Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, baron de l'Aulne (born May 10, 1727 in Paris ; † March 18, 1781 ; often also spelled baron de Laune ) was a French statesman and economist of the Enlightenment who can be counted as part of the pre-classical economy . He described the main features of the Income Act , but also contributions to the Encyclopédie .
Life and work
Jacques Turgot was the youngest son of Michel-Étienne Turgot, Prévôt des Marchands of Paris, and Madeleine Françoise Martineau. He came from a noble family from Normandy. Trained for the church, he was accepted in 1749 as "Abbé de Brucourt" at the Sorbonne .
The first signs of his interest in economics can be found in a letter (1749) about paper money , which he wrote to a fellow student, the Abbé de Cicé, and in which he refuted the defense of John Law's system by the Abbé Terrasson . He liked poetry and tried to introduce the rules of Latin prosody into French poetry; Voltaire described his translation of the fourth book of the Aeneid in classical hexameters as the only prose translation he could get enthusiastic about.
In 1750 he decided not to pursue a church career. He gave Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours the reason that he could not bear to have to wear a mask all his life. In the following years he wrote a. a. two treatises On the Formation of Governments and the Mixing of Peoples, and On the Advancement of the Human Spirit ; both were only published posthumously in 1808. Turgot thus became an influential representative of a belief in progress based on the optimism of the Enlightenment. In 1752 he became a substitute for the General Procurator, then Councilor of Parliament, and in 1753 Maître des requêtes . In 1754 he was a member of the chambre royale , which met during the exile of parliament; In 1755 and 1756 he accompanied Gournay, then trade director, on his tours through the provinces; and in 1760, while traveling in eastern France and Switzerland, he visited Voltaire, who became one of his best friends and supporters. In Paris he visited the salons , especially those of Madame Graffigny , Madame Geoffrin , Madame du Deffand , Madame Lespinasse and Marie Louise-Elisabeth de La Rochefoucauld , Duchesse d'Anville (1716–1797), and associated there with important figures of the Enlightenment .
Allegedly, at a certain point in time, he wanted to marry Madame Graffigny's niece, Mademoiselle de Ligniville (“Minette”), who took over her aunt's salon after her death, married Claude Adrien Helvétius and started her salon as Madame Helvétius - from 1772 under the name “ cercle d'Auteuil ”- and remained a lifelong friend. During this time he met the leaders of the Physiocratic School, François Quesnay and Vincent Gournay , and with them Dupont de Nemours, the Abbé Morellet and other economists. All this time he studied various branches of science, as well as ancient and modern languages.
In 1753 he translated Josias Tucker's Questions sur le commerce from English. In support of religious tolerance , he wrote his Lettre sur la tolérance (German letter on tolerance) and a pamphlet , Le Conciliateur . Between 1755 and 1756 he wrote various articles for Diderot's Encyclopédie , and between 1757 and 1760 an article Valeurs des monnais , probably for the Dictionnaire du commerce des Abbé Morellet. In 1759 his Éloge de Gournay was published .
In August 1761, Turgot was appointed director of the Limoges Province, which included some of the poorest and most taxed areas in France; he stayed here for thirteen years. He was already convinced of Quesnay's and Gournay's theories and tried to apply them in practice in his province. His first plan was to continue the work begun by his predecessor Tourny, to carry out a complete survey of the country ( cadastre ) in order to arrive at a fairer assessment of the waist ; in this way he achieved a considerable reduction in the contributions to be made by the province. He published his Avis sur l'assiette et la répartition de la taille (1762-1770), and as president of the Société d'agriculture de Limoges, he praised prizes for essays on taxation principles.
Quesnay and Mirabeau had advocated a proportional tax ( impôt de quotite ), but Turgot a distributive ( impôt de repartition ). Another reform was the replacement of the Corvée with a financial tax levied across the province, while road construction was given to contractors. This enabled Turgot to provide his province with a good road system while distributing the expenses of its maintenance more fairly.
