Trends in the development of physiocratic doctrine

Abstract

Of the two versions of Quesnay's Tableau économique, the one was constructed in 1758 and the other published in 1766. The latter derives from certain essential requirements of the former. Nevertheless they display striking differences. The earlier concept aimed solely at demonstrating the consequences for economic reproduction of different ways of spending money. Upon this was grafted the far more ambitious purpose of giving a complete picture of the annual reproduction and circulation of goods in a prosperous agricultural economy. The flexible and dynamic zigzag diagram thus developed into the rigid and static Formule du Tableau économique.* L. Herlitz, ‘The Tableau economique and the Doctrine of Sterility’, Scand. Econ. Hist, Rev. ix. (1961), passim. The change in the purpose and form of the Tableau took place precisely at the time that physiocracy grew into a well-disciplined and militant school, armed with an eschatological doctrine. The Formule, illustrating the ordre naturel, is the proper document of this school. Nevertheless the stamp of the earlier, cruder, more flexible and tentative concept still remains on the definitive Tableau; and especially does it remain on the physiocrats' own interpretations of it, making them difficult to understand when not related to the original zigzag diagram.