François Quesnay

French economist and founder of Physiocracy. Born in Mélay, near Paris. He studied surgery at the University of Paris's Faculty of Medicine and other institutions, and played a leading role in establishing the status of surgery and surgeons through his conflicts with internists. Quesnay gained fame for his numerous medical treatises and practical skills, and from 1749 he served as personal physician to Madame de Pompadour, the beloved wife of Louis XV, and then to the king, living at the Palace of Versailles. Having been successful as a doctor and devoted himself to medical studies, he turned to economics research relatively late, and his works "On the Leased Farm" (1756) and "On the Corn" (1757), which he contributed to the Encyclopedia edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, were written in his early 60s. The Tableaux d'Economices, first published in 1758, was the first systematic attempt to express economic phenomena as a cyclical or reproductive process of production and consumption, and has earned an immortal place in the history of economics. According to Quesnay, the backbone of the entire economy is the extractive primary industry, centered on agriculture, and so the premise is that by transforming agriculture into a highly productive large-scale farming operation, a large amount of "net product" can be produced. To achieve this, he said, it is first necessary to eliminate the traditional mercantilist control and establish a system of free trade both domestically and internationally, and at the same time, to reform the existing tax system and transform it into a single tax system with the net product of the land as its sole source. The Physiocracy he advocated was thus a practical proposal for radical reform of the politics, economy, and finances of the Ancien Régime, but on the one hand it has an empirical aspect based on the tradition of "physical science," and on the other hand it has a normative aspect that draws on the flow of modern natural law. His theories contributed to the formation of a school of thought that included Mirabeau and many other disciples, but they also had a significant influence on the formation of economics by Turgot and Smith in his time, by Marx in the 19th century, and by Leontief and Sraffa in modern times.

[Izumi Hishiyama]

"Complete Works of Quesnay, vols. 1-3 (1951-52, Yuhikaku), edited by A. Onken and translated by Ryoji Shimazu and Izumi Hishiyama"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

フランスの経済学者。重農主義の創設者。パリの近郊メレに生まれる。パリ大学医学部などで外科学を学び、内科医との抗争によって、外科学と外科医の地位の確立に主導的な役割を果たした。医学に関する多数の論著と実践的手腕とにより名声を博したケネーは、1749年からルイ15世の愛妃ポンパドゥール夫人の侍医、ついで王の侍医をも兼ね、ベルサイユ宮殿に住む。医者として成功し、医学に研鑽(けんさん)を積んだ彼が経済学研究に転じたのは、比較的遅く、ディドロとダランベールの編集する『百科全書』に寄稿した「借地農論」（1756）および「穀物論」（1757）は、その60歳代初期の作品である。1758年にその初版が著された『経済表』は、経済現象を生産と消費の循環的過程ないしは再生産過程として表現した最初の体系的な試みであり、経済学史上不朽の地位をかちえている。ケネーによれば、経済全体の基幹は、農業を中心とする採取的第一次産業であるから、農業が生産性の高い大農経営に転換することにより、多くの「純生産物」を産出しうることが前提になる。そのためには、まず従来の重商主義的統制を排して、内外に及ぶ取引の自由体制を確立し、それとともに、既存の税制を改革して、土地の純生産物を唯一の源泉とする単一税制に変換することが必要であるとした。このように彼の唱えた重農主義は、アンシャン・レジームの政治、経済、財政に対して提示された抜本的改革案という実践的色彩の濃いものであるが、それは、一方で「自然学」の伝統にたつ実証的側面をもち、他方で近代的自然法の流れを引く規範的側面をもっている。彼の学説は、ミラボーをはじめ多くの門下からなる学派の形成にあずかったが、同時代ではチュルゴーやスミス、19世紀ではマルクス、そして現代ではレオンチェフやスラッファの経済学の形成に著しい影響を与えた。

［菱山　泉］

『A・オンケン編、島津亮二・菱山泉訳『ケネー全集』1～3巻（1951～52・有斐閣）』

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