To sum up, we may say that the “natural order” was that order which seemed obviously the best, not to any individual whomsoever, but to rational, cultured, liberal-minded men like the Physiocrats. It was not the product of the observation of external facts; it was the revelation of a principle within. And this is one reason why the Physiocrats showed such respect for property and authority. It seemed to them that these formed the very basis of the “natural order.”
It was just because the “natural order” was “supernatural,” and so raised above the contingencies of everyday life, that it seemed to them to be endowed with all the grandeur of the geometrical order, with its double attributes of universality and immutability. It remained the same for all times, and for all men. Its fiat was “unique, eternal, invariable, and universal.” Divine in its origin, it was universal in its scope, and its praises were sung in litanies that might rival the Ave Maria.[19] Speaking of its universality, Turgot writes as follows: “Whoever is unable to overlook the accidental separation of political states one from another, or to forget their diverse institutions, will never treat a question of political economy satisfactorily.”[20] Referring to its immutability, he adds: “It is not enough to know what is or what has been; we must also know what ought to be. The rights of man are not founded upon history: they are rooted in his nature.”
It looked as if this dogmatic optimism would dominate the whole Classical school, especially the French writers, and that natural law would usurp the functions of Providence. To-day it is everywhere discredited, but when it first loomed above the horizon its splendour dazzled all eyes. Hence the many laudatory remarks, which to us seem hyperbolical, if not actually ridiculous.[21] But it was no small thing to found a new science, to set up a new aim and a fresh ideal, to lay down the framework which others were to fill in.
It was the practical results, however, that revealed the full powers of the “natural order.” It so happened that the mass of regulations which constituted the old régime fell to the ground before its onslaughts almost immediately, and it all came about in this fashion.
Knowledge of the “natural order” was not sufficient. Daily life must also conform to the knowledge. Nothing could be easier than this, for “if the order really were the most advantageous”[22] every man could be trusted to find out for himself the best way of attaining it without coercion of any kind.[23]
This psychological balance which every individual was supposed to carry within himself, and which, as the basis of the Neo-Classical school, is known as the Hedonistic principle, is admirably described by Quesnay.[24] “To secure the greatest amount of pleasure with the least possible outlay should be the aim of all economic effort.” And this was what the “order” aimed at. “When every one does this the natural order, instead of being endangered, will be all the better assured.” It is of the very essence of that order that the particular interest of the individual can never be separated from the common interest of all, but this happens only under a free system. “The movements of society are spontaneous and not artificial, and the desire for joy which manifests itself in all its activities unwittingly drives it towards the realisation of the ideal type of State.”[25] This is laissez-faire pure and simple.[26]
These famous formulæ have been so often repeated and criticised since that they appear somewhat trite to-day. But it is certain that they were not so at the time. It is easy to laugh at their social philosophy, to mock at its naïveté and simplicity, and to show that such supposed harmony of interests between men does not exist, that the interests of individuals do not always coincide with those of the community, and that the private citizen is not always the best judge even of his own interests. It was perhaps necessary that the science should be born of such extreme optimism. No science can be constructed without some amount of faith in a pre-established order.
Moreover, laissez-faire does not of necessity mean that nothing will be done. It is not a doctrine of passivity or fatalism. There will be ample scope for individual effort, for it simply means leaving an open field and securing fair play for everyone, free from all fear lest his own interests should injure other people’s or in any way prejudice those of the State. It is true that there will not be much work for the Government, but the task of that body will by no means be a light one, especially if it intends carrying out the Physiocratic programme. This included upholding the rights of private property and individual liberty by removing all artificial barriers, and punishing all those who threatened the existence of any of these rights; while, most important of all, there was the duty of giving instruction in the laws of the “natural order.”
II: THE NET PRODUCT
Every social fact had a place within the “natural order” of the Physiocrats. Such a wide generalisation would have entitled them to be regarded as the founders of sociology rather than of economics. But there was included one purely economic phenomenon which attracted their attention at an early stage, and so completely captivated their imaginations as to lead them on a false quest. This was the predominant position which land occupied as an agent of production—the most erroneous and at the same time the most characteristic doctrine in the whole Physiocratic system.
Every productive undertaking of necessity involves certain outgoings—a certain loss. In other words, some amount of wealth is destroyed in the production of new wealth—an amount that ought to be subtracted from the amount of new wealth produced. This difference, measuring as it does the excess of the one over the other, constitutes the net increase of wealth, known since the time of the Physiocrats as the “net product.”
The Physiocrats believed that this “net product” was confined to one class of production only, namely, agriculture. Here alone, so it seemed to them, the wealth produced was greater than the wealth consumed. Barring accidents, the labourer reaped more than he consumed, even if we included in his consumption his maintenance throughout a whole year, and not merely during the seasons of harvest and tilth. It was because agricultural production had this unique and marvellous power of yielding a “net product” that economy was possible and civilisation a fact.[27] It was not true of any other class of production, either of commerce or of transport, where it was very evident that man’s labour produced nothing, but merely replaced or transferred the products already produced. Neither was it true of manufacture, where the artisan simply combined or otherwise modified the raw material.[28]
It is true that such transfer or accretion of matter may increase the value of the product, but only in proportion to the amount of wealth which had to be consumed in order to produce it; because the price of manual labour is always equal to the cost of the necessaries consumed by the worker. All that we have in this case, however, is a collection of superimposed values with some raw material thrown into the bargain. But, as Mercier de la Rivière put it, “addition is not multiplication.”[29]
Consequently, industry was voted sterile. This implied no contempt for industry and commerce. “Far from being useless, these are the arts that supply the luxuries as well as the necessaries of life, and upon these mankind is dependent both for its preservation and for its well-being.”[30] They are unproductive in the sense that they produce no “extra” wealth.
