MOSCOW ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS AND LAW

RYAZAN BRANCH

TEST

Course: “HISTORY OF ECONOMIC STUDIES”

Topic: “Economic Table” by Francois Quesnay.

Completed by: Art. gr. EB - 241

Lebedev N.V.

Checked by: d.e. Sc., professor

Badaliants Yu. S.

Ryazan 2003

Plan

Introduction 3

1. F. Quesnay about the pure product, productive and “sterile” labor, classes and capital 4

2. Analysis of reproduction in the “Economic Table” by F. Quesnay 11

3. The significance of Quesnay’s views for the development of economic thought 17

Conclusion 19

Literature 20

Introduction

Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) - French economist. Quesnay founded the “School” (nicknamed “Sect” by his opponents), which became the first organized movement in political economy, aimed at influencing public debate through a scientific concept of society. This “School” was called the “school of physiocrats” - from the Greek words physis (nature) and kratos (power).

The foundation of the views of the physiocrats was the recognition of productivity only in agriculture. In their view, it is the only sector that produces more than is needed for that production, in contrast to commerce and industry, which produces only value equal to the cost of production. And the wealth of the state depends, therefore, on the size of the product obtained in agriculture, and the object of reforms should be to stimulate the activity of farmers.

Although the work of the physiocrats was based on a view of economics marked by the characteristics of 18th century French society, their contribution to the formation economic science is essential. It involves viewing the economy as a system oriented simultaneously toward social classes and sectors of activity; an identification called "natural order"; economic laws governing relationships between individuals; difference between capital and profit; the concept of reversing cost flows that ensure the reproduction of society as a whole, the stop of which leads to economic crises.

The diagram from the "Economic Table" is generally accepted as the first representation of the economic system as a whole, with cash flows, technical production limitations, and the distribution of income between social classes.

1. F. Quesnay about the pure product, productive and “sterile” labor, classes and capital

The central place in Quesnay’s teaching was occupied by the problem of the “pure product” and its production. “Pure product” is the excess over that part of the production that compensated wages. In other words, by “net product” we meant surplus product. Rent was considered the only form of pure product.

“The net product,” wrote Quesnay, “is the wealth created annually which forms the income of the nation, and represents the product extracted from land holdings after the removal of all costs.” 1

Physiocrats argued that in industry there is only consumption; industry was declared a “sterile industry” due to the fact that it only transformed the form of a product, a given product. In industry, due to its “sterility,” no surplus product is created, and the income of the entrepreneur and the wages of the worker represent production costs.

This criterion (participation in the creation of a pure product) was the basis for the classification of society when analyzing the process of social reproduction, given by F. Quesnay in his famous work “Economic Table”. In it, society is viewed as a single organism uniting three main classes:

the productive class, which includes everyone involved in agriculture;

a class of owners, including all whose existence is connected, directly or indirectly, with the income from the ownership of land;

sterile class, which includes all those engaged in non-agricultural (industrial) activities.

It should be noted that the “productivity” or “sterility” of two of the three classes is not determined by the presence or absence of products in a material sense. Both “peasants” and “sterile citizens” create goods with their labor, which Quesnay calls, respectively, “agricultural products” and “products.” The difference between these classes does not lie in the commercial or non-commercial nature of their products. In both cases, these products are intended partially or completely for sale, and this, in turn, is necessary for the purchase of products of another class. The sterile class, just like the class of owners, according to Quesnay, does not create a pure product, but unlike the latter, this class works and with its labor creates as much as it consumes.