In 1769 he wrote his Mémoire sur les prêts a intérêt on the occasion of a scandalous financial crisis in Angoulême; This text is remarkable because it was the first time that the interest-bearing lending of money was treated scientifically and not only from a church standpoint. Other works written during his directorship were the Mémoire sur les mines et carrières and the Mémoire sur la marque des fers , in which he protested against state regulation and interference and advocated free competition. At the same time he did much to promote agriculture and local industries; this also includes setting up a porcelain factory. During the famine of 1770-1771, he made landowners obliged to help the poor, and especially the dependent tenants. He set up workshops and offices to provide work for the healthy and help for the infirm, while condemning the indiscriminate distribution of alms . In 1770 he wrote his famous Lettres sur la liberté du commerce des grains (letters on the free trade in grain), addressed to the general controller, the Abbé Terray . Three of the letters have disappeared because Turgot later sent them to Louis XVI. sent and didn't get back; the others show that free grain trade is in the interests of landowners, farmers and consumers alike, and demand in clear terms the removal of all restrictions.
Turgot's best-known work, Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses , he wrote in 1766 for two Chinese students; it appeared in Dupont's magazine, the Ephémérides du citoyen , from 1769 to 1770 , and was published individually in 1776. However, Dupont made various changes to the text to bring it more in line with Quesnay's doctrines, which compromised relations between him and Turgot.
After sketching the origins of trade, Turgot developed Quesnay's theory that land was the only source of wealth and divided society into three classes, the productive or agricultural, the artisan class, and the landowner class. After a discussion of the evolution of the different cultivation methods, the nature of exchange and barter trade, money and the function of capital , he presented the theory of the “impôt unique”, according to which only the net profit from the land should be taxed. He also demanded complete freedom from trade and industry.
He owed his appointment as minister to Maurepas , the “mentor” of Louis XVI, to whom he had been recommended by the Abbé Very, a mutual friend. His appointment as Minister of the Navy in July 1774 met with general approval and was greeted with enthusiasm by the philosophes . A month later, on August 24th, he was appointed General Controller of Finance. His first act was to present the king with a statement of his principles of action: "no bankruptcy, no tax hike, no debt". Turgot's policy in the face of the desperate financial situation was to implement strict austerity in all areas. All expenses had to be submitted to the General Controller for approval, a number of benefices were removed and their owners compensated, the abuse of the "acquits au comptarit" was addressed, while Turgot personally appealed to the king against the lavish allocation of posts and pensions. He also considered an in-depth reform of the “ferme générale”, but contented himself with more modest approaches at first: he enforced certain conditions for newly concluded leases, such as more efficient staff; he abolished the abuse of a certain type of pensions ( croupes ), a reform Terray avoided when he found out how many people in high positions had an interest in it; certain leases were terminated. He also prepared a regular budget.
Turgot's measures succeeded in reducing the national deficit considerably. The state's credit rating increased so that in 1776, shortly before his fall, Turgot was able to negotiate 4% loans with Dutch bankers. Yet the deficit was still so high that he was unable to carry out his main plan to replace indirect taxation with a single land tax. He rejected France's participation in the American Revolutionary War for economic reasons, but was unable to assert himself.
Turgot initially wanted to enforce the free grain trade, but his decree, signed on September 13, 1774, met with energetic opposition even at the conseil du roi. In the preamble of the edict, he popularly summarized his theses so that “even a village judge could explain them to his peasants”. The rejection was severe. Turgot was hated by those who profited from speculation in grain under the Terray regime, including the royal family. In addition, the grain trade had been a favorite topic of salons in previous years. The popular Italian diplomat and economist Ferdinando Galiani , opponent of the Physiocrats, had a large following. The opposition was reinforced by Linguet and Jacques Necker , who published his Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains in 1775 . But Turgot's worst enemy was the crop failure in 1774, which caused the price of bread to rise slightly the following winter and spring. In April riots broke out in Dijon and at the beginning of May the so-called “ flour war ” (French guerre des farines ) took place. Because of their careful organization, these uprisings can be seen as a first sample of the French Revolution. With the support of the king, Turgot succeeded in suppressing the uprisings. His position was strengthened when Malesherbe entered the cabinet (July 1775).
