Control over food supply was advanced in the kingdom of France in the Eighteenth century by Physiocrat economists under the seemingly advantageous label of 'freedom of grain trade'. In 1764 these reforms brought about a rise in grain prices and generated an artificial dearth that ruined the poor, some of whom died from malnutrition. The King halted the reform and re-established the old regime of regulated prices; in order to maintain the delicate balance between prices and wages, the monarchy tried (...) to limit speculation in subsistence goods and achieved some success in regulating the provisioning of public markets. Le Mercier de la Riviere concluded that executing these reforms required more effective political control. After 1774 the new king gave the Physiocratic reforms a second chance, reforming property rights and establishing an aristocracy of the landed rich. Again, this led to price hikes and as a result so-called 'popular emotions' erupted. Turgot ordered military intervention to dispel the protesters, marking a first rupture between the monarchy and the people over speculation on subsistence. Turgot's experiment failed and he was dismissed, but the Physiocracy had discovered that the market in subsistence offered new opportunities for economic power under the misleading legitimacy of 'economic laws'. Turgot's followers, Dupont de Nemours and Condorcet, continued to develop this 'theory' that was later translated into a 'scientific language' that ultimately asserted the autonomy of the economic sphere and its alleged independence from ethics and politics. The paper examines the continuity of events through the six great jacqueries and the French Revolution, including the all- important agrarian reform that ensued after 1792. Robespierre's concept of 'popular political economy' is analysed and compared with the notion of unfettered private property rights that lies at the heart of neoliberalism. (shrink)

The Slave Plantation and the Origins of the Physiocratic Theory of Capitalism : The experiences of Le Mercier De la Rivière as Royal Intendant in La Martinique. A study of some little-known writings of Le Mercier de la Rivière should enable us to define the nature of his experiences, first as a planter, and subsequently as intendant of La Martinique, from 1759 to 1764. A reappraisal of his book, L’ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques , in the light of (...) his experience of the slave and segregationist colonies of America sheds new light on his physiocratic theory of capitalism and on the genesis of concepts as central as those of legal despotism, physical liberty and chattel property, the latter being considered in relation to an unexpected source, the 1685 Code Noir. (shrink)

En 1789, la convocatoria de los Estados Generales despertó el entusiasmo del pueblo al convertir las “comunas” en el lugar de ejercicio de su soberanía, vinculándolo al sistema electoral de los agentes de confianza revocables. En 1793-1794, la guerra civil, liderada por la aristocracia de los ricos contra la cultura política popular, no pudo impedir ni la redistribución de tierras ni el programa de economía política popular. La República montagnarde de 1794, a pesar de su brevedad, aprobó una constitución comunal (...) basada en las relaciones de confianza entre el pueblo y sus mandatarios, que ha sido imposible olvidar. 1789, the Convocation of the Etats-generaux created a popular enthusiasm who transformed the communes in the place of the exercise of his sovereignty, bound with the electoral system of removable trustee. The civil war, leaded by the wealthy aristocracy against the popular political culture, was not able to prevent neither the redistribution of land property, nor the popular political economy programme, in 1793-94. The Montagnarde Commonwealth of 1794, however brief was its term, experimented a communal constitution, founded on trusteeship between the people and his mandatories, which will be never forgotten. (shrink)