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This essay examines the physiocrats’ vision of economic development in eighteenth-century France, emphasizing their belief in agriculture as the foundation of prosperity. Quesnay and Turgot advocated trade liberalization and legal despotism to raise agricultural productivity and stabilize the economy. However, entrenched social structures and elite consumption diverted wealth from rural investment, undermining these goals. The physiocrats’ reliance on price incentives ignored competitive pressures that drive reinvestment in modern economies. Quesnay’s idealization of China as a model of state-enforced natural order revealed both his recognition of these limits and the theoretical contradictions within physiocratic thought on growth and governance.
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Stephen Paul Miller (2026) studied this question.
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