Turgot had been preparing his famous "Six Edits" for a long time, which he presented to the conseil du roi in January 1776. Of the six edicts, four were of minor importance. The two who aroused fierce opposition were the edict to remove the Corvées and the edict to abolish compulsory guilds. In the preamble to the latter, Turgot proclaimed the abolition of privileges and the submission of all three classes to taxation; the clergy were exempted at Maurepas' request. In the preface to the disposition of the guilds , he emphasized the right for everyone to work in any profession without restrictions. He obtained the registration of all six edicts through the lit de justice on March 12, but at that time he had almost everyone against him. His attacks on privileges had earned him the hatred of the nobility and parliaments, his attempted reforms of the royal budget that of the court, his plans for free trade that of the financiers, his views on tolerance that of the clergy, and his edict of the guilds of the rich bourgeoisie of Paris. The Queen disliked him because he opposed extravagance in favor of her favorites, and he had similarly offended Madame de Polignac.
Still, everything could have gone well if Turgot had at least retained the king's trust. But the king could not overlook the fact that Turgot had no support from the other ministers. Even his friend Malesherbes thought he was acting too rashly; Moreover, he had already given up himself and was thinking of resigning. The alienation from Maurepas continued. Whether because of his jealousy of Turgot, because of his influence on the king or because of the natural incompatibility of their characters, in any case he was inclined to take sides against Turgot. The reconciliation between him and the Queen at that time contributed to the fact that he was from now on an instrument of the Polignac clique and the Choiseul party. At the same time a pamphlet, Le Songe de M. Maurepas , was published with a bitter caricature of Turgot, generally attributed to the Comte de Provence ( Louis XVIII ).
Before going into a report on the circumstances of Turgot's case, let me briefly summarize his views on the administrative system. Like the Physiocrats , he was a believer in enlightened political absolutism , and he expected the king to carry out all reforms. He rejected any interference by parliaments in legislation, as they had no competence outside of the judiciary. He recognized the danger of the old Parliament being reconvened, but could hardly object to it, since it was linked to the dismissal of Maupeou and Terray; he also seems to have underestimated its power. He was against the convening of the Estates General as proposed by Malesherbes (May 6, 1775), possibly because the two privileged Estates would have too much power in it. His own plan can be found in his Memoire sur les municipalités , which was informally submitted to the king.
In the system proposed by Turgot, only landowners should form the electorate, no distinction should be made between the classes. The members of the city and country municipalities should elect the representatives for the district municipalities, these the provincial municipalities, and these in turn elect the “Municipalité générale”. This should have no legislative power, but only deal with tax administration. A whole system of education and poor welfare should be connected with it. Louis XVI shied away from it because it would have been too big a step into the unknown, and such a fundamental difference of opinion between king and minister inevitably led to a rupture sooner or later. Turgot's only choice, however, was to tinker with details of the existing system or bring about a complete revolution; his attack on privileges, which could have been carried out through the interaction of a popular minister and a strong king, had to be part of an effective reform plan.
The immediate cause of Turgot's fall is doubtful. Some speak of a plot, of forged letters attacking the queen, which were shown to the king as turgots; from a series of notes on Turgot's budget, supposedly drawn up by Necker to show the king Turgot's ineptitude. Others attribute his fall to Marie Antoinette ; she undoubtedly hated Turgot for helping Vergennes to recall the duc de Guînes from his post as ambassador in London. At the instigation of the Choiseul clique , the Queen had passionately advocated this matter . Still others speak of an intrigue of Maurepas . When Malesherbes resigned (April 1776), whom Turgot wanted to replace with the Abbé Very, Maurepas proposed an incompetent man named Amelot as his successor. When Turgot heard this, he wrote an indignant letter to the king in which he accused him of not wanting to see him; in energetic terms he pointed out the dangers of a weak ministry and a weak king; and he complained bitterly of Maurepas' indecision and his dependence on court intrigues. King Maurepas is said to have shown this confidential letter, whose aversion to Turgot was thereby increased. With all these enemies, Turgot's fall was ultimately certain; but he wanted to stay in office long enough before his resignation to complete his reform of the royal household. However, he was not allowed to do so and was instead asked to resign on May 12th. He retired to La Roche-Guyon , the castle of the Duchess of Anville, but then returned to Paris, where he spent the rest of his life studying scientific and literary studies after becoming vice-president of the Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles in 1777. Lettres had been made.
