GERRIT GORTER
The present study of economics did not, of course, come out of thin air. Although thinkers in classical Greece already reflected on what we now call economics, it was largely in the eighteenth century that systematic thought on the subject began.
Two conceptual tools—the economic cycle and the idea of the invisible hand—date from that century and are still in use today, both in academic research and in education.
This site contains twenty-five portraits of important economists. Each offers a biographical sketch together with an indication of his (and, in one case, her) significance for the development of economic thought. They claim no more than to provide a first introduction to the lives and works of these pioneers.
These articles originally appeared in Dutch in the Tijdschrift voor het Economisch Onderwijs and were published on the website of Gerrit Gorter. The English translations are by Folkert Gorter.
Index
François Quesnay
Adam Smith
Thomas Robert Malthus
Jean-Baptiste Say
David Ricardo
Antoine Augustin Cournot
John Stuart Mill
Karl Marx
Walras
Carl Menger
Alfred Marshall
Vilfredo Pareto Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Knut Wicksell
Max Weber
Irving Fisher
Sam de Wolff
John Maynard Keynes
Joseph Alois Schumpeter
Joan Robinson
Jan Tinbergen
John Hicks
John Kenneth Galbraith
Milton Friedman
Paul Samuelson
François Quesnay
France 1694–1774
The name François Quesnay (say: keh-nay) is inextricably linked to the concept of the economic cycle. The cycle is one of the oldest and most venerable tools in economic science, and its originator cannot be overlooked. That said, Quesnay’s version of the cycle looked a bit different from the one we know today. Instead of the sectors we find in our textbooks — businesses, households, government, and foreign trade — the earliest version of the cycle reflects the class-based society of the eighteenth century. It features farmers, large landowners, and the class of artisans and merchants.
Although you wouldn’t guess it from the accompanying portrait, François Quesnay came from humble origins. He was born in 1694 into a farming family. As the story goes, he taught himself to read at the age of eleven using a book on agriculture. At seventeen, he moved to Paris to study medicine. He married a daughter from a wealthy family and established himself as a physician. In 1745, he advanced his social standing further by becoming the personal doctor to Madame de Pompadour, mistress of the French king Louis XV. A few years later, the king himself appointed him as his physician. In 1752, Quesnay was ennobled and purchased an estate near Nevers. In short: Quesnay had made it.
By then a renowned physician, Quesnay had broader interests than medicine alone. He became acquainted with prominent philosophers such as Diderot and d’Alembert, and began to take an interest in economics as well. He wrote on topics including agricultural economics, but it wasn’t until the advanced age of 64 that he produced the first version of his famous Tableau Économique — the first circular flow model in history. As a physician, Quesnay had studied the human circulatory system in depth, which had been discovered in the seventeenth century by the Englishman Harvey. It has often been noted that Quesnay’s economic cycle bears a strong resemblance to the circulation of blood in the human body.
Another notion of Quesnay’s — which to us feels rather peculiar — was his belief that value could be created only by farmers. In this view, what we now call gross domestic product consisted entirely of agricultural production. On closer inspection, though, that idea may not be so strange in the context of the eighteenth century, when most people worked in agriculture. And besides, the production process has to begin somewhere — what we would now call the primary producer. The fact that products are later transformed or traded is of lesser importance.
Around the somewhat eccentric Quesnay a circle of admirers began to form, gathering regularly in the apartments of the great master at the Palace of Versailles. They discussed philosophy and economics, and Quesnay’s literary fruits were read and debated. This circle — sometimes referred to as the Physiocrats (“the rule of nature”) — had only a brief existence, roughly from 1760 to 1770. The Physiocrats believed in a natural order that should be left to its own devices. The laws of nature know what is best for us, and we should not stand in their way. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand can be traced directly back to the Physiocrats.
From 1764 onward, Quesnay’s influence began to wane. Madame de Pompadour, his advocate at court, died that year. Quesnay continued to publish, but lost many of his allies at court. The entire Physiocratic school, moreover, faced growing resistance due to the liberal ideas it promoted. The Physiocrats’ journal was banned from publication, and when Louis XV died in 1774, that was it for the Physiocrats. Quesnay died that same year. There is every reason to honor him as one of the founding fathers of economics. Not only the concept of the circular flow, but also the idea of a natural order, can be traced back to him and his Physiocrats.