A description of the class structure of society was necessary for Quesnay, since in his "Economic Table" the total annual product is distributed through the process of circulation among three classes. Quesnay's task was to preserve the king and the landowners as the basis of society. But he could not put the owner class in first place; this would contradict his physiocratic concept of the primacy of agriculture. Therefore, his landowners found themselves in special class, placed between the "productive" and "sterile" classes. It is quite obvious that the theory of Quesnay classes is erroneous. According to his scheme, workers and capitalists in both industry and agriculture were united into one class. When dividing society into classes, Quesnay ignored the main principle - the relationship of class to the means of production. However, this limitation of Quesnay's teaching is explained by historical conditions. In France at that time there was no working class as such, and capitalist contradictions were then in their infancy, since capitalism was just being formed in the womb of feudalism. The division of society into farmers, property owners and industrialists actually corresponded to the division of society that existed in the Middle Ages into peasants, nobility and townspeople.

2. Analysis of reproduction in the “Economic Table”

F. Quesnay

Relations between classes are considered by Quesnay as economic relations, since they consist either of purchasing or sale of goods, or in payment of income. It is this characteristic that allows us to speak in this regard about a system of political economy, since society is here described in terms of the circulation of wealth (“trade between different classes”). Moreover: these economic relations are not considered separately from other relations between people in society; the existence of society itself depends on their existence, since they express the natural order that ensures its well-being.

First of all, Quesnay represents these relations between classes in terms of the costs incurred by their members. Thus, he analyzes what can be called the circulation of money in society; it is described by the following diagram.

Circulation of money between classes

At the beginning of the period, the landowning class has an income equal to 2 billion liras, and the barren class has an amount of 1 billion liras, which it advances for production. Landowners spend half of their income on purchasing agricultural products and the other half on purchasing sterile products. He uses 1 billion liras in advance to purchase the raw materials needed for production, and 1 billion liras just received from the landowners to purchase the means of subsistence that he will consume during the period.

The productive class uses the 1 billion liras received from landowners (for the sale of agricultural products) to buy products of the sterile class (these are not the products that landowners buy). With the amount received, the infertile class returns their advance of 1 billion liras. Finally, from the proceeds from the sale of raw materials and means of subsistence to the sterile class, the productive class can pay the sum of 2 billion liras to the owners of the land they used. At the end of the period, the owners again have an income of 2 billion liras, and the sterile class - 1 billion liras, and circulation can begin again.

Two observations can be made about this scheme. She is presented as vicious circle, when the original state, modified by the first costs, is eventually restored. In this case, society can function indefinitely without the need to impose coherence on it; the costs incurred by the classes are sufficient to spontaneously maintain this social coherence through monetary circulation (what Quesnay calls “legal order”). On the contrary, restoration of the original state does not occur if the costs differ in magnitude from those indicated in the diagram.

However, these costs are divided into two types. The costs emanating from the productive or sterile class are associated with purchases for production, therefore they are fixed by the conditions of production and do not change if the latter remain unchanged. The costs of the owners are dictated only by their by one's own desire. However, this class is, without knowing it, responsible for closing the circle. Suppose that 2 billion liras are spent differently and the original position is not restored, either due to the negligence of the productive class in paying the income, or due to the negligence of the sterile class in recouping the advance (adjustment by changing the costs of these two classes is impossible, since they specified by production conditions). Thus, we can conclude that the owner class is especially responsible for social coherence with the help of impulses given money circulation.

This monetary circulation during the period corresponds to the purchases of goods. It is also necessary that these goods exist, i.e. were produced for the required amount: 3 billion liras of agricultural products and 2 billion liras of industrial products.

In industry, everything is simple: the sterile class buys 1 billion liras of raw materials and 1 billion liras of means of subsistence. The former are used in production of products, the latter are consumed by infertile citizens (and their families) who produce the products. Their production therefore requires costs equal to 2 billion liras, and the proceeds from their sale are equal to this amount. This expresses the sterility of this class: it certainly produces goods, but adds nothing to their value. This is what Quesnay notes to prove that we are actually talking about “consumption”:

“(At the end of the period), this class (the sterile) retains this amount to recoup its advance which was paid earlier to the productive class for the purchase of raw materials used in the production of goods. This advance does not produce anything: it was spent, then it was returned and it remains in stock all the time, year after year.

