Abstract
The famous saying from Jean Bodin’s Six livres de la République (The Six Bookes of a Commonweale), “There are no riches other than men”, is endlessly quoted as a perfect illustration of the mercantilists’ populationist ideology. And since Bodin dealt with censuses, immigration and the family, criticised Platonic ideas on the organisation of the City and Thomas More’s admonition to restrict fertility and, finally, observed that freed slaves had a very high fertility, it is hardly surprising to find him occupying a prominent place in the chapters devoted to mercantilism by several specialists in the history of demographic thought, especially J. Spengler, Gonnard and Hutchinson, who all believe that these observations contain the corpus of a doctrine inspired by populationism.
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Notes
- 1.
In his view, a large population was never in itself a decisive factor in the tactics for gaining power. For example, he wrote in The Prince, “However powerful the army at one’s disposal, it is nonetheless always necessary to have the support of the inhabitants to enter a province.” Similarly, though population are necessary for the army, money was equally important in his eyes, since he went on to compare the advantage of employing mercenaries and citizens in the army, a technical problem that was central to him. Last, the following remark in On Livy’s First Decade – “the population there is quite large because there is more freedom of marriage” – cannot be interpreted as pertaining to populationism. This remark was made in the course of a comparison between freedom and bondage. See: The Prince, 41, 78, 85, 92–94; The Art of War, 290; On Livy’s First Decade, 222.
- 2.
Gonnard (1923: 102, 103, 106).
- 3.
Hutchinson (1967: 18).
- 4.
The reference is to La Response de Maistre Jean Bodin au paradoxe de monsieur de Malestroit touchant l’enrichissement de toutes choses et les moyens d’y remédier.
- 5.
1942: 14–15. Only footnote 24 on page 26 mentions that Six livres de la République aim to show that the sovereignty vested in the king’s person is “the best solution to the problems raised by local feudalism, war and the conflict between the Church and the State.” However, the remark relating to taxes on vices and luxuries introduces an element of doubt: they are meant to mitigate the political consequences of high economic inequality, but they are certainly not recommended in a populationist spirit. Similarly, his misgivings about immigration are evidently of a political nature.
- 6.
- 7.
Cole (1939: 1, 19) and Rothbard (1995: 205).
- 8.
- 9.
Six livres…, I, 10. The following footnotes refer to the books and chapters of Six livres… The page numbers refer to the 1993 French edition.
- 10.
Six livres…, I, 9, 144: “I will talk only of temporal sovereignty (…) so that it is understood who the absolutely sovereign princes are and if others are subjected to the Emperor or the Pope.” Also see Mairet (1993: 11–15).
- 11.
Six livres…, II, 1, 189–191.
- 12.
- 13.
See Skinner (2001), Lutherans (622–637), and Calvin and Théodore de Bèze (641–645, 649–650).
- 14.
Quoted by Chevallier (1960: 39).
- 15.
On the fluctuating political positions of Bodin, see Rose (1978a, 1978b).
- 16.
- 17.
Rothkrug is inclined to the opposite view. He believes that the success of Bodin’s book in the seventeenth century is explained by the centralising policy followed by Louis XIII and Louis XIV which aimed to bring everything under the State’s active control (1965: 81). It is interesting to note that in 1993 the rightist historian Mousnier did not define absolute monarchy by its divine origin, but in Bodin’s terms : “There is an absolute monarchy when the King, embodying the national ideal, possesses the attributes of sovereignty by right and, in fact, which give him the power to enact laws, dispense justice, levy taxes, maintain a permanent army, appoint officials, to see that attacks on public property and royal authority are brought to trial before special courts emanating from his power as the supreme righter of wrongs” (1993: 111).
- 18.
Six livres…, V, 2, 433.
- 19.
Incarnation was impossible; the miracle of resurrection did not prove the divine nature of Christ “as established by the single testimony of a whore”; the physical impossibility of Christ’s divinity, of the Eucharist, etc… . Several copies were in circulation throughout Europe. In 1650, Queen Christine of Sweden, intrigued by the aura of scandal, requested a copy, but the library of Cluny refused to accede to her request. She was eventually able to have a copy made by her personal secretaries in 1654. See Chauviré (1914: 5).
- 20.
Colloque de Jean Bodin, 1914: 33.
- 21.
Six livres…, 45.
- 22.
Six livres…, IV, 1, 336.
- 23.
Six livres…, IV, 1, 334–335. On Venice see Lane (1973), especially Chapters 9, 14, 16, 18, and 23.
