François Quesnay

François Quesnay and J. C. V. de Gournay are recognized as the masters of Physiocratic Doctrine. Like Richard Cantillon, his work influenced the initial stages of economics and yet, his work has largely been forgotten. He played a part in the transition to economics, which is succinctly explained by economist, Frank H. Knight in, "On the History and Method of Economics", as follows:

"Modern economics is an aspect of modern thought and of the individualistic or "liberal" outlook on life, of which "capitalism" or the competitive system, or free business enterprise, is the expression on the economic side, as democracy is on the political. Our fourth epoch takes its rise in a second great cultural revolution in western Europe, in which the period of the Renaissance moved into that of the Enlightenment or Age of Reason. In this development leadership shifted, in the early modern period, from mediterranean Europe to the northern countries, and especially to England, with the British colonies in North America playing an important role. England escaped the wars of religion which devastated western continental Europe for over a century after the Reformation, and here especially religious toleration eased the tension between Church and State. England was predominant in the great scientific movement of the seventeenth century and the great Civil War and the Revolution of 1688 established representative government at the same time that the treaties ending the Thirty years War fastened political absolutism on the major Continental states. In England, science was inspired with a "practical" philosophy, formulated by Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Galileo, the heir of Copernicus. This movement led naturally to the technological revolution of the later eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, which involved the triumph of free enterprise; and modern economics is essentially the theory of free enterprise. It is interesting to observe that the great mercantilist writers of the later seventeenth century in England (contemporaries of John locke in political philosophy) were in substance free traders, as Sir William Ashley has pointed out in detail. Thomas Mun's famous booklet, England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (published post-humously in 1664 but in circulation earlier) sophistically used the balance of trade argument in favor of freedom to export specie. Other writers, such as D'Avenant, Barbon, Child, and especially Sir Dudley North, worked out the theoretical argument for freedom in foreign trade about as explicitly and clearly as did Adam Smith himself, nearly a century later. North argued that the wealth of a nation is that of its citizens and that the businessmen, traders, and producers are the best judges of when trade involves a net gain. It remained for someone to apply the same reasoning to internal policy, against the surviving guild restrictions or national control of apprenticeship, wages and interest, grants of monopolies, and the like.

All through the later mercantilist period, economic relations were gradually becoming more free, controls were falling into disuse, particularly in England. The process, like the earlier disappearance of serfdom, is one of social development, to be explained by the sociologist and culture historian; the formulation of a general theory lagged behind the factual change, at least until the latter was far along. In notable respects the statement of free-trade doctrine came earlier in France, where the movement itself was much slower. It was here, of course, that the phrase laissez faire(earlier associated with laissez passer originated, in the first half of the eighteenth century. The kingdom of France was subdivided into many districts with customs frontiers until the Great Revolution. About the same time appeared one of the most notable books anticipating the liberal point of view, the somewhat mysterious Essai sur la nature du commerce en genéral by Richard Cantillon. It is apparently a translation, perhaps by the author himself, of an English manuscript which has disappeared. Cantillon showed a fairly clear insight into the mechanism by which a free market will direct resources into the production of goods in most demand. Similar insights were conspicuous in the nearly contemporary essays of David Hume, though he wrote no systematic treatise. Early in the second half of the century much attention was attracted by the writings of a French school, who called themselves les économists but are now referred to as the physiocrats. The word is practically equivalent to law (or rule) of nature. The Leader was the court physician François Quesnay. Like many of the mercantilists, these writers used rather absurd if ingenious arguments; and it has been pointed out that the position was connected with self-interest of certain groups that had achieved wealth and power in the disturbed conditions in France after the death of Louis XIV, especially in consequence of the ambitious schemes of John Law and the famous "Mississippi Bubble."...But the Physiocrats are to be credited with an attempt to see and analyze a national economy as a whole. Their most characteristic doctrine was the view that only agriculture yields a "surplus" beyond what is required for the support of the workers; hence land rent alone is available for the support of the state or the increase of wealth and is the only proper subject for taxation. These ideas survived in the work of Adam Smith and the British "classical" economists. .."