PHYSIOCRACY, PHYSIOGRAPHY. – An economic doctrine enunciated in France by François Quesnay, the founder of political economy as a systematic science and, at the same time, the founder of the identification within economic science, to which he gave the name of physiophysics, i.e., “empire of nature” (from Gr. φύσις = nature, κράτος = dominion).
Physiophysics is not, in truth, merely an economic theory, but also a part of the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Starting from the materialistic ideas of the time, it teaches that economic and moral phenomena must be regarded as natural facts, just as physical phenomena and the laws governing them are regarded as natural laws. The essential task of the State is to guarantee the security and rights of the individual. Among these is the natural economic right, which consists in the enjoyment of the things that the individual produces through his labor, and thus the right to existence. Another right is that of improving one’s condition as much as possible, in economic interest. From the pursuit of this interest arises a natural order, which has its foundations in the laws of nature, in contrast to the historical order created by men. From this follows as a necessary consequence the principle that the individual must act freely. To the question of what economic activity is according to nature, physiophysics teaches that labor on the land is, according to the natural order, the primary one. Upon this alone, and especially upon agriculture, the production of wealth in general and all of economics is based. It is not money, trade, traffic, and industry that are the sources of well-being, but agriculture, which makes these other activities possible, activities which, by their nature, do not themselves produce anything but a change of nature or place. Thereby the class of peasants (at that time especially tenant farmers in contrast to the great noble landowners) emerges as the true economically productive class. Opposed to it are the class of landowners, who devote themselves to politics, and the sterile class of merchants and industrialists. To these three active classes is added, as a passive class, that of wage laborers: this has no economic activity in itself, since it is not composed of entrepreneurs, but receives a fixed income (wage); it is therefore considered only as a consuming class and must, for this reason, be particularly recommended to the care of the government. Naturally, since agricultural labor is the source of all wealth, agriculture must be favored, and it can prosper only if the price of grain remains high, because only in this case can it yield a high net product and thus pay high wages to the class of landowners, industrialists, and workers. Therefore, all restrictions on the export of grain must fall. And since the soil is the sole source of wealth, it alone must bear the burden of taxes to the State, all the more so because any tax burden imposed on another class ultimately falls upon the class of large landowners: hence arises the characteristic concept of physiophysics, of the land tax as the sole and direct tax. Indirect taxes cannot be admitted, since they hinder trade and weigh upon the people.
As can be seen, physiophysics has a double foundation. From the social and philosophical point of view, it rests upon the law of nature: the sacred and eternal rights of the individual must not be violated. The other foundation lies in the concept of a natural course of economic and social life: given that economic laws cannot contradict the natural laws of social coexistence, since they themselves are laws of the natural order, following natural law, i.e., one’s own interest, will lead to the development of economic life in the most natural, and therefore best, way.
The principal representatives of physiophysics, besides Quesnay, were Turgot, Badeau, Dupont de Nemours, Mercier de la Rivière, and Mirabeau the Elder; it had some connection with Smith and derived some ideas from Cantillon.