Note 11 — Chapter I · : THE PHYSIOCRATS

J. J. Rousseau, the author of the Contrat Social (1762), was a contemporary of the Physiocrats, but he never became a member of the school. Mirabeau’s attempt to win his allegiance proved a failure. The “natural order” and the “social contract” seem incompatible, for the natural and spontaneous can never be the subject of contract. One might even be tempted to think that Rousseau’s celebrated theory was formulated in opposition to Physiocracy, unless we remembered that the social contract theory is much older than Rousseau’s work. Traces of the same idea may be found in many writings, especially those inspired by Calvinism. To Rousseau the social question seemed to be a kind of mathematical problem, and any proposed solution must satisfy certain complicated conditions, which are formulated thus: “To find a form of association which protects with the whole common force the person and property of each associate, and in virtue of which everyone, while uniting himself to all, obeys only himself and remains as free as before.” Nothing could well be further from the Physiocratic view. Their belief was that there was nothing to find and nothing to create. The “natural order” was self-evident.

It is true that Rousseau was an equally enthusiastic believer in a natural order, in the voice of nature, and in the native kindness of mankind. “The eternal laws of nature and order have a real existence. For the wise they serve as positive laws, and they are engraved on the innermost tablets of the heart by both conscience and reason.” (Émile, Book V.) The language is identical with that of the Physiocrats. But there is this great difference. Rousseau thought that the state of nature had been denaturalised by social and especially by political institutions, including, of course, private property; and his chief desire was to give back to the people the equivalent of what they had lost. The “social contract” is just an attempt to secure this. The Physiocrats, on the other hand, regarded the institution of private property as the perfect bloom of the “natural order.” Its beauty has perhaps suffered at the hands of turbulent Governments, but let Governments be removed and the “natural order” will at once resume its usual course.

There is also this other prime difference. The Physiocrats regarded interest and duty as one and the same thing, for by following his own interest the individual is also furthering the good of everybody else. To Rousseau they seemed antagonistic: the former must be overcome by the latter. “Personal interest is always in inverse ratio to duty, and becomes greater the narrower the association, and the less sacred.” (Contrat Social, ii, chap. 3.) In other words, family ties and co-operative associations are stronger than patriotism.