Texts and Themes
Among his youthful works, his two 1750 discourses in Sorbonne - “Les avantages que la religion chretienne a procures au genre humain”, and “Tableau philosophique des progres successifs de l’esprit humain” - are well known.
They introduced important themes like a philosophy of history based on a development of societies in three stages, the unbounded perfectibility of the human mind and the notion of progress. A 1749 letter to the abbe de Cice on paper-money and his “Plan d’un ouvrage sur le commerce, la circulation et l’interet de l’argent, la richesse des Etats” (c. 1753-54) are also indicative of his early interest in money and trade. During this period he also contributed to volumes 6 (1756) and 7 (1757) of Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers with the entries “Etymologie”, “Existence”, “Expansibilite”, “Foire” and “Fondation”. He was a member of the group of young intellectuals gathered around Jacques-Claude-Marie Vincent, Marquis of Gournay (1712-1759), Intendant du commerce, who played an important role in the translation and/or circulation in France of some significant writings by Richard Cantillon, David Hume, Josiah Child, and so on, and in the “acclimatization” of the British “science of trade”. Turgot himself translated two writings by Josiah Tucker, one of which - the 1751 Reflections on the Expediency... - was published under the title Questions importantes sur le commerce... (1755). Some developments in this literature - for example, on the importance of the level of the interest rate, or on money - are to be found later in Turgot’s thought. He wrote his celebrated “Eloge de Vincent de Gournay” (1759) after the death of the Intendant du commerce: he attributed to him however some of his own ideas on free trade, thus distorting the perception that posterity had of Gournay (Tsuda 1983).Having made the acquaintance of Quesnay, Turgot adopted some of his views. This is probably the reason why his approach was for a long time either confused with Physiocracy or seen as a “dissenting” view of it. He developed in fact a powerful approach of his own which can be termed “sensationist political economy” (Faccarello 1992, 2006). His theoretical principles are presented in five fundamental texts: (1) a short treatise, Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, written c. 1766 and published by instalments in 1769-70 by Pierre Samuel Dupont (1739-1817) in Ephemerides du citoyen; (2) his 1767 comments on two memoirs on indirect taxation respectively written by Jean-Joseph-Louis Graslin and Guerineau de Saint-Peravy; (3) the uncompleted entry “Valeurs et monnaies” (c. 1769) intended for Andre Morellet’s Dictionnaire du commerce; (4) Memoire sur les prets d’argent (c. 1770) against the Scholastic doctrine of usury; and (5) “Lettres au Controleur general sur le commerce des grains” (1770) reassessing the necessity of a free grain trade - which forms also an implicit critique of Ferdinando Galiani’s 1770 Dialogues sur le commerce des bles (Faccarello 1998). Important aspects of his theories are also to be found in his correspondence and in other writings.
Shortly after Turgot’s death, both Dupont and M.-J.-A.-N. Caritat de Condorcet (1743-1794) - his most outstanding disciple - published a life of Turgot (Dupont 1782; Condorcet 1786). Condorcet’s Vie de M. Turgot greatly contributed to maintain and develop Turgot’s legend in France and abroad. It was translated into English as early as 1787 and appreciated by British reformers. In his Autobiography John Stuart Mill noted how Condorcet’s book - which he compared to Plutarch’s Lives - deeply impressed him and induced him to abandon all sectarian attitude and spirit (Mill 1873: 115-17).
It is important to keep in mind the peculiar status of Turgot’s texts. First, the greatest part of his writings are just first - and sometimes incomplete - drafts.
This is even the case for the 1766 Reflexions. This treatise was published in the Ephemerides on the insistence of Dupont, but Turgot had the intention to use a special offprint to thoroughly revise and expand the piece - yet he did not find the time for this revision. This probably explains some fluctuations in the vocabulary and in the presentation of some themes, for example, the rate of return on capital. Secondly, Dupont modified some texts to make them match better with the Physiocratic doctrine. This is the case for the Reflexions: Turgot had to demand that he print a separate edition of the original manuscript. Thirdly, a great number of Turgot’s writings were published after his death, from sometimes undated manuscripts - their dating is thus occasionally uncertain.A first edition of Turgot’s work, by Dupont, was published in 1808-10 but this edition is unfaithful because of the changes made by the editor - in particular he reprinted his faulty version of the Reflexions. Three decades later two volumes of the “Collection des principaux economistes”, published in 1844 with Guillaumin and edited by Eugene Daire and Hippolyte Dussard, are also devoted to Turgot’s writings and correspondence, but they mainly reproduce Dupont’s versions (Schelle, in Turgot 1913-23, I: 3-4). The most comprehensive edition is, to date, the one prepared by Gustave Schelle (Turgot 1913-23)
- all the references hereafter refer to this edition. Whenever it was possible, the texts were based on the manuscripts or some reliable documents - but some manuscripts having disappeared, Dupont’s version remained occasionally the only source. Yet even Schelle’s edition is not totally reliable (see, for example, Meek 1973: 3-4; van den Berg 2014). A new edition of Turgot’s works and correspondence is certainly needed, which at long last is possible since the French Ministry of Culture bought Turgot’s manuscripts in February 2015 (the previous owners had denied access to them).
Turgot’s contribution to political economy is decisive.
He powerfully developed Boisguilbert’s free-trade approach, reinforcing at the same time its foundations. Elaborating upon the hitherto common - but rather vague - supply and demand framework, he developed, on the supply side, a systematic approach in terms of capital competition and, on the demand side, a subjective theory of value and prices - what allowed him also to reconsider the doctrine of usury and propose the first economic theory of the rate of interest. He also proposed some views on the successive stages of development of societies and on the origin and effect of the division of labour (Meek 1971, 1973); he put forward the main themes of what was to be called public economics, based on market failures and on the quid pro quo approach (Faccarello 2006); and he engaged in a polemic with Galiani on how to efficiently reform a society and implement a transition from a regulated to a free-trade economy (Faccarello 1998). The secondary literature is abundant. For the above-quoted and other aspects of his work and some divergent interpretations, see, for example, Groenewegen (1970, 1971, 1983), Brewer (1987), Faccarello (1991, 1992), Ravix and Romani (1997). In this entry, the focus will be on competition, value and the rate of interest.