Turgot’s Life (1727-1781)

A. R. J. Turgot

A. R. J. Turgot

ZOOM

 

Picture of A. R. J. Turgot courtesy of
The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.
Turgot was born in Paris on May 10, 1727 and
died in Paris on March 20, 1781. He came
from an old Norman family but did not always use
his title Baron d’Aulne. He was an economist of
the Physiocratic school, a politician, a reformist
bureaucrat and a writer. His family wanted him to
become a priest, so he was educated at the college
of Louis-le-Grand, before taking a degree in
theology at the seminary of St. Sulpice and at the
Sorbonne.

It was while studying theology that
Turgot discovered political economy and wrote
his first essays on economics and history, most
notably an oration on “A Philosophical Review of
the Successive Advances of the Human Mind”
(1750)1 where he made the first
of several contributions to the development of the
“4 stage theory” of economic and social
development from hunter gatherers, to slave-based
societies, to the peace and prosperity made
possible by market society.2 In 1751 he decided
not to enter the priesthood, preferring instead a
career in royal administration.

In December 1752
he was appointed a councilor to the Paris
Parlement where he served 1753-61, and in 1753
purchased the office of maître des requêtes.

Turgot’s early writings included a defence of
religious toleration in Lettres sur la tolérance
(1753) and several articles written
for Diderot’s Encyclopédie in 1757 (including
“Fairs and Markets” and
“Fondations”). Although Turgot
was forced to withdraw from any further formal
association with the Encyclopedists because of his
official position, he was able to maintain contact
with enlightened circles through the salon of
Madame Geoffrin.

Also during the mid-1750s
Turgot came into contact with members of the
French free market school known as the
Physiocrats. He met Dr. Quesnay
and Dupont de Nemours and
traveled extensively with Vincent de Gournay
(who was the free market Intendant for Commerce)
on his tours of inspection around
the country during 1753-56.3 It was Gournay
who is reputed to have coined the expression
“laissez faire, laissez passer” when asked what
government economic policy should be. When
Gournay died in 1759 Turgot wrote a lengthy
“Eloge de Gournay” in which he
defended laissez-faire economic policies with an
eloquence which other members of the
Physiocratic school too often lacked.

Turgot had two opportunities to put free market
reforms into practice: on a local scale when he
was appointed Intendant of Limoges in 1761-74;
and on a national level when the new king Louis
XVI made him Minister of Finances between
1774-76.

During the first period Turgot combined
economic and legal reform with a concerted
propaganda effort to defend these reforms in a
series of memoirs, memos and formal opinions
which were disseminated both within the
government and published publically. His
attempted reforms were extensive and comprised a
veritable “revolution in government”. Had they
succeeded the French old regime might well have
opened up its economy, overcome its internal
economic problems and thus averted the
Revolution which was to break out in 1789.
Turgot aimed to make taxation more equitably
based, to spend tax revenue on roads and other
infrastructure, to replace forced labour obligations
(such as the corvée) with paid labour, to end
military requisitioning of goods and transport, and
to make service in the local militia voluntary.
These reforms were accompanied by the
publication of his most important economic works
such as the Mémoire sur les prêts d’argent (1770); Lettres sur la liberté du commerce des
grains
(1770) addressed to the
Abbot Terray in an effort to prevent the free trade
legislation of 1764 from being revoked; and his
major work Réflexions sur la formation et la
distribution des richesses
(1766) which is one of
the clearest statements of the Physiocratic
position.

What emerges from these works is a
clearly articulated and impassioned defense of
individual and economic liberty. One key point is
that Turgot did not share his fellow Physiocrats’
faith in enlightened despotism, preferring a notion
of political liberty (such as constitutional limits on
royal power and strong regional government) more
in keeping with Montesquieu’s ideas. When the
American Revolution broke out he followed
events there with a keen interest.

The death of King Louis XV in May 1774 gave
Turgot his second opportunity to introduce free
market reforms to France. The new king Louis XVI
appointed Turgot first as Minister of the Navy and
then as Finance Minster from 1774-76. As Finance
Minister Turgot attempted to reproduce on a larger
scale the reforms he had pioneered at Limoges. In
his Six Edicts of 17764 Turgot tried to bring an
end to official corruption and to military
requisitioning, to abolish many local monopolies,
to introduce banking and taxation reforms, and to
return to internal free trade in grain.