Turgot stood up for the "natural rights" of the citizens, which they have based on the "natural law". August Oncken rejected Turgot as a bad physiocrat , while Leon Say saw him as the founder of modern political economy, who prevailed in the 19th century despite his failure in the 18th century. As a statesman, he has been assessed very differently, but there is general agreement that a large number of reforms and ideas of the revolution go back to this enlightener .
Eponyms
In 1999 the asteroid (10089) Turgot was named after him.
Works
- Reflections on the formation and distribution of the richesses
literature
- Deuvres de Turgot et documents le concernant. With biography and notes by Gustave Schelle, Vol. 5, Paris 1913–1923 (Reprint Glashütten 1972)
- On the Advancement of the Human Mind (1750), ed. by Johannes Rohbeck and Lieselotte Steinbrügge, Frankfurt am Main 1990 (stw 657)
- Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766), ed. by August Skalweit , Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1946
- Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1770), ed. by Marguerite Kuczynski , Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1981
Secondary literature
- Christian Bordes, Jean Morange (ed.): Turgot, économiste et administrateur (= Publications de la Faculté de droit et des sciences économiques de Limoges 10, ISSN 0337-7938 ). Actes d'un séminaire organized par la Faculté de Droit et des Sciences Économiques de Limoges pour le bicentenaire de la mort de Turgot 8, 9 and 10 October 1981. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1982.
- Gerald J. Cavanaugh: Turgot and the Encyclopédie. In: Diderot Studies. 10, 1968, ISSN 0070-4806 , pp. 23-33.
- Régis Deloche: Turgot et Condorcet économistes. Post hunc ergo propter hunc (= Université de Franche-Comté, Faculté Droit, Sciences Économiques. Document de travail 8803, ZDB -ID 2568561-2 ). Bicentenaire de la Révolution Française. Colloque "Condorcet", Paris mercredi 8 - samedi 11 June 1988. Center de Recherches sur les Stratégies Économiques et al., Besançon 1988.
- Siegmund Feilbogen : Smith and Turgot. A contribution to the history and theory of economics. A. Hölder, Vienna 1892 (Reprint. Slatkine, Geneva 1970).
- Gerda Hassler : Approaches to the discussion about a linguistic relativity principle in Turgot's conflict with Maupertuis. In: Journal for Phonetics, Linguistics and Communication Research. 5/6, 1976, ISSN 0044-331X , pp. 491-494.
- Jean-Pierre Poirier: Turgot. Laissez-faire et progrès social. Perrin, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-262-01282-2 .
- Léon Say: Turgot (= Les grands écrivains français 5, ZDB -ID 979874-2 ). 3. Edition. Hachette, Paris 1904.
- Andreas Urs Sommer : Creation of meaning through history? On the emergence of a speculative, universalistic philosophy of history between Bayle and Kant (= Schwabe Philosophica 8). Schwabe, Basel 2006, ISBN 3-7965-2214-9 , pp. 228–247.
Web links
- Literature by and about Anne Robert Jacques Turgot in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kafker, Frank A .: Notices sur les auteurs of 17 volumes de "discours" de l'Encyclopédie (suite et fin). Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie Année (1990) Volume 8 Numéro 8 p. 118
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Joseph Marie Terray |
General Controller of Finance August 24, 1774 - May 12, 1776 |
Jean Étienne Bernard Ogier de Clugny |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, baron de l'Aulne (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French statesman and pre-classical economist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 10, 1727 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 18, 1781 |