Chapter Fourteen - ‘One Must Make War on the Lunatics’: The Physiocrats’ Attacks on Linguet, the Iconoclast (1767–1775)

Summary

Probably frightened by Dupont's fiery exhortations to ‘make war on the lunatics’, that is to say on the enemies of the Physiocrats who ‘make use of their talents to distort the truth’, Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet (1736–1794), one of these ‘lunatics’, decided to give the following epigraph to the work he had written against them, his Réponse aux docteurs modernes.

At that time, Forbonnais, Graslin, Béardé de l'Abbaye and Mably had left the literary battlefield, at least for a while. Galiani was in Italy and Necker had not yet launched an attack. Was it really worth it anyway? Since Maynon d'Invault's downfall (at the end of 1769), a movement of ‘de-liberalization’, a ‘restoration policy’ has been at work under the auspices of the new controller-general Terray and Quesnay's school seemed to be in a rather delicate position vis-à-vis the new power, and even so vis-à-vis their new popular notoriety during riots and public disorders. It had been given the freedom to export grain, hence the rise in food costs and the terrible events that ensued. Accused, scoffed at and rebuked, the Économistes defended themselves and even launched a counter-attack against Galiani's Dialogues, which had done them such harm. Blows had been landed, but the Économistes had not fallen yet. At the beginning of the decade, one man in particular wanted to be part of the Antiphysiocratic fight and strike the fatal deathblow. His name was Linguet, who, from that point on, was considered ‘one of their most fearsome’ opponents, the ‘most articulate and aggressive critic’ of Physiocracy and even ‘their most ferocious and relentless scourge’.

As we shall now see, a number of principles expressed in his founding work of 1767 were destined to oppose him to Quesnay and his disciples. However, a distinct transition occurred. During the mid-19 60s, Linguet had been inspired by their ideas but, by 1769, he had begun to have doubts, which led him to express open criticism of them in 1770. This triggered direct confrontation the following year. The liberalization of the grain trade was the main reason for this change, but also his overall lack of knowledge of the Physiocratic principles up to 1771. Indeed, until then, Linguet had gone with the flow, but did not really know what to make of the substance of such policies.