Unfortunately,
his efforts failed as a result of the political
inexperience of the new king, the ability of the
vested interests who were being harmed by reform
to organize against it, and the food riots which
broke out as consequence of a food shortage and
rising prices (the famous “guerre des farines”).
Turgot was forced to resign in May 1776 and
France’s experiment in free market reform came to
an abrupt end.


Bibliography

Works by A. R. J. Turgot

Turgot, A. R. J., Ecrits économiques, ed. Bernard Cazes (Calmann-Levy, 1970).

Turgot, A. R. J., Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (1766). In Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844), vol. 1.

Turgot, A. R. J., Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of
Wealth
(1766, 2nd ed. 1778) (London: Printed by E. Spragg, For J. Good, Bookseller, No. 159, New Bond Street; John Anderson, No. 62, Holborn Hill; and W. Richardson, Royal Exchange. 1793).

Turgot, A. R. J., Mémoire sur les prêts d’argent (1770). In Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844), vol. 1.

Turgot, A. R. J., Lettres sur le commerce des grains, adressées au
contrôleur-général
(1770). In Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844), vol. 1.

Turgot, A. R. J., Eloge de Gournay (1759). In Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844), vol. 1.

Turgot, A. R. J., Articles from the Encylopédie (1757).
“Foires et Marchés” French edition from Vol. 1 of Oeuvres de Turgot, ed.
Eugène Daire (1844).
“Fondation” French edition from Vol. 1 of Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène
Daire (1844).

Turgot, A. R. J., “The 6 Edicts” (February 1776).
“Mémoire au roi sur les six projets d’édits…” French edition from Vol. 2 of
Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (1844).
“Déclaration du roi” French edition from Vol. 2 of Oeuvres de Turgot, ed.
Eugène Daire (1844).
“4 Edits du roi” French edition from Vol. 2 of Oeuvres de Turgot, ed.
Eugène Daire (1844).
“Lettres-patentes” French edition from Vol. 2 of Oeuvres de Turgot, ed.
Eugène Daire (1844).

Turgot, A. R. J., Second discours en Sorbonne. Sur le progrès
success if de l’esprit humain
(1750). French edition from Vol. 2 of Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (1844).

Turgot, A. R. J., Lettres sur la tolérance (1753). French edition from Vol. 2 of Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (1844).

Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844), 2 volumes.

Online:

vol. 1
http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0&O=N005728
vol. 2 http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0&O=N005729.
Published as volumes 3 and 4 of the Collections des principaux Economistes.

Turgot On Progress, Sociology and Economics, ed. R. L. Meek (Cambridge
University Press, 1973).

The Economics of A. R. J. Turgot, trans. P. D. Groenewegen (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977).

Works about A. R. J. Turgot

Daire, Eugène, “Notice historique sur la vie et les oeuvres de Turgot,” in vol. 1 of
Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844), 2 volumes.
Published as volumes 3 and 4 of the Collections des principaux Economistes.

Dakin, Douglas, Turgot and the Ancien Régime in France (London: Methuen,
1939).

Faure, Edgar, La Disgrâce de Turgot (Gallimard, 1961).

Kaplan, Steven L., Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis
XV,
2 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976).

Meek, Ronald L., Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge University
Press, 1976).

Monjean, M., “Turgot” in vol. 2 of Dictionnaire de l’économie politique, ed.
MM. Ch. Coquelin et Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852-53). Online: vol. 2
http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?E=0&O=N022410

Schelle, Gustave, “Turgot” in vol. 2 of Nouveau dictionnaire d’économie
politique,
ed. Léon Say et Joseph Chailley-Bert (Paris: Guillaumin, first edition
1891-1892, second edition 1900).

Weulersse, Georges, La Physiocratie sous les ministères de Turgot et de
Necker,
1774-1781 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1950).


Footnotes

Many of Turgot’s most important works can be found in Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844), 2 volumes.

On the development of the 4 stage theory in the 18th century see Ronald L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge University Press, 1976).

Biographical information on the Physiocrats Quesnay, Dupont de Nemours, and Gournay can be found in the mid-19th century French Dictionnaire de l’économie politique, ed. MM. Ch. Coquelin et Guillaumin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852-53).

The 6 Edicts and Turgot’s lengthy memorandum on them can be found in Oeuvres de Turgot, ed. Eugène Daire (Paris: Guillaumin, 1844): “Déclaration du roi”, “4 Edits du roi”, “Lettres-patentes”.


 

*Dr. David M. Hart is the newly appointed Director of the Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty Project. Previously he taught history at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. His research interests include 18th and 19th century French liberal thought.