histofthought1

Physiocracy in mid-eighteenth century France 379margrave also imported ])u Pont de Nemours to be his adviser and tutor tohis son.In one notable meeting, the fervent margrave of Baden asked his masterMirabeau whether or not the physiocratic ideal was making sovereign rulersunnecessary. Perhaps they might all be reformed out ofexistence. The margravehad divined the anarchistilc - or at least the republican - core underlying thelaissez-faire libertarian and natural rights doctrine. But Mirabeau, dedicatedas were all the physiocrats to absolute monarchy, drew back, sternly remindinghis younger pupil that while the role of the sovereign would ideally belimited, he would still be the owner of the public domain and the preserver ofsocial order.Several other rulers of Europe at least dabbled in physiocracy. One of themost eager was Leopold II, grand duke of Tuscany, later emperor of Austria,who ordered his ministers to consult with Mirabeau and carried out some ofthe physiocratic reforms. A fellow-traveller was Emperor Joseph II of Austria.Another physiocratic enthusiast was Gustavus III, king of Sweden, whoconferred upon Mirabeau the grand cross of the newly founded Order ofWasa, in honour of agriculture. Du Pont in turn, was made a Knight of theOrder. More practically, when the physiocratic journal was suppressed uponthe fall of Turgot, King Gustavus and the margrave of Baden joined incommissioning Du Pont to edit a journal which would be published in theirrealms.But the physiocratic appeal to monarchy lost what little effect it had afterthe onset of the French Revolution. Indeed, after the revolution, physiocracy,with its pro-agricultural bias and devotion to absolute monarchy, was discreditedin France and the rest of Europe.13.9 Daniel Bernoulli and the founding of mathematical economicsWe should not leave the Tableau without mentioning a French-Swiss contemporaryof Cantillon who prefigured the Tableau in one and only onesense: he can be said to be the founder, in the broadest sense, of mathematicaleconomics. As such, his work contained some of the typical flaws and fallaciesof that method.Daniel Bernoulli (1700--82) was born into a family of distinguished mathematicians.His uncle, Jacques Bernoulli (1654-1705), was the first to discoverthe theory of probability (in his Latin work, Ars conjectandi, 1713) andhis father Jean (1667-1748) was one of the early developers of the calculus, amethod that had been discovered in the late seventeenth century. In 1738,Daniel, trying to solve a problem in probability theory and the theory ofgambling by use of the calculus, stumbled on the concept of the law ofdiminishing marginal utility of money. Bernoulli's essay was published inLatin as an article in a scholarly volume. 8