It may be pointed out, on the other hand, that the “gains,” both in industry and commerce, are far in excess of those of agriculture. All this was immaterial to the Physiocrats, for “they were gained, not produced.”[31] Such gains simply represented wealth transferred from the agricultural to the industrial classes.[32] The agricultural classes furnished the artisans not only with raw material, but also with the necessaries of life. The artisans were simply the domestic servants, or, to use Turgot’s phrase, the hirelings of the agriculturists.[33] Strictly speaking, the latter could keep the whole net product to themselves, but finding it more convenient they entrust the making of their clothes, the erection of their houses, and the production of their implements to the artisans, giving them a portion of the net product as remuneration.[34] It is possible, of course, that, like many servants in fine houses, the latter manage to make a very good living at their masters’ expense.
The “sterile classes” in Physiocratic parlance simply signifies those who draw their incomes second-hand. The Physiocrats had the good sense to try to give an explanation of this unfortunate term, which threatened to discredit their system altogether, and which it seemed unfair to apply to a whole class that had done more than any other towards enriching the nation.
It is a debatable point whether the Physiocrats attributed this virtue of furnishing a net product solely to agriculture or whether they intended it to apply to extractive industries, such as mining and fishing. They seem to apply it in a general way to mines, but the references are rare and not infrequently contradictory. We can understand their hesitating, for, on the one hand, mines undoubtedly give us new wealth in the form of raw materials, just as the land or sea does; on the other hand, the fruits of the earth and the treasures of the deep are not so easily exhausted as mines. Turgot put it excellently when he said, “The land produces fruit annually, but a mine produces no fruit. The mine itself is the garnered fruit,” and he concludes that mines, like industrial undertakings, give no net product, that if any one had any claim to that product it would be the owner of the soil, but that in any case the surplus would be almost insignificant.[35]
This essential difference which the Physiocrats sought to establish between agricultural and industrial production was at bottom theological. The fruits of the earth are given by God, while the products of the arts are wrought by man, who is powerless to create.[36] The reply is obvious. God would still be creator if He decreed to give us our clothes instead of our daily bread. And, although man cannot create matter, but simply transform it, it is important to remember that the cultivation of the soil, like the fashioning of iron or wood, is merely a process of transformation. They failed to grasp the truth which Lavoisier was to demonstrate so clearly, namely, that in nature nothing is ever created and nothing lost. A grain of corn sown in a field obtains the materials for the ear from the soil and atmosphere, transmuting them to suit its own purpose, just as the baker, out of that same corn, combined with water, salt, and yeast, will make bread.
But they were sufficiently clear-sighted to see that all natural products, including even corn, were influenced by the varying condition of the markets, and that if prices fell very low the net product disappeared altogether. In view of such facts can it still be said that the earth produces real value or that its produce differs in any essential respects from the products of industry?
The Physiocrats possibly thought that the bon prix—i.e. the price which yielded a surplus over and above cost of production—was a normal effect of the “natural order.” Whenever the price fell to the level of the cost of production it was a sure sign that the “order” had been destroyed. Under these circumstances there was nothing remarkable in the disappearance of the net product. This is doubtless the significance of Quesnay’s enigmatic saying: “Abundance and cheapness are not wealth, scarcity and dearness are misery, abundance and dearness are opulence.”[37]
But if the bon prix simply measures the difference between the value of the product and its cost of production, then it is not more common in agriculture than in other modes of production. Nor does it extend over a longer period in the one case than in the other, provided competition be operative in both cases; on the contrary, it will become manifest in the one case as easily as in the other, especially if there be any scarcity. It remains to be seen then whether monopoly values are more prevalent in agricultural production than in industrial. In a very general way, seeing that there is only a limited quantity of land, we may answer in the affirmative, and admit a certain degree of validity in the Physiocratic theory. But the establishment of protective rights and the occurrence of agricultural crises clearly prove that competition also has some influence upon the amount of that revenue.
The net product was just an illusion. The essence of production is not the creation of matter, but simply the accretion of value. But it is not difficult to appreciate the nature of the illusion if we recall the circumstances, and try to visualise the kind of society with which the Physiocrats were acquainted. One section of the community, consisting solely of nobility and clergy, lived upon the rents which the land yielded. Their luxurious lives would have been impossible if the earth did not yield something over and above the amount consumed by the peasant. It is curious that the Physiocrats, while they regarded the artisans as nothing better than servants who depended for their very existence upon the agriculturists, failed to recognise the equally complete dependence of the worthless proprietor upon his tenants. If there had existed instead a class of business men living in ease and luxury, and drawing their dividends, it is quite possible that the Physiocrats would have concluded that there was a net product in industrial enterprise.
So deeply rooted was this idea of nature, or God operating through nature, as the only source of value that we find traces of it even in Adam Smith. Not until we come to Ricardo do we have a definite contradiction of it. With Ricardo, rent, the income derived from land, instead of being regarded as a blessing of nature—the Alma Parens—which was bound to grow as the “natural order” extended its sway, is simply looked upon as the inevitable result of the limited extent and growing sterility of the land. No longer is it a free gift of God to men, but a pre-imposed tax which the consumer has to pay the proprietor. No longer is it the net product; henceforth it is known as rent.
As to the epithet “sterile,” which was applied to every kind of work other than agriculture, we shall find that it has been superseded, and that the attribute “productive” has been successively applied to every class of work—first to industry, then to commerce, and finally to the liberal professions. Even if it were true that industrial undertakings only yield the equivalent of the value consumed, that is not enough to justify the epithet “sterile,” unless, as Adam Smith wittily remarks, we are by analogy to consider every marriage sterile which does not result in the birth of more than two children. To invoke the distinction between addition and multiplication is useless, because arithmetic teaches us that multiplication is simply an abridged method of adding.