- 24.
Six livres…, IV, 1, 317.
- 25.
Six livres…, VI, 1, 482–487 (quote from 486).
- 26.
Six livres…, I, 10, 160.
- 27.
Six livres…, VI, 1, 487, 490. On this point, Montchrétien has shamelessly plagiarised Bodin’s writings: see Traité…, 341–353.
- 28.
Six livres…, VI, 1, 484.
- 29.
Six livres…, VI, 1, 488.
- 30.
Six livres…, VI, 1, 486.
- 31.
Six livres…, Atheists: VI, 1, 491. Sects and factions: IV, 7, 400. And further: “concerning seditions and troubles there is nothing more dangerous for the State, religion wise, for the laws or for the customs, if the subjects are divided into two opinions” (IV, 7, 402).
- 32.
Couzinet (1996: 237, 239).
- 33.
- 34.
I owe the following information on the context of witch hunts to Sorman (1978).
- 35.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 193–195.
- 36.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 189, 204.
- 37.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 198.
- 38.
Sorman (1978: 39).
- 39.
1979: 436.
- 40.
1979: 431.
- 41.
1979: 433–436. “Démonomanie was simply an updated version of Malleus Maleficarum” (432).
- 42.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 252. These practices, which were endlessly described by Bodin, were mentioned by Heinsohn and Steiger in only three lines (1999: 438).
- 43.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 227. Impotence: 226.
- 44.
1999: 442.
- 45.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 153–154. Bodin reported that he was present at the Etats généraux of Blois in 1577 and that the request of the sorcerer was ratified by the Privy Council. The man claimed that he could “graft the seeds of certain oils” and “multiply the number of fruit by a hundred for one (whereas the most productive lands in France only produce twelve for one”. An entire chapter (Book II, Chapter 7) is devoted to the following question: “If sorcerers can remove diseases, sterility, hail, storms and kill man and beast”. In the text, sterility refers explicitly to farm animals.
- 46.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 180, 181, 208, 218 for instance.
- 47.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 2240, 247, 278 for instance.
- 48.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 225–226. The Edict stated: “Because of this”.
- 49.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 232.
- 50.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 237.
- 51.
Démonomanie…, 1587: 185. See Jacques-Chacun (1996: 65).
- 52.
Six livres…, I, 1, 70. Same argument: VI, 4, 535.
- 53.
Six livres…, I, 8, 126.
- 54.
Such as it is defined in Nicomachean Ethics. As Pellegrin writes: “for Aristotle there is (…) a realm of human affairs and more precisely of human action, which needs to be studied as such, inasmuch as ethical and political realities require no explanations beyond themselves” (translated from 1993: 23).
- 55.
Politique, Book VI, 2 §5, 454. Bodin, Six livres…, II, 1, 181, 191; II, 3, 207; II, 5, 229; II, 6, 233, 235; II, 7, 243–246.
- 56.
Démonomanie des sorciers, 29–30.
- 57.
Six livres…, I, 10, 155.
- 58.
Six livres…, I, 10, 151.
- 59.
Politique, Book VII, 2, §5, 454.
- 60.
Politique, Book III, 6, §3, 4, 226.
- 61.
Six livres…, I, 1, 63.
- 62.
On Montchrétien, see Chapter 4.
- 63.
Politique, Book I, 2, §8, 90.
- 64.
Politique, Book VII, 4, §11, 464.
- 65.
Ethique à Eudème: “Divinity does not govern by giving orders, but it is the end in view of which wisdom gives orders […] since divinity needs nothing” (VIII, 3).
- 66.
Six livres…, I, 1, 64.
- 67.
Six livres…, I, 1, 60.
- 68.
Six livres…, II, 3, 207.
- 69.
Six livres…, I, 2, 70.
- 70.
Six livres…, I, 2, 65, 66.
- 71.
Kreager (2008).
- 72.
Six livres…, I, 2, 69, 70.
- 73.
Six livres…, I, 6, 96.
- 74.
For instance: “Sovereign princes cannot give any orders that are contrary to God’s law”, but “they are also subject to civil laws” (I, 8, 130). Or: religion is “the chief foundation of the power of Monarchs and seigniories, of the execution of laws” (IV, 7, 400). Note that Bodin speaks here of power but not of legitimacy.
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Charbit, Y. (2011). There Are No Riches Other Than Men. In: The Classical Foundations of Population Thought. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9298-4_3
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