The raw materials and labor for the production of products determine the sales of the sterile class at 2 billion, of which 1 billion is spent on the subsistence of the members of this class; here only consumption is visible, or the absence of production and the moment of reproduction, since this class exists only through the subsequent payment of remuneration for its labor, inseparable from the costs used for living.” 1

Everything is completely different in agriculture. How does production function in this industry? If we leave aside for the moment the purchase of goods from the sterile class, this production requires "annual advances," which "consist in the expenditure made annually on the labors of cultivating the soil." These advances correspond primarily to the means of subsistence consumed by the producers (and their families), and they do not figure in the diagram because they do not lead to the circulation of money between classes (these goods do not leave the productive class, which both produces and consumes them). The difference with industry is this: these annual advances (assumed to be 2 billion liras) are not simply consumed; they reproduce a large total value (equal to 5 billion liras).

With 2 billion liras of annual advances, agriculture thus produces 5 billion liras of product, of which 3 are sold to other classes and 2 are used to restore stocks.

Taking into account the purchase of industrial products, the operations of the productive class look like this: he advances 2 billion liras and buys 1 billion liras worth of products; total – 3 billion liras; it reproduces 5 billion liras; he has a difference left, called the net product (2 billion liras), which he gives to landowners, forming their income.

Two points need to be clarified: one concerns exceptional productivity Agriculture, the other - interest on initial advances and retention. The first point: why is there a pure product in agriculture and why only there? It is the answer to these two questions that lies at the heart of the difference between the productive and sterile classes. Quesnay gives only the most general considerations on this matter in the Economic Table. Two hypotheses can be presented that justify this productivity as a postulate.

The first presents the pure product as a gift of nature associated with the use of the earth. Agriculture is predominantly associated with the cultivation of land, so only it benefits from this gift. There are two possible objections to this naturalistic explanation.

Firstly, nothing prevents us from considering as productive industries those that also, but in a different way, exploit the land or nature, for example, mining. However, this is not done in the physiocratic concept. Secondly, how can we understand that this pure product, coming from the fertility of the land, goes not to those who cultivate it, but to those who own it? Another explanation is needed.

The second hypothesis represents net product as a simple economic expression land ownership. The existence of a class of landowners who have nothing to sell is unthinkable without their receiving an income, and this income can only be justified by the special privilege of this class, which confers on it a natural right: ownership of land.

The concept of a pure product thus plays a dual role: it expresses social reality (this is how the dominance of the landowning class in society is expressed in economic terms), but at the same time mystifies it (since it assigns to this pure product - and this dominance - a natural origin). The following paragraphs support this interpretation:

“Most of the costs to landowners are at least barren; from this we can exclude only the costs of preserving and improving their possessions and increasing fertility. But since they are obliged by natural right to manage and make expenses for the maintenance of their possessions, they must not be confused with that part of the population which constitutes an absolutely sterile class.” 1

“It is precisely the necessity of expenditure, which only landowners can make for the increase of their wealth and for the general good of society, that leads to the fact that the inviolability of landed property is a key condition of the natural order in the government of empires.” 2

The second point concerns interest on initial advances and retention. We must return to the significance of the purchasing of goods by the productive class from the sterile class. These purchases (1 billion lire) are mentioned by Quesnay in his analysis of the “trade market between different classes” (diagram). He does not return to them when studying reproduction, but he insists here on “interest on the advance payment for the establishment of landowners with an economy” (1 billion lire). Although the transition from one concept to another is not as simple as it is in the Economic Table, it must be recognized that we are talking about the same concept.

Agricultural production requires not only "annual advances" but also "down payments" which "form the basis of farming and which cost about five times as much as the annual advances." We are talking about the means of exploitation that you need to have in order to engage in agriculture and which do not disappear after the first harvest; today we would talk about fixed capital (buildings, tools, etc.). These farming tools break down over time and must be repaired every year to maintain them in working order (today we would talk about annual depreciation of fixed capital). In addition, farmers must form a fund that insures them against accidents that could destroy their crops.