It seems very curious that that kind of wealth which appeared to the Physiocrats to be the most legitimate and the most superior kind should be just the one that owed nothing to labour, and which later on, under the name of rent, seems the most difficult to justify.
But we must not conclude that the Physiocratic theory of the net product possessed no scientific value.
It was a challenge to the economic doctrines of the time, especially Mercantilism. The Mercantilists thought that the only way to increase wealth was to exploit neighbours and colonists, but they failed to see that commerce and agriculture afforded equally satisfactory methods. Nor must we forget the Physiocrats’ influence upon practical politics. Sully, the French minister, betrays evidence of their influence when he remarks that the only two sources of national wealth are land and labour. Let us also remember that, despite some glaring mistakes, agriculture has never lost the pre-eminence which they gave it, and that the recent revival of agricultural Protection is directly traceable to their influence. They were always staunch Free Traders themselves, but we can hardly blame them for not being sufficiently sanguine to expect such whole-hearted acceptance of their views as to anticipate some of the more curious developments of their doctrines. It is almost certain that if they were living to-day they would not be found supporting the Protectionist movement. At least this is the opinion of M. Oncken, the economist, who has made the most thorough study of their ideas.[38]
Although the Physiocratic distinction between agriculture and industry was largely imaginary, it is nevertheless true that agriculture does possess certain special features, such as the power of engendering the forces of life, whether vegetable or animal. This mysterious force, which under the term “nature” was only very dimly understood by the Physiocrats, and still is too often confused with the physico-chemical forces, does really possess some characteristics which help us to differentiate between agriculture and industry. At some moments agriculture seems inferior because its returns are limited by the exigencies of time and place; but more often superior because agriculture alone can produce the necessaries of life. This is no insignificant fact; but we are trenching on the difficult problems connected with the name of Malthus.
III: THE CIRCULATION OF WEALTH
The Physiocrats were the first to attempt a synthesis of distribution. They were anxious to know—and it was surely a praiseworthy ambition—how wealth passed from one class in society to another, why it always followed the same routes, whose meanderings they were successful in unravelling, and how this continual circulation, as Turgot said, “constituted the very life of the body politic, just as the circulation of the blood did of the physical.”
A scholar like Quesnay, the author of the work on animal economy[39] and a diligent student of Harvey’s new discovery, was precisely the man to carry the biological idea over into the realm of sociology. He made use of the idea in his Tableau économique, which is simply a graphic representation of the way in which the circulation of wealth takes place. The appearance of this table caused an enthusiasm among his contemporaries that is almost incredible,[40] although Professor Hector Denis declares that he is almost ready to share in Mirabeau’s admiration.[41]
We know by this time that this circulation is much more complicated than the Physiocrats believed, but it is still worth while to give an outline of their conception.[42]
Quesnay distinguishes three social classes:
1. A productive class consisting entirely of agriculturists—perhaps also of fishermen and miners.
2. A proprietary class, including not only landed proprietors, but also any who have the slightest title to sovereignty of any kind—a survival of feudalism, where the two ideas of sovereignty and property are always linked together.
3. A sterile class, consisting of merchants and manufacturers, together with domestic servants and members of the liberal professions.
The first class, being the only productive class, must supply all that flow of wealth whose course we are now to follow. Let us suppose, then—the figures are Quesnay’s and seem sufficiently near the facts—that the value of the total wealth produced equals 5 milliard francs. Of this 5 milliards 2 milliards are necessary for the upkeep of the members of this class and its oxen during harvest and sowing. This portion does not circulate. It simply remains where it was produced. The produce representing the remaining 3 milliards is sold. But agricultural products alone do not suffice for the upkeep of Class 1. Manufactured goods, clothes, and boots also are required, and these are got from the industrial classes, for which a milliard francs is given.
There remain just 2 milliards, which go to the landowners and the Government in rents and taxes. By and by we shall see how they attempted to justify this apparent parasitism.
Let us pass on to consider the propertied class. It manages to live upon the 2 milliards which it receives by way of rents, and it lives well. Its food it must obtain from the agricultural class (unless, of course, the rents are paid in kind), and for this it possibly pays a milliard francs. It also requires manufactured goods, which it must get from the sterile class, and for which it pays another milliard francs. This completes their account.
As to the sterile class, it produces nothing, and so, unlike the preceding class, it can only get its necessaries second-hand from the productive class. These may be got in two ways: a milliard from the agricultural class in payment for manufactured goods and another milliard from the landed proprietors. The latter milliard being one of the two which the landed proprietors got from the agriculturists, has in this way described the complete circle.
The 2 milliards obtained as salaries by the sterile class are employed in buying the necessaries of life and the raw material of industry. And since it is only the productive class that can procure these necessaries and raw materials, this 2 milliards passes into the hands of the agriculturists. The 2 milliards, in short, return to their starting-point. Adding the milliard already paid by the landed proprietors to the 2 milliards’ worth of products unsold, the total of 5 milliards is replaced in the hands of the productive class, and so the process goes on indefinitely.[43]
This résumé gives but a very imperfect idea of the vast complexities and difficulties involved in tracing the growth of revenues—an evolution which the Physiocrats followed with the enthusiasm of children. They imagined that it was all very real.[44] The rediscovery of their millions intoxicated them, but, like many of the mathematical economists of to-day, they forgot that at the end of their calculations they only had what they had assumed at the beginning. It is very evident that the table proves nothing as to the essential point in their system, namely, whether there really exist a productive and a sterile class.[45]
The most interesting thing in the Physiocratic scheme of distribution is not the particular demonstration which they gave of it, but the emphasis which they laid upon the fact of the circulation of wealth taking place in accordance with certain laws, and the way in which the revenue of each class was determined by this circulation.
