Voltaire and Physiocratie

Samuel Danziger

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, January-February 1931]

During the reign of Louis XV there arose in France a group of economic students, who were later called "physiocrats", and who had advanced ideas on political economy. They antedated Adam Smith as free traders and Henry George as Single Taxers. Like modern advocates of the same ideas they were misunderstood and one of those who misunderstood their doctrines was Voltaire. He satirized what he erroneously supposed to be their proposal in his "Man of Forty Crowns", which was a forerunner of the modern objection to the Single Tax wherein there is presented a millionaire ''who owns no land" and whose fortune is all invested in securities and a farmer "who owns nothing but land". Voltaire overlooked that the millionaire's securities are but title deeds to or liens upon valuable land while the farmer's land has little or no value aside from improvements. Perhaps the physiocrats failed themselves to make this as clear as they should. But Voltaire was a wise man and consequently was not averse to changing his mind. He did so in this case. This is a fact not stated in Professor E. R. A. Seligman's use of this satire as a refutation of modern Single Tax arguments, nor is it mentioned in the tract issued by the National Association of Real Estate Boards which follows Seligman's example.

Voltaire made clear his change of view when the landed gentry of France and their sycophants, the Babbits of that day, made war on Turgot, the physiocratic Finance Minister who established free trade in grain, abolished forced labor on the public roads, recommended taxing land values to pay for road improvements and, the landed interests feared, was about to put into effect the Single Tax advocated by the physiocrats after abolishing the local tariffs. Voltaire came to Turgot 's aid with a pamphlet in defense of his views. It must have been unanswerable for the parlement of Paris suppressed it. Turgot was dismissed and on hearing of this Voltaire wrote:

"I have nothing but death to look forward to since M. Turgot is out of office. The thunderbolt has blasted my brain and my heart."

This was more than mere rhetoric. He died shortly afterward. Undoubtedly he recognized the calamity to France involved in the loss of opportunity to put in effect the principles he had once satirized.