Introduction to Scientific Humanities: an Historical Perspective Midterm Essay Alessandro Giovannini

Scientific Revolution and Physiocracy: an incomplete transition towards a scientific economic doctrine
Further to the Scientific Revolution, the classical Aristotelian-Biblical view of the world was completely rejected and a new mechanical vision emerged: in Astronomy, the Copernican revolution (1543) and the subsequent Kepler three laws (1602) set the grounds for a world entirely governed my mechanism; in Physics, Il Saggiatore (1623) written by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) revolutionized the working method of the science; some years later (1686) Newtonian Physics carried out the completion of these two mechanistic views of universe, showing clearly that it obeys certain mechanical laws. An additional support came also by Physiology and Anatomy that, thanks to the activities of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) and William Harvey (1578-1657), demonstrated as this mechanistic approach can be applied also the human body. This view of a mechanical universe would greatly influence economic thinking, especially in the late XVIII, with the birth of the modern school of economic thought. However, this affection began some years before the emergence the Physiocrats, a group of French enlightenment thinkers of the 1760s, known as Economistes, who believed that only agriculture yielded a surplus. Physiocracy (Greek: Pysis: nature, Kratos: rule) literary means rule of nature, implying in this way a social order dictated by natures laws. The fundamental idea behind their name, is that there is a natural order, as opposed to artificial system, that must be recognized and brought to the existence by political economy; this remarkable purpose, however, infected the precise analysis of economic facts conducted by Physiocracy, leading to a final economic doctrine that could not be defined scientific in the Gallieis terms. Tableau Economique: the mechanic view of the world applied to economics The founding document of Physciocratic doctrine was Quesnays Tableau Economique (1759) that represents the first attempt in the history of the economic thought to try to schematize the functioning of the economic system. A revolutionary approach to economic study that induced his colleague Mirabeau to say that there have been, since the world beganthree great inventions: the invention of writing, (that) of money (and that) of the Oeconomical Table1. As showed in Figure 1, Quesnay sets an economic model in which three economic movers (the Proprietary, the Productive and the Sterile classes) determine all the economic activities: indeed, the model implies a flow of products that is produced and delivered into the economy according to a closed scheme, in which there is not distinction among production factors and final goods. The connections between this work and the scientific revolution just described is marked by several factors. First of all the scheme applied by Quesnay is heavily influenced by the circulation of blood described by Harvey (indeed Quesnay was a doctor and surgeon): the source of blood is similar to the productive class who produces net produce, the circulation of blood is similar to the circulation of wealth and, in the end, the return of blood to heart could be associated to the wealth that returns to the productive class. In addition, the methodology applied in this analysis is heavily inspired by the abstractive method of Galileo Galilei: this is recognizable even just by the complete title of Quesnays work The Analysis : Analysis of the Arithmetical Formula of the Tableau Economique of the Distribution of Annual
1

Quoted in Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I-III, Penguin Books, Middlesex, p. 200

Expenditure in an Agricultural Nation; furthermore, the division of the society in three social classes, the concept of net surplus, the use of an homogenous unit of measure for all the sizes included in the analysis, all are evident sings of the application of the abstraction method characteristic of the modern science. The last clear sign of the influence of scientific view of a mechanical universe, was the concept of mechanical economy described by the author: Everything in this world is subject to the laws of nature: men are endowed with the intelligence required to understand and observe them; but the great number of factors involved demands that they should be grouped together in comprehensive patterns, which form the foundation of a very farreaching and self-evident science, whose study is indispensable if we are to avoid mistakes in policy2 Thus, in Quesnays economic table, instead of analyzing separately each type of economic relations with long descriptions and arguments, they are observed synthetically and globally, using a stylized economic model, composed by calculations and schemes: a perfect method for describing the mechanical laws of the economics. The innovation introduced by Quesnay, although did not deal with price theory or distribution analysis peculiar of modern economic theory, lies in the formulation of a complete semimathematical model in which there are the preambles for the macroeconomic concept of the general economic equilibrium and of Leontiefs input/output model (1941). This important revolution in the economic thought was recognized in 1954 by Iwanami Shoten that affirmed is an undeniable fact that Quesnays table is one of the most revolutionary Figure 1: Extracts from Tableau Economique (1759) achievements within the history of political economy, representing the moment when this field of study finally reaches the point of constituting a scientific system3. An incomplete transition: still a strong link with philosophy and theology According to the analysis offered in the previous sections, it seems not hasty to conclude that Quesnay transformed economics from the role it had occupied from Aristotle to Rousseau as the management of the