The singular position which the proprietors hold in this tripartite division of society is one of the most curious features of the system.
Anyone examining the table in a non-Physiocratic fashion, but simply viewing it in the modern spirit, must at once feel surprised and disappointed to find that the class which enjoys two-fifths of the national revenue does nothing in return for it. We should not have been surprised if such glaring parasitism had given to the work of the Physiocrats a distinctly socialistic tone. But they were quite impervious to all such ideas. They never appreciated the weakness of the landowners’ position, and they always treated them with the greatest reverence. The epithet “sterile” is applied, not to them, but to manufacturers and artisans! Property is the foundation-stone of the “natural order.” The proprietors have been entrusted with the task of supplying the staff of life, and are endued with a kind of priestly sacredness. It is from their hands that all of us receive the elements of nutrition. It is a “divine” institution—the word is there.[46] Such idolatry needs some explanation.
One might have expected—even from their own point of view—that the premier position would have been given to the class which they termed productive, i.e. to the cultivators of the soil, who were mostly farmers and métayers. The land was not of their making, it is true. They had simply received it from the proprietors. This latter class takes precedence because God has willed that it should be the first dispenser of all wealth.[47]
There is no need to insist on this strange aberration which led them to look for the creator of the land and its products, not amid the cultivators of the soil, but among the idlers.[48] Such was the logical conclusion of their argument. We must also remember that the Physiocrats failed to realise the inherent dignity of all true labour simply because it was not the creator of wealth. This applied both to the agricultural labourer and the industrial worker, and though the former alone was considered productive it was because he was working in co-operation with nature. It was nature that produced the wealth and not the worker.
Something must also be attributed to their environment. Knowing only feudal society, with its economic and political activities governed and directed by idle proprietors, they suffered from an illusion as to the necessity for landed property similar to that which led Aristotle to defend the institution of slavery.[49]
Although they failed to foresee the criticisms that would be levelled against the institution of private property, they were very assiduous—especially the Abbé Baudeau—in seeking an explanation of its origin and a justification of its existence. The reasons which they advanced are more worthy of quotation than almost any argument that has since been employed by conservative economists.
The most solid argument, in their opinion—at least the one that was most frequently used—is that these proprietors are either the men who cleared and drained the land or else their rightful descendants. They have incurred or they are incurring expenditure in clearing the land, enclosing it and building upon it—what the Physiocrats call the avances foncières.[50] They never get their revenues through some one else as the manufacturers do, and they are anything but parasites. Their portion is optimo jure, in virtue of a right prior and superior even to that of the cultivators, for although the cultivators help to make the product, the proprietors help to make the land. The three social classes of the Physiocratic scheme may be likened to three persons who get their water from the same well. It is drawn from the well by members of the productive class in bucketfuls, which are passed on to the proprietors, but the latter class gives nothing in return for it, for the well is of their making. At a respectable distance comes the sterile class, obliged to buy water in exchange for its labour.[51]
The Physiocrats failed to notice the contradiction involved in this. If the revenue which the proprietor draws represents the remuneration for his outlay and the return for his expenditure it is no longer a gift of nature, and the net product vanishes, for, by definition, it represented what was left of the gross product after paying all initial expenses—the excess over cost of production. If we accept this explanation of the facts there is no longer any surplus to dispose of. It is as capitalists pure and simple and not as the representatives of God that proprietors obtain their rents.
Must we really believe that although these outlays afford some explanation of the existence of private property they supply no means of measuring or of limiting its extent? Is there no connection between these outlays and the revenues which landed proprietors draw?
Or must we distinguish between the two portions of the revenue—the one, indispensable, representing the reimbursement of the original outlay, and in every respect comparable to the revenue of the farmer, and the other, being a true surplus, constituting the net product? How can they justify the appropriation of the latter?
There is another argument held in reserve, namely, that based upon social utility. They point out that the cultivation of land would cease and the one source of all wealth would become barren if the pioneer were not allowed to reap the fruits of his labour.
The new argument is a contradiction of the old. In the former case land was appropriated because it had been cultivated. In the present case land must be appropriated before it can be cultivated. In the former labour is treated as the efficient cause, in the latter as the final cause of production.
Finally, the Physiocrats believed that landed proprietorship was simply the direct outcome of “personal property,” or of the right of every man to provide for his own sustenance. This right includes the right of personal estate, which in turn involves the right of landed property. These three kinds of property are so closely connected that in reality they form one unit, and no one of the three can be detached without involving the destruction of the other two.[52] They were full of veneration for property of every description—not merely for landed property. “The safety of private property is the real basis of the economic order of society,” says Quesnay.[53] Mercier de la Rivière writes: “Property may be regarded as a tree of which social institutions are branches growing out of the trunk.”[54] We shall encounter this cult of property even during the terrible days of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. When all respect for human life was quite lost there still remained this respect for property.
The defence of private property was already well-nigh complete.[55] But if they were strong in their defence of the institution they did not fail to impose upon it some onerous duties—which counterbalanced its eminent dignity. Of course, every proprietor should always be guided by reason and be mannerly in his behaviour, and he should never allow mere authority to become the rule of life.[56] Their duties are as follows:
1. They must continue without fail to bring lands into cultivation, i.e. they must continue the avances foncières.[57]
2. They must dispose of the wealth which the nation has produced in such a way as to further the general interest; this is their task as the stewards of society.[58]
3. They must aim during their leisure at giving to society all those gratuitous services which they can render, and which society so sorely needs.