In order to cover these two elements, the productive class must deduct from sales proceeds the “percentage of advances for setting up the farm,” that is, a certain proportion of the initial advances. They reach, according to Quesnay, a five-fold annual advance, i.e. 10 billion lire, and assuming that the percentage is one tenth, we get 1 billion lire for its value. This billion is spent in the form of purchasing the products of the sterile class, by which are meant, in particular, the implements of agriculture which it produces.

Finally, the addition of 2 billion lire in annual advances and 1 billion lire in interest amounts to what Quesnay calls the “retentions” of the productive class (what he must deduct from the proceeds of the sale of products). The net product is thus equal to the difference between the proceeds from the sale of products by the productive class and this retention.

Annual reproduction of the nation

Productive class Barren class Landowning class

Consumption

Agricultural activities

(reproduction)

Initial Annual

advances advances

Industrial

activity

Agricultural products

Raw Materials Products Consumables

Products that compensate for the wear and tear of the original advance

The arrows have the following meaning:

The flow of benefits corresponding to the sale transaction (which corresponds to the cash flow in diagram 1)

Accumulation of benefits

A technical production operation in which some goods are produced with the help of others.

Together with the use of the initial advances (which leads to their depreciation by one-tenth during the period), the annual advances to agriculture reproduce 5 billion liras of production, of which 3 billion liras are sold to other classes, and 2 billion liras replace the annual advances. Purchasing items from the sterile class for an amount equal to a percentage of the original advance (1 billion liras) allows it to be restored to its original value. Thus, the reproduction process can be resumed in the next period.

Reproduction should not be understood as an outdated synonym for production. Nothing would be more misleading than to reduce agricultural activity to a combination of fixed capital and labor (paid in annual advances) resulting in the production of goods.

In addition, in this case, fruitless activity would also be reproduction (but for some reason without fixed capital). Reproduction involves three inextricably linked elements:

it ensures the preservation of the natural order in society, i.e. recovery economic conditions existence of classes. This is why Quesnay speaks of the “annual reproduction of the nation” (and not of this or that industry);

this maintenance of the natural order presupposes the creation of a pure product for the maintenance of the landowners. The conditions of this creation (the advances necessary for agriculture) must be restored (through the “contributions” of the productive class);

this maintenance also presupposes the circulation of a certain part of the reproducible value (3 out of 5 billion liras). Reproduction is not only production, but also circulation.

The following phrase summarizes the meaning of this concept of reproduction:

“The sum of 5 billion, divided first between the productive class and the landowning class, is spent annually in a prescribed manner, which constantly ensures an equal annual reproduction.” 1

The concept of advances introduces into political economy what will later be called capital, to denote the conditions of production that must be advanced at the beginning of a period and which are restored at the end.

Two clarifications follow from Quesnay's analysis:

in the most general sense, capital is primarily a sum of money. This is explicit for the sterile class's advances, and implicit for the productive class's initial advances, which are spent on purchases from the sterile class (and therefore must be paid back). That the advances of the productive class are made in in kind- only it seems, since they refer to items produced within the same class. Thus, capital for Quesnay is the amount of money advanced for production, and its expenditure makes it possible to provide the conditions for this production;

There is one special category of capital, annual advances, which have the property of producing increased value. This property is expressed by a number (in the example given it is 250%), which can be considered as a measure of the ability of these advances to provide an increase in value. This phenomenon allows us to talk about a productive class.

Finally, the concept of pure product illustrates from two sides that this increase in value is the basis for special income. In other words, the income landowners receive by virtue of their natural right to land is in the nature of monetary profit. Since this profit is produced in agriculture, the income of one class (landowners) comes from another class (peasants).