Francois Quesnay The Analysis : Analysis of the Arithmetical Formula of tThe Tableau Economique of the Distribution of Annual Expenditure in an Agricultural Nation 3 Chapter two of Keizaigaku shi (History of Political Economy), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1954

social household-first the city, than the state-to its modern role as the science of wealth4. However, many of the policy recommendations of Physiocracy wrapped their arguments in metaphysical clouds, failing to apply concretely the scientific approach employed in the analysis activity, and to establish a complete independence of the economic doctrine from the philosophy or theology. According to Physiocratic theory there is a difference between the ordre naturel (or social order dictated by natures laws) and the ordre positif (or social order dictated by human ideals): the Physiocracy main activity consisted in trying to abolish the man-made conventions supported by social philosophers, and attempted to recommend policies able to establish the ordre naturel, made by God-given laws unalterable by human construct. This activity, however, needed the knowledge of both physical and moral laws, fundamental elements of natural order: Quesnay defines the first one as the regular course of all physical events in the natural order which is self-evidently the most advantageous to human race, and the second one as the the rule of human action in the moral order conforming to the physical law which is self-evidently the most advantageous to the human race5. While physical laws determine important economic parameters such as rainfall and soil fertility (essential elements in analyzing the facts according to the Newtonian view of the world contained in Quesnays work), the moral laws deal more with theology or philosophy, toning down the influence of scientific revolution on Physiocracy. Like other contemporaries economists, the Physiocrats never abandoned the notion of divine purpose on their analysis of universalistic facts6, adding to the materialistic analysis of economic exchanges, the idealistic conception of human intelligence as an emanation from God. For this reason could seem more appropriate to define Physiocracy analysis as sentimental empiricism7: a definition that implies a knowledge not based only on sensory experience (i.e. scientific analysis), but also on inseparable fusion of physical sensation and moral sentiment. According to this view, the Physiocrats failed to complete the transition towards a scientific doctrine, since their main attentions were focused not on description of motion, but on derivation from an ideological purpose of an economic doctrine, as A. R. J. Turgot (a student of Quesnay) affirmed The only principle that experience shows to be productive of movement is the will of intelligent beings . . . which is determined, not by motors, but by motives, not by mechanical causes, but by nal causes8.

Concluding, Physiocracy, and especially Quesnays work, represent an important step towards the emergence of the economic doctrine mainly focused on a aseptic, general and complete description of economic facts and fully based on the scientific approach; however, the presence of a strong philosophical and theological arguments in their analysis, do not permit to affirm that the intent was completely achieved, suggesting that only with the emergence of the modern economic theory the transition could be considered concluded.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Originis of the Physiocracy: Economic Revolutiona and Social Order in Eighteeen-Century Framce, Ithaca, N.Y., 1976 5 Cutler J. Cleveland Biophysical Economics: From Physiocracy to Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology Bioeconomics and Sustainability: Essays in Honor of Nicholas Gerogescu-Roegen, J. Gowdy and K. Mayumi, Eds. (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, England) 6 Ibid. cfr 4 7 Jessica Riskin Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment, University of Chicago Press, 2002 8 Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat Condorcet Correspondance indite de Condorcet et Turgot Edited by Charles Henry, Charavay Frres