4. They must bear the whole burden of taxation.
5. Above all they must protect their tenants, the agriculturists, and be very careful not to demand more than the net product. The Physiocrats never go the length of advising them to give to their tenants a portion of the net product, but they impress upon them the importance of giving them the equivalent of their annual expenditure and of dealing liberally with them. It does not seem much, but it must have been something in those days. “I say it boldly,” writes Baudeau, “cursed be every proprietor, every sovereign and emperor that puts all the burden upon the peasant, and the land, which gives all of us our sustenance. Show them that the lot of the worthy individuals who employ their own funds or who depend upon those of others is to none of us a matter of complete indifference, that whoever hurts or degrades, attacks or robs them is the cruellest enemy of society, and that he who ennobles them, furthers their well-being, comfort, or leisure increases their output of wealth, which after all is the one source of income for every class in society.”[59] Such generous words, which were none too common at the time, release the Physiocrats from the taunt of showing too great a favour to the proprietors. In return for such privileges as they gave them they demanded an amount of social service far beyond anything that was customary at the time.
II
So far we have considered only the Physiocratic theory. But the Physiocratic influence can be much more clearly traced if we turn to applied economics and examine their treatment of such questions as the regulation of industry, the functions of the State, and the problems of taxation.[60]
I: TRADE
All exchange, the Physiocrats thought, was unproductive, for by definition it implies a transfer of equal values. If each party only receives the exact equivalent of what it gives there is no wealth produced. It may happen, however, that the parties to the exchange are of unequal strength, and the one may grow rich at the expense of the other.[61] In giving a bottle of wine in exchange for a loaf of bread there is a double displacement of wealth, which evidently affords a fuller satisfaction of wants in both cases, but there is no wealth created, for the objects so exchanged are of equal value. To-day the reasoning would be quite different. The present-day economist would argue as follows: “If I exchange my wine for your bread, that is a proof that my hunger is greater than my thirst, but that you are more thirsty than hungry. Consequently the wine has increased in utility in passing from my hands into yours, and the bread, likewise, in passing from your hands into mine, and this double increase of utility constitutes a real increase of wealth.” Such reasoning would have appeared absurd to the Physiocrats, who conceived of wealth as something material, and they could never have understood how the creation of a purely subjective attribute like utility could ever be considered productive.
We have already had occasion to remark that industry and commerce were considered unproductive. This was a most significant fact, so far as commerce was concerned, because all the theories that held the field under Mercantilism, notably the doctrine that foreign commerce afforded the only possible means of increasing a country’s wealth, immediately assumed a dwindling importance. For the Mercantilists the prototype of the State was a rich merchant of Amsterdam. For the Physiocrats it was John Bull.
And foreign trade, like domestic, produced no real wealth: the only result was a possible gain, and one man’s gain is another man’s loss. “Every commercial nation flatters itself upon its growing wealth as the outcome of foreign trade. This is a truly astonishing phenomenon, for they all believe that they are growing rich and gaining from one another. It must be admitted that this gain, as they call it, is a most remarkable thing, for they all gain and none loses.”[62] A country must, of course, obtain from foreigners the goods which it cannot itself produce in exchange for those it cannot itself consume. Foreign trade is quite indispensable, but Mercier de la Rivière thinks that it is a necessary evil[63] (he underlines the word). Quesnay contents himself with referring to it merely as a pis aller.[64] He thought that the only really useful exchange is one in which agricultural products pass directly from producers to consumers, for without this the products would be useless and would simply perish in the producer’s hands. But that kind of exchange which consists in buying products in order to resell them—trafficking, or a commercial transaction, as we call it—is sheer waste, for the wealth instead of growing larger becomes less, because a portion of it is absorbed by the traffickers themselves.[65] We meet with the same idea in Carey. Mercier de la Rivière ingeniously compares such traders to mirrors, arranged in such a way that they reflect a number of things at the same time, all in different positions. “Like mirrors, too, the traders seem to multiply commodities, but they only deceive the superficial.”[66]
That may be; but, admitting a contempt for commerce, what conclusions do they draw from it? Shall they prohibit it, or regulate it, or shall they just let it take its own course? Any one of these conclusions would follow from their premises. If commerce be as useless as they tried to make out, the first solution would be the best. But it was the third that they were inclined to adopt, and we must see why.
It seems quite evident that the Physiocrats would have condemned both the Mercantile and the Colbertian systems. Both of these aimed at securing a favourable balance of trade—an aim which the Physiocrats considered illusory, if not actually immoral. But if they thought all trade was useless it is not easy to understand their enthusiasm for Free Trade. Those economists who nowadays favour Free Trade support it in the belief that it is of immense benefit to every country wherein it is practised, and that the more it is developed the richer will the exchanging countries become. But such was not the Physiocratic doctrine. It is a noteworthy fact that they are to be regarded as the founders of Free Trade, not because of any desire to favour trade as such, but because their attitude towards it was one of disdainful laissez-faire. They were not, perhaps, altogether free from the belief that laissez-faire would lead to the disappearance of commerce altogether. They were Free Traders primarily because they desired the freedom of domestic trade, and we must not lose sight of those extraordinary regulations which completely fettered its movements at this time.[67]
The “natural order” also implied that each one would be free to buy or sell wherever he chose, within or without the country. It recognised no frontiers,[68] for only through “liberty” could the “good price” be secured. The “good price” meant the highest price and not the lowest, dearth and not cheapness. “Free competition with foreign merchants can alone secure the best possible price, and only the highest price will enable us to increase our stock of wealth and to maintain our population by agriculture.”[69] This is the language of agriculturists rather than of Free Traders. It is the natural result of thinking about agricultural problems, and especially about the question of raising corn; and since Free Trade at this time gave rise to no fears on the score of importation, free exchange meant free exportation. Oncken points out that the commercial régime which the Physiocrats advocated was identical with that in operation in England about this time, where in case of over-abundance exportation was encouraged in order to keep up the price, and in case of dearth importation was permitted in order to ensure a steady supply and to prevent the price rising too much.[70]
In a word, Free Trade meant for the Physiocrats the total abolition of all those measures which found so much favour with the Mercantilists, and which aimed at preventing exportation to places outside the country and checking the growth of free intercourse within it.[71] Narrow as their conception of Free Trade at first was, it was not long in growing out of the straitened circumstances which gave it birth, and it developed gradually into the Free Trade doctrine as we know it, which Walras expressed as follows: “Free competition secures for every one the maximum final utility, or, what comes to the same thing, gives the maximum satisfaction.” We no longer admit that international trade is a mere pis aller. But all the arguments which have been used in its defence on the Free Trade side were first formulated by the Physiocrats. We shall refer to a few of them.