3. The significance of Quesnay’s views for the development of economic thought

Some of Quesnay's hypotheses seem outdated today: profit is created only in the agricultural sector, there is no profit from capital. When constructing the “economic table,” Canet proceeded from certain premises and made a number of assumptions. He abstracted from the influence of the external market and price fluctuations, considering simple reproduction, which is a legitimate starting point for analysis. Analyzing social reproduction, Canet took the movement of commodity capital, revealing the correct economic tact, since the problem of reproduction is, first of all, the problem of realizing the social product.

But Quesnay’s genius lies in understanding the economy as a set of quantitative relations that ensure its constancy (what he calls reproduction). In particular, the quantities appearing in the “Economic Table” represent two types of relations reflecting the characteristics of a market economy: relations of production with their technical limitations and the mutual correspondence of sectors and the relation of treatment with their cash flows corresponding to the exchange or payment of income. Quesnay anticipates the classical school and invents a method for analyzing the economy as a closed process.

Although in general Quesnay’s doctrine of classes is primitive and unscientific, the fact that he was one of the first to divide society into classes on an economic basis made it possible to show in the “Economic Table” how the annual product is distributed between classes through circulation. This distribution provides the conditions for the resumption of production, or simple reproduction. Moreover, in the "Economic Table" countless individual acts of circulation are combined into a mass movement of the created annual product between economic classes society.

Considering Quesnay's doctrine of the pure product and classes of society, Marx showed that declaring agriculture the only productive sector, and the class of farmers the only productive one, had its own background. Land rent as a surplus product created in agriculture appears in its most tangible form.

K. Marx understood the genius of Quesnay’s “Economic Table” and gave a comprehensive analysis of this work. He wrote that “this was an attempt to present the entire process of production of capital as a process of reproduction, and circulation - only as a form of this process of reproduction... at the same time, it was an attempt to include in this process of reproduction the origin of income, the exchange between capital and income, the relationship between reproductive and final consumption, and in the circulation of capital include the circulation between producers and consumers (in reality, between capital and income); finally, it was an attempt to present, as moments in the process of reproduction, the circulation between two large divisions of productive labor - between the production of raw materials and industry - and all this in one “Table” ... This attempt, made in the second third of the 18th century, in the infancy period of political economy, was a highly ingenious idea, undoubtedly the most ingenious of all that political economy has put forward to this time.”

It was F. Quesnay who gave the first sufficiently deep theoretical substantiation of the provisions on capital in the history of economic thought. Quesnay believed that “Money itself is a sterile wealth that produces nothing.” F. Quesnay not only divided capital into fixed and circulating capital, but was also able to convincingly prove that both of them are in motion.

Quesnay showed how to national economy commodity and money flows move between classes, as a result of which farmers produce food for all classes, raw materials for industry, and seeds for the next year. They transfer the resulting net product to the land owners in the form of rent. For its time this was a very progressive opinion.

Its importance for the development of economic thought was noted by V. S. Nemchinov, calling Quesnay’s “Economic Table” a brilliant rise of human thought. “If we characterize Quesnay’s table in modern economic terms, then it can be considered the first experience in macroeconomic analysis, in which the central place is occupied by the concept of the total social product... Francois Quesnay’s “Economic Table” is the first macroeconomic grid of natural commodities in the history of political economy) and cash flows material assets. The ideas contained in it are the embryo of future economic models. In particular, when creating a scheme for expanded reproduction, K. Marx paid tribute to Quesnay’s brilliant creation” 1 .

Conclusion

In the Economic Table, Quesnay made an attempt for the first time in the history of political economy to show the basic proportions and main ways of realizing the social product, combining numerous acts of exchange into the mass movement of money and goods. It was he who discovered that the process of reproduction and implementation can proceed uninterruptedly only if certain proportions of the development of the national economy are observed.

The doctrine of Quesnay's reproduction suffered from a number of significant shortcomings. The "Economic Table" was built on the erroneous division of society into classes. Leaving the industrialists without the tools of production (they completely sold their products), Quesnay deprived them of the opportunity to start new process production. The landowner class was mistakenly placed at the center of the implementation process.

