PHYSIOCRATS (from Gk. physis, nature + K par eiv, kgotsir, to rule). French school of political and eeonomic philosophers, known to their own generation as Les Econo inixtis. who wrote against the antiquated meth ods of the State in encouraging industry (see Counarr), and in favor of agriculture, industrial freedom and natural liberty. The school flour ished from 1750 to 1770. The founder a»il lender of the school was Franeois Quesnay (q.v.), a noted surgeon, metaphysician, and, after 1749, physician to Madame de Pompadour. With Ques nay is often associated in the founding of the sect the name of Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Oournay (q.v.), who did not, however, indorse the extreme views of the school respecting the paramount economic hnportanee of agriculture. The most earnest disciples and indefatigable propa gators of the Physioeratie doctrine were the elder liralicau, Mercier de la Eiviere (1720-94), and Dupont de Nemours (q.v.), editor of the of Quesnay and 'forgot, and of the Physio cratie journals. Among the statesmen, rulers, and princes of the time who accepted .the main doctrines of the Physiocrats were first and most important, Turgot (q.v.). Minister of Finance under Louis XVI.: Charles Frederick, \largrave of Baden; Gustavus 111. of Sweden; Leopold II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, and afterwards German Emperor: Stanislas of Poland; the Emperor .Jo seph II.; and Charles 111. of Spain. With some of them the aceeptaInT was little more than half hea rted. and the only monarch who made an ear nest attempt to carry out their programme of re form was Charles Frederick of Baden. Re tried to apply their principles in three villages, but tinally abandoned the attempt.
The general doctrine of the Physiocrats was an extension to the economic sphere of the theory of natural liberty which Locke, Hutcheson, Shaftes bury, and others had applied to the sphere of poli ties and religion; but, unlike the British philoso phers, the Physioerats denied that the natural rights of the individual mold be abridged by any social contrail. Every man, they held, has a right. to the free exercise of his faculties, so long as he does not infringe the like liberty of others, and this involves the further right to tile undis turbed enjoyment of the property which results from the exercise of his faculties in productive labor. It follows from these rights that the sole function of government is to protect life and property and to administer justice. and no inter ference by the government with commerce and in dustry is permissible—in the elassie phrase of the school. bu sset. faire, laissez passer but within the restricted sphere noted above the Physioerats advocated a strong monarchical gov ernment. a "legal despotism, tempered only by an enlightened public opinion." The peouliar economic• views of the Physioerats seem to rest upon a confusion of wealth with ma terial objects, leading to the eiindusiims that agriculture alone yields a surplus product—pro dui( net—above the expenses of while manufactures and commerce, which merely change the form or position of raw materials, are barren. As agriculture is the only form of pro duction yielding a value in excess of the cost of production, they advocated that taxes should be levied upon rent—which expresses or measures the 'net produeC—so as to avoid the expense and friction attendant upon the shifting of the tax to this source when placed originally upon other objects. They thus gave to political economy
the fruitful theories of surplus value and the single unique. (See POLITICAL Ecoxom v. ) The scientific virtues and defects of the Physiocrats may be traced to one and the same cause, the belief in a beneficent and absolute ' natural law governing the moral and social uni verse with the same rigidity and precision as the material universe is governed by physical law. This belief made them at once narrow but pre cise, systematic but unmindful of the difference between physical and psychical phenomena, care ful in definition, distinetion_and classification, but careless of the effects of customs, law-, and the diversity of human motives. They have exer cised a deep and lasting influence upon political economy, and it is now usually admitted that Quesnay, rather than Adam Smith, is to he re garded as the 'father of political economy.' Opinions differ regarding their influence upon the practical affairs of the day. They undoubtedly stimulated the study of agriculture, suggested several important agricultural improvements, called attention to the oppression of the peas antry and elevated their importance in the eyes of the nation, and secured a freer intercourse of trade—particularly in breadstuffs—with in the French kingdom. in the early years of the French Revolution their doctrines exercised an appreciable effect upon the Constituent Assembly, but their most striking practical influence was exercised through Turgot (q.v.), who, while not a professed Physiocrat, made ninny earnest at tempts, both as intendant of Limoges (1761-74) and as Comptroller-General of Finance (1774 70), to abolish the corvi?es and the guilds, to in troduce free trade in corn, to reduce taxation, and to accomplish the general reforms which the Physioerats demanded.
Among the most important publications of the Physioerats are Quesnay's articles on Fermiers and (trains, published in the Encyclopellie of Diderot and D'Alembert ; Lc droit naturcl, pub lished with other of his writings in the Physio cratie (which gave the school its name), edited by Dupont de Nemours, and his Tableau- ero nomique, 1758, "the Bible of the Physioerats," reprinted for the British Economic Association, London, 1894; Mirabean's Thelorie de rimptit, 1760, and Philosophic rurale, 1763; Dupont de Nemours's Cie l'oeiyinc el de progm's Wane selence nouvelle, 1767, published in his Physiocratie; Mercier de In Eiviere's L'Ordcr naturcl ct cssen tiel des socifles politiques, 1767; and Turgot's kiRexions sur la formation ct la distribution des riehesses, MO.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Oneken, (Eurres de Quesnay Bibliography. Oneken, (Eurres de Quesnay I Frank fort, 1888) : Hasbach, Die allgeinciuen. philosophisehen Ontmllagen der eon Francois Questa(/' stud Adam Smith, begriindetcn politi schen Dekonomie (Leipzig, 1800) ; Higgs, The Physiocrats (London. 1897).