The fallacy lurking behind the “balance of trade” theory is exposed with great neatness by Mercier de la Rivière. “I will drown the clamour of all your blind and stupid policies. Suppose that I gave you all the money which circulates among the nations with whom you trade. Imagine it all in your possession. What would you do with it?” He goes on to show how not a single foreign country will any longer be able to buy, and consequently all exportation will cease. The result of this excessive dearness will be that buying from foreign countries will be resorted to, and this will result in the exportation of metallic currency, which will soon readjust matters.[72]
The contention that import duties are paid by the foreigner is also refuted. Nothing will be sold by the foreigner at a lower price than that which other nations would be willing to give him. An import duty on such goods will increase the real price, which the foreigner will demand, and this import duty will be paid by those who buy the goods.[73]
There is also a refutation of the policy known as reciprocity. “A nation levies an import duty upon the goods of another nation, but it forgets that in trying to injure the selling nation it is really checking the possible consumption of its own goods. This indirect effect, of course, is inevitable, but can nothing be done to remedy this by means of reprisals? England levies a heavy duty on French wines, thereby reducing its debit account with France very considerably, but more French wine will not be bought if a tax is also placed upon the goods which England exports to France. Do you think that the prejudice which England has taken against France can be remedied in this way?”
We have multiplied instances, for during the whole of the hundred years which have since elapsed has anyone deduced better arguments?
These theories immediately received legal sanction in the edicts of 1763 and 1766 establishing free trade in corn, first within the country and then without, but some very serious restrictions were still retained. Unfortunately Nature proved very ungrateful to her friends. For four or five years she ran riot with a series of bad harvests, for which, as we may well imagine, the Physiocratic régime and its inspirers were held responsible. Despite the protests of the Physiocrats, this liberal act was repealed in 1770. It was re-established by Turgot in 1774, and again repealed by Necker in 1777—a variety of fortune that betokens a fickleness of public opinion.
This new piece of legislation, and, indeed, the whole Physiocratic theory, was subjected to severe criticism by an abbot of the name of Galiani. Galiani was a Neapolitan monsignor residing at the French court. At the age of twenty-four he had written a remarkable work in Italian dealing with money, and in 1770, written in splendid French, appeared his Dialogues sur le Commerce des Blés. It was an immediate success, and it won the unqualified approval of Voltaire, who was possibly attracted more by the style than by the profundity of thought. Galiani was not exactly opposed to laissez-faire. “Liberty,” he wrote, “stands in no need of defence so long as it is at all possible. Whenever we can we ought to be on the side of liberty.”[74] But he is opposed to general systems and against complete self-surrender into the hands of Nature. “Nature,” says he, “is too vast to be concerned about our petty trifles.”[75] He shares the realistic or historical views of the writers of to-day, and thinks that before applying the principles of political economy some account should be taken of time, place, and circumstances. “The state of which the Physiocrats speak—what is it? Where is it to be found.”[76]
Along with Galiani we must mention the great financier Necker, who in a bulky volume entitled La Législation et le Commerce des Grains (1775) advocates opportunistic views almost identical in character with those of Galiani, and who, as Minister of State (1776-81 and 1788-90), put an end to free trade in corn.
In monetary matters, especially on the question of interest, the Physiocrats were willing to recognize an exception to their principle of non-intervention. Mirabeau thought that whenever a real increase of wealth resulted from the use of capital, as in agriculture, the payment of interest was only just. It was simply a sign or symbol of the net product. But in trade matters he thought it best to limit if not to prohibit it altogether. It often proved very harmful, and frequently was nothing better than a tax levied by order of “the corrosive landowners.” Quesnay could not justify it except in those cases where it yielded a net product, but he was content simply to suggest a limitation of it. The Physiocrats are at least logical. If capital sunk in industrial and commercial undertakings yields no income it is evident that the interest must be taken from the borrower’s pocket, and they condemned it just as they condemned taxing the industrial and commercial classes.
Turgot[77] is the only one of them who frankly justifies taking interest. The reason that he gives is not the usual Physiocratic argument, but rather that the owner of capital may either invest it in the land or undertake some other productive work—capital being the indispensable basis of all enterprise[78]—and that, consequently, the capital will never be given to anyone who will offer less than what might have been made out of it did the owner himself employ it. This argument implies that every undertaking is essentially a productive one, and indeed one of the traits which distinguishes Turgot from the other Physiocrats is the fact that he did not think that industry and commerce were entirely unproductive.
II: THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE
Seeing that the Physiocrats believed that human society was pervaded by the principle of “natural order,” which required no adventitious aid from any written law, and since Nature’s voice, without any artificial restraint, was sufficient guide for mankind, it might have been expected that the trend of Physiocracy would have been toward the negation of all legislation, of all authority—in a word, toward the subversion of the State.
