Loic Charles wrote:
>"The discovery of the 'net product' which we owe to venerable Confucius
>of Europe" letter from Mirabeau to Rousseau (1767) quoted in The
>economics of physiocracy by Ronald Meek, p. 19-20.
Your quote does not specify that Mirabeau is referring to Quesnay, but I
assume you found that he is, and that is your point. So, again I thank you
and Rosser and Google and others for redeeming my mind from error on this
matter.
Minor points:
1. It is possible that BOTH Quesnay and Turgot were complimented in
this way, seeing that Voltaire and Goethe were. It may have been a
fashionable cliche of the times.
2. It is also possible that Sir Kenneth Jupp erred in the loc. Cit.
3. It is also possible that I erred in taking notes on Jupp, for I have lost
the original book.
4. I am quite sure it was Turgot who hosted and communed at length
with two Chinese scholars who visited France.
5. "Laissez-faire" seems more Taoist than Confucian.
MAJOR points follow. Now that we have put the focus on le produit net, what
shall we do with that insight? That, after all, is the important matter, and
not who was called a Confucius.
1. Quesnay and Turgot both said, let's put most taxes on it, to
minimize what today we call "excess burden". Do we agree?
2. Modern neo-classical economists, and their glossalalian
narcissistic Edgeworthian-Paretian brood of robotic careerist techies, have
booted le produit net out of the lexicon. Do we accept that?
3. Quesnay said we should make learning of le produit net mandatory
in the school system. Do we agree?
4. Leon Walras, in his Theorie d'Economie Sociale, writes that he
sees himself as a modern spokesman for the Physiocrats, and elaborates on a
system of raising land taxes. And yet the Walras who is cited by modern
Anglophone neo-classicals is a supertechie wandering off in aerial vapors of
Laputa, feet dangling in air (which the techies adore). Why has this great
misrepresentation of the man been promulgated and accepted? Cui bono?
Mason Gaffney
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