Question

• Describe the ideas of Francois Quesnay and the French Physiocrat School. In what ways can we consider the Tableau Economique to be one of the “first economic models?” What lasting effect, if any, did the Physiocrats have on the history of economic thought?

Answer 1

François Quesnay was a French economist and court physician to the French Physiocrat School. He is popularly known for publication of the "Tableau économique" (Economic Table) in 1758, which described and laid the foundations of the ideas of the Physiocrats. Based on analysis of Quesnay’s tableau économique, the physiocrats diagrammed the relationship among different economic classes and sectors of society and the payments flow between them.

The physiocrats identified three classes of the economy. Firstly, the productive class which included the agricultural labourers and farmers who pay rent to the landlords. Secondly, the proprietor class is made up of kings and landlords. Third class included sterile class which mean the unproductive class. The sterile class consisted of industrial labourers, artisans, merchants and consists of all the individuals who are engaged in non-agricultural works. After the identifying these classes, they concluded that productive class created the wealth; and develops a natural order of the economy when these income flows are in balanced state. As a result the economy continues to reproduce itself continuously. The physiocrats argued that the government must permit to naturally operate the economy and allow people to pursue their self-interest and in the natural order as it would cause an increase in the wealth of nations.

It was perhaps the first work attempting to describe the economy working in an analytical approach, and as such can be viewed as one of the first significant contributions to economic thought. Later the physiocrats preceded and influenced Adam Smith and the classical economists who created a lasted effect on the history of economic thought.