It is certain that the Physiocrats wished to reduce legislative activity to a minimum, and they expressed the belief—which has often been repeated since by every advocate of laissez-faire—that the most useful work any legislative body can do is to abolish useless laws.[79] If any new laws are required they ought simply to be copies of the unwritten laws of Nature. Neither men nor Governments can make laws, for they have not the necessary ability. Every law should be an expression of that Divine wisdom which rules the universe. Hence the true title of lawgiver, not law-maker.[80] It is in this connexion that we meet with those anecdotes—some of more than doubtful authenticity it is true—that have gathered round their names. Of these the best known is that which tells of Mercier de la Rivière’s visit to St. Petersburg, and his laconic reply to Catherine the Great. He had been invited there to advise the Empress about a new constitution for the country. After dilating upon the great difficulties of the undertaking and the responsibilities it involved, he gave it as his opinion that the best way of achieving her object was just to let things take their course. Whereupon the Empress promptly wished him good-bye.
But it would be a great mistake to think of the Physiocrats as anarchists. What they wanted to see was the minimum of legislation with a maximum of authority. The two things are by no means incompatible. The liberal policy of limitation and control would have found scant favour with them. Their ideal was neither democratic self-government, as we have it in the Greek republics, nor a parliamentary régime such as we find in England. Both were detested.[81]
On the other hand, great respect was shown for the social hierarchy, and they were strong in their condemnation of every doctrine that aimed at attacking either the throne or the nobility. What they desired was to have sovereign authority in the guise of a hereditary monarchy. In short, what they really wanted—and they were not frightened by the name—was despotism.[82]
“The sovereign authority should be one, and supreme above all individual or private enterprise. The object of sovereignty is to secure obedience, to defend every just right, on the one hand, and to secure personal security on the other. A government that is based upon the idea of a balance of power is useless.”[83]
This should help us to realise the distance separating the Physiocrats from the Montesquieuian idea of the distribution of the sovereign authority, and from the other idea of local or regional control. There is no mention of representation as a corollary of taxation. This form of guarantee, which marks the beginnings of parliamentary government, could have no real significance for the Physiocrats. Taxation was just a right inherent in the conception of proprietary sovereignty, a territorial revenue, which was in no way dependent upon the people’s will.
It seems strange that such should be the opinion of a future President of the Constituent Assembly. How can we explain this apparent contradiction and such love of despotism among the apostles of laissez-faire?
Despotism, in the eyes of the Physiocrats, had a peculiar significance of its own. It was the work of freedom, not of bondage. It did not signify the rule of the benevolent despot, prepared to make men happy, even against their own will. It was just the sovereignty of the “natural order”[84]—nothing more. Every reasonable person felt himself bound to obey it, and realised that only through such obedience could the truth be possibly known.
It is quite different from the despotism of the ancient maxim, Sicut principi placuit legis habet vigorem.[85] They would never have subscribed to the doctrine that the king’s word is law, but they were equally energetic in rejecting the claim of the popular will.[86] They are as far from modern democracy as they are from monarchical absolutism.
This despotism was incarnate in the person of the sovereign or king. But he is simply an organ for the transmission of those higher laws which are given to him. They would compare him with the leader of an orchestra, his sceptre being the baton that keeps time. The conductor’s despotism is greater than the Tsar’s, for every musician has to obey the movement of the hand, and that immediately. But this is not tyranny, and whoever strikes a false note in a spirit of revenge is not simply a revolter, but also an idiot.
Sovereignty appealed to the Physiocrats in the guise of hereditary monarchy, because of its associations with property under the feudal régime, and since hereditary rights were connected with landed property so must royalty be. The sovereign who best represents the Physiocratic ideal is perhaps the Emperor of China.[87] As the Son of Heaven he represents the “natural order,” which is also the “divine order.” As an agricultural monarch he solemnly puts his hand to the plough once a year. His people really govern themselves; that is, he rules them according to custom and the practice of sacred rites.[88]
In practice there will be nothing of great importance for the despot to do. “As kings and governors you will find how easy it is to exercise your sacred functions, which simply consist in not interfering with the good that is already being done, and in punishing those few persons who occasionally attack private property.”[89] In short, the preservation of the “natural order” and the defending of its basis—private property—against the attacks of the ignorant and the sacrilegious is the first and most important duty of the sovereign. “No order of any kind is possible in society unless the right of possession is guaranteed to the members of that society by the force of a sovereign authority.”[90]
Instruction is the second duty upon which the Physiocrats lay special stress. “Universal education,” says Baudeau, “is the first and only social tie.” Quesnay is specially anxious for instruction on the “natural order,” and the means of becoming acquainted with it. Further, the only guarantee against personal despotism lies in well-diffused instruction and an educated public opinion. If public opinion, as Quesnay said, is to lead, it should be enlightened.
Public works are also mentioned. A wise landlord has good roads on his property, for good roads and canals improve it. These represent a species of avances foncières, similar to those undertaken by proprietors.
This is by no means all.[91] There are a number of duties recognised as belonging to the State, of which every economist of the Liberal school up to Bastiat and M. de Molinari approves.
We will add one other trait. Like the Liberal school, the Physiocrats were whole-hearted “internationalists.” In this respect they differ from their prototypes, the Chinese. They believed that all class distinctions and all international barriers ought to be removed in the interest of political development, as well as in that of scientific study.[92] The peace advocates of to-day would do well to make the acquaintance of their illustrious predecessors.
III: TAXATION
The bulk of the Physiocratic system is taken up with the exposition of a theory of taxation, which really forms one of the most characteristic portions of their work. Though inextricably bound up with the theory of the net product and with the conception of landed proprietorship, curiously enough, it has survived the rest of their doctrine, and quite recently has been given a new lease of life.
In the table showing the distribution of the national income three participators only are mentioned—the landed proprietor, the farmer, and the artisan. But there is also a fourth—the Physiocratic sovereign, who is none other than the State itself, and who thoroughly deserves a share. This benevolent despot, whose duties we have just mentioned, cannot be very exacting, for, having little to do, his demands must be moderate. In addition to his double mission of maintaining security and giving instruction, he must also contribute towards increasing the productivity of the land by establishing public works, making roads, etc.[93] Money is required for all this, and the Physiocrats argued that taxes ought to be paid liberally,[94] and not grudgingly, as is too often the case under a parliamentary régime. Where is this money to come from?
