histofthought1

Physiocracy in mid-eighteenth century France 369inherent harmony when artificial constraints and artificial harmony and artificialstimuli are removed'. Looking to an enlightened monarch to removethese artificial subsidies and restrictions, d'Argenson pointed out that in theideal society, the sovereign would have very little to do. 'One spoils everythingby meddling too lTmch... The best government is that which governsleast'. Thereby the marquis anticipated the famous phrase attributed to ThomasJefferson.D'Argenson concluded that 'each individual [should] be left alone to laboron his own behalf, instead of suffering constraint and ill-conceived precautions.Then everything will go beautifully...'. Then continuing the proto­Hayekian point made by Belesbat:It is precisely this perfection of liberty that makes a science of commerce impossible,in the sense that our speculative thinkers understand it. They want to directcommerce by their orders and regulations; but to do this one would need to bethoroughly acquainted with the interests involved in commerce...from one individualto another. In the absence of such knowledge, it [a science of commerce]can only be...much worse than ignorance in its bad effects...Therefore, laissezfaire!(Eh, qu'on laisse-faire!')13.4 Natural law and property rightsNot only were the physiocrats generally consistent advocates of laissez-faire,but they also supported the operation of a free market and the natural rightsof person and property. John Locke and the Levellers in England had transformedthe rather vague and holistic notions of natural law into the clear-cut,firmly individualistic concepts of the natural rights of every individual humanbeing. But the physiocrats were the first to apply natural rights andproperty rights concepts fully to the free market economy. In a sense, theycompleted the work of Locke and brought full Lockeanism to economics.Quesnay and the others were also inspired by the typically eighteenth centuryEnlightenment version of natural law: where the individual's rights of personand property were deeply embedded in a set of natural laws that had beenworked out by the creator and were clearly discoverable in the light of humanreason. In a profound sense, then, eighteenth century natural rights theorywas a refined variant of medieval and post-medieval scholastic natural law.The rights were now clearly individualistic and not societal or pertaining tothe state; and the set of natural laws was discoverable by human reason. Theseventeenth century Dutch Protestant, and in essence Protestant scholastic,Hugo Grotius, deeply influenced by the late Spanish scholastics, developed anatural law theory which he boldly declared was truly independent of thequestion of whether God had created them. The seeds of this thought were inSt Thomas Aquinas and in later Catholic scholastics, but never had it beenformulated as clearly and as starkly as by Grotius. Or, to put it in terms that