Abstract
In his history of economics in Germany, Wilhelm Roscher notes that, compared to other European countries, it was only in Germany where the Physiocratic doctrines found a significant number of followers.1 As long as this interest prevailed, it was concentrated mainly on practical applications of essential policy prescriptions of Physiocracy, particularly as regards the promotion of agriculture as a means to increase the economic potential of the Staatswirtschaft of the territories, and also with respect to tax policy. If, according to Roscher,2 Theodor Schmalz3 with the textbook Staatswirtschaftslehre in Briefen (published 1818) was the last representative of Physiocracy in Germany, then the doctrine ceased to exert any direct impact on economic policy soon after the turn of the century.
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Notes
- 1.
Roscher (1874, p. 484).
- 2.
Ibid, pp. 449 f.
- 3.
Theodor Schmalz (1760–1831) was a professor at the universities of Königsberg and Halle before he was appointed to the position of the first rector of the University of Berlin in 1810.
- 4.
Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre, published 1826.
- 5.
Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, published 1848.
- 6.
Die politische Oekonomie vom Standpunkte der geschichtlichen Methode, published 1853.
- 7.
See Howey (1982).
- 8.
- 9.
Howey (1982, p. 40).
- 10.
He asserts that the Tableau (“das, beiläufig erwähnt, wegen seiner trockenen, abstrakten, nicht recht genießbaren Form am wenigsten günstig aufgenommen wurde,” p. 349) was therefore the least well-received part of Quesnay’s writings.
- 11.
“Seine richtige Ahnung der Wahrheit, daß wer verkaufen will, auch zugleich Käufer sein müsse” (p. 350).
- 12.
Indications of page numbers to Volume 1 of Theories of Surplus Value and to Volume II of Capital refer to the English translations (see References).
- 13.
Letter to the publisher Leske, dated 1 August 1846 (MEW vol. 27, 1977, p. 49 f). At that time Marx had started to work on his first major economic treatise, which was published only in 1859 under the title “Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie.”
- 14.
The section which is referred to here is generally attributed to Marx.
- 15.
In his letter to Engels on July 6, 1863, Marx gives a detailed summary and discussion of Quesnay’s Tableau. See Marx and Engels, Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 1983, pp. 148 ff.
- 16.
Wealth of Nations, quoted in Marx, Capital, vol. 2, p. 191. Marx criticizes Smith for committing a partial confusion of “circulating capital” (in the sphere of circulation, i.e., trade and commerce) with “constant capital.” For the sake of brevity I must avoid here going into the details of terminology and their consequences.
- 17.
For a short vita of Oncken, see Herz and Weiberger (2006, p. 377). August Oncken must not be confused with the historian Hermann Oncken, who is more widely known for his biography of Ferdinand Lasalle (1920) and other books.
- 18.
“Turgot verdient in Wahrheit nicht den Platz, den ihm eine wohlwollende Geschichtsschreibung bisher eingeräumt hat” (p. 469).
- 19.
On this point, see Pribram (1992, vol. 1, p. 206).
- 20.
“The over-all description of a stationary economic process which Quesnay embodied in his tableau is not, as his pupils and practically all critics believed, the centerpiece of that structure but an addition to it that is separable from the rest” (Schumpeter 1954, p. 239).
- 21.
“Die ganze bisherige Besprechung des Tableau économique dürfte außer Zweifel gestellt haben, dass die ‘Formule arithmétique’, die ‘Questions’ und die ‘Maximes’ ein zusammenhängendes Dreigestirn bilden, wobei jedes Glied den Schlüssel zum vollen Verständnis der beiden anderen darstellt” (p. 401).
- 22.
For a discussion of this aspect of Sombart’s last works see Priddat (1996, pp. 279 ff).
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Chaloupek, G. (2011). On the Reception of Quesnay’s Economic Thought in German History of Economics. In: Backhaus, J. (eds) Physiocracy, Antiphysiocracy and Pfeiffer. The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences, vol 10. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7497-6_8
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