The reply is obvious if we have grasped their system. The only available fund is the net product, which is the only new wealth that is really dispensable—the rest is necessarily absorbed in the repayment of the advances made for the upkeep of the agricultural and industrial classes. Were taxation to absorb a proportion of the revenues that are devoted to production it would gradually drain away the source of all wealth. So long as it only takes the surplus—the true net product, which is a mere tributary of the main stream—no harm will be done to future production.
All this is quite clear. But if taxation is to absorb the net product the question arises as to who is to pay it. It is equally evident that it can only be taken from those who already possess it, namely, from the landed proprietors, who must bear the whole burden of taxation. Just now we were amazed at the privileges which the Physiocrats so light-heartedly granted them: this is the ransom, and it is no light one. The next problem is how to assess this tax.
The Physiocrats were extremely loth to rob the gentry of their incomes, and a number of pages in their writings are devoted to a justification of their claims upon them. Not only were they willing to leave them everything that was necessary to compensate them for the outlay of capital and labour, but also all that might be required to make the property thoroughly valuable and the position of the landowner a most enviable one.[95] The preference shown for the landowner is just the result of the social importance attributed to him by the Physiocrats. “If some other class were preferable,” says Dupont de Nemours, “people would turn their attention to that.” They would no longer spend their capital in clearing or improving the land. But if the possession of land be so desirable, is there not some danger lest everybody should become a landlord and neglect the other walks of life? The Physiocrats thought not, for, since Nature has set a limit to the amount of land in existence, there must also be a limit to the number of landowners.
A third of the net product, or, if we accept Baudeau’s figures, six-twentieths, i.e. 30 per cent., was to be paid in taxes. Taking the net product at 2 milliard francs, which is the figure given in the Explication du Tableau économique, this gives us exactly 600 million francs as the amount of the tax.[96]
The proprietors, who were then for the most part free from taxation, felt that this was a very considerable contribution, and that the Physiocrats demanded a heavy price for the high honour which they had conferred upon them. Even to-day a tax of 30 per cent. on the gross revenue of landlords would cause some consternation. The Physiocrats anticipated this objection, and in reply brought forward an argument which shows that they possessed exceptionally keen economic insight. They argued that none would feel the burden, seeing that no one was really paying it. Land would now be bought at 70 per cent. of its former value, so that the 30 per cent. nominally paid by the proprietor was in reality not paid by him at all.[97] Land let at £10,000 would be valued at £200,000. But with a tax of £3000 it is really only yielding £7000, and its value will be £140,000. The buyer who pays this price, despite the fact that he has paid a tax of £3000, will enjoy all the revenue to which he has any claim, for he can only lay claim to what he has paid for, and he did not pay for that portion of the revenue which is affected by the tax. It is exactly as if he had only bought seven-tenths of the land, the remaining three-tenths being the State’s. And if at some later time this tax should be abolished, it would merely mean making him a present of £3000 a year—the equivalent of a lump sum of £60,000.[98]
The reasoning was excellent for those buying land after the tax had been levied. It had, however, a much wider import than the Physiocrats thought, for it might be applied not merely to taxes on land, but also to taxes on capital. But this gave little consolation to those who were to have the honour of inaugurating the new régime, and the first task evidently was to convert them.[99]
The sovereign’s position in the main is like that of the landed proprietors, which is in agreement with the Physiocratic conception of sovereignty. The landed proprietors and the king in reality form one class of fellow landowners, with the same rights, the same duties, and the same revenues. Hence the sovereign’s interests are completely bound up with those of his country.[100]
The Physiocrats attached the greatest practical importance to their fiscal system, and were thoroughly convinced that the misery of the people was due to the unequal distribution of the burden of taxation. They thought that this was the true source of injustice—in short, that this was the social problem. To-day we ascribe misery to unequal distribution of wealth rather than to any particular fiscal system, and consequently the Physiocratic view seems to us somewhat extreme. Still, it was perhaps not so difficult to justify, in view of the frightful conditions of fiscal organisation under the old régime.
The objections which a single tax, levied only on the landed interest, was bound to provoke were not unforeseen by the Physiocrats, nor did they neglect to answer them.
To the objection that it was unjust to place the burden of taxation upon the shoulders of a single class of the nation,[101] instead of distributing it equally among all classes, the Physiocrats replied that the statesman’s ideal was not equal taxation, but the complete abolition of all taxation. This could only be achieved by taxing the “net product.”
Suppose that we agree that the taxes should be paid by some other class. The question then is to determine what class of the community should be chosen.
Shall we say that the farmer must pay them? But after deducting the “net product” what remains for the farmer is just the bare equivalent of his original outlay. Consequently, if we take 600 millions from the farmers by way of taxation there will be so much less capital for the land, resulting in a smaller gross product the following year,[102] unless they agitate for a reduction of 600 millions in their rents. If they succeed this will leave the proprietors in the position of having paid over the 600 millions to the State. But we must also reckon the losses and friction incurred in every deviation from the “natural order.” Suppose we decide that the sterile classes should pay the taxes. This class is ex hypothesi sterile—that is, it produces the exact equivalent of what it consumes. To take 600 millions from this class is tantamount to a reduction of its consumption by 600 millions, or an equivalent limitation of its purchases of raw material. The result would be a diminished product in the future, unless the industrial classes succeeded in increasing prices by an equivalent amount. Even in that case the landed proprietors will have to bear the brunt of it: firstly, they will have to reduce their own consumption, and secondly, their tenants’, whose efficiency will thereby be impaired.[103]