Note 81 — Chapter I · : THE PHYSIOCRATS

“The Physiocrats had the most absolute contempt for political liberty.” (Esmein, La Science politique des Physiocrates, address at the opening session of the Congress of Learned Societies, Paris, 1906.)

“The Greek republics never became acquainted with the laws of the order. Those restless, usurping, tyrannical tribes never ceased to drench the plains with human blood, to cover with ruins and to reduce to waste the most fertile and the best situated soil in the then known world.” (Baudeau, p. 800.)

“It is evident that a democratic sovereign—i.e. the whole people—cannot itself exercise its authority, and must be content to name representatives. These representatives are merely agents, whose functions are naturally transitory, and such temporary agents cannot always be in complete harmony with every interest within the nation. This is not the kind of administration contemplated by the Physiocrats. The sovereignty of the natural order is neither elective nor aristocratic. Only in the case of hereditary monarchy can all interests, both personal and individual, present and future, be clearly linked with those of the nation, by their co-partnership in all the net products of the territory submitted to their care.” (Dupont, vol. i, pp. 359-360.)

This sounds very much like a eulogy of the House of Hohenzollern, delivered by William II.

Very curious also are Dupont’s criticisms of the parliamentary régime. In his letter to J. B. Say (p. 414) he notes “its tendency to corruption and canker,” which had not then manifested itself in the United States of America. These letters, though very interesting, hardly belong to a history of economic doctrines.