercier de la Rivière’s main text, L’Ordre naturel et essentiel … Continue reading The Optimum Government of the Physiocrats: Legal Despotism or Legitimate Despotism?