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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/9172
Physiocracy in Spain
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Abstract
Many historians of eighteenth-century Spain have addressed, in one way
or another, the introduction of physiocracy and its influence in Spain
(Sarrailh 1957, 547, 549; Herr 1958, 45). In general, these references
are based on a rather vague definition of the term, one which stresses a
kind of agrarianism, holding agriculture to be the most important (but
not the only) productive sector. Occasionally there are references to the
idea of a single tax (although not necessarily in relation to agricultural
production), but not much else. In actuality, physiocracy was defined by
a precise conceptual model, created in order to engage in the controversies
on economic policies of the period (Francois Quesnay, 1957; Vaggi
1991). Physiocrats defined themselves more by the almost sectarian defense
of this theoretical and conceptual model, and the language that
expressed it, than by their proposals on policy questions. This theoretical
model, in its core, included the following ideas: that agriculture was
the only productive sector, the concept of produit net and its circulation
through the Tableau oeconomique including, accordingly, the protection
of a single tax and of free trade.
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LLUCH, Ernest and ARGEMÍ I D'ABADAL, Lluís. Physiocracy in Spain. History of Political Economy. 1994. Vol. 26, num. 613-627. ISSN 1527-1919. [consulted: 7 of August of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/9172