Quesnay’s “table” does not fully reveal the distribution of the social product; it did not show the sale of agricultural products within the class of farmers. The influence of the traditions of subsistence farming was felt, in which only surpluses were sold. All this did not allow Quesnay to fully reveal the mechanism of capitalist reproduction. But the scientific limitations of the “Economic Table” do not negate its merits.

The Quesnay table is the first macroeconomic grid of natural (commodity) and cash flows material assets. The ideas contained in it are the embryo of future economic models.

Literature

Titova N. E. History of economic teachings: Course of lectures. –M.: Humanite. ed. VLADOS center, 1997.

Agapova I.I. History of economic doctrines: Course of lectures. – M.: Yurist, 2001.

Vasilevsky E.G. “History of economic doctrines”, Part 1 - Moscow: Moscow State University, 1989.

World history of economic thought. M., 1987. T. 1 / Moscow State University. Lomonosov. – M.: Mysl, 1987.

Nemchinov V. S. Economic and mathematical methods and models. M.: Mysl, 1965.

http://econom.nsc.ru/jep/books/047 G. Deleplyas Lectures on the history of economic thought / Ed. Busygina V.P. - Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk State University, 2000.

1 World history of economic thought. M., 1987. T. 1. P. 450.

1 http://econom.nsc.ru/jep/books/047 G. Deleplyas. Lectures on the history of economic thought. Page 10.

1 http://econom.nsc.ru/jep/books/047 G. Deleplyas. Lectures on the history of economic thought. Pp. 13.

1 http://econom.nsc.ru/jep/books/047 G. Deleplyas. Lectures on the history of economic thought. Pp. 17.

1 Nemchinov V. S. Economic and mathematical methods and models. M.: Mysl, 1965. S. 175, 177.

Let's consider the content economic tables of Quesnay .

Reproduction there is a process of production in a continuous flow of its renewal. One of the key problems social production is the problem of ensuring its proportionality, in particular, the correspondence between production and consumption, income and expenses of economic entities, as well as sectors of the economy.

Quesnay is the first economist who tried to analyze the production process and the issue of proportionality of reproduction on a national scale.

Quesnay is the founder of the physiocrats. In 1758 he published a work entitled " Economic table"(in total there are four known versions of the Quesnay table). It was a work of genius for that period - the first insight into the secrets of social reproduction. He was prompted to invent the economic table by the discovery of closed circulation in humans.

Quesnay, as a physiocrat, believed that the only sphere of the economy where a pure product is created is agriculture. A pure product in his understanding is profit. This is not entirely true, but it is a step forward compared to the mercantilists. Before him, mercantilists believed that the subject of economic theory was the exchange of goods.

IN " Economic table» Quesnay considers society in two ways - as one whole, national production, and from the perspective of the unity of three classes, which differ in their contribution to national production.

Firstly, he emphasized performance class- peasantry, farmers, their hired workers, sharecroppers. According to Quesnay, the productive class had to work the land for the state. He had to make expenses for cultivating the land, reimburse these expenses from income, form his own income, part of them is spent on maintaining farming culture and supporting land owners.

Secondly, land owning class- king, landowners, clergy. Does not engage in production and lives off money from the productive class, paid for renting land.

Third, sterile or sterile class- everyone who works outside of agriculture - factory owners, hired workers, small traders, servants, etc.

IN " Economic table» Quesnay suggested that performance class at the beginning of each year, it owns 10 billion livres of tools, 2 billion livres of agricultural products necessary for production itself (seeds, feed for livestock, food for itself, etc.), and 2 billion livres.

TO land owner class has nothing, the sterile class has funds worth 2 billion, of which 1 is agricultural raw materials subject to industrial processing, and 1 is consumer goods for itself.

Within one year performance class creates products worth 5 billion. For the right to use the land, he pays its owners 2 billion. Of the 5 billion livres of products performance class reimburses his working capital, as for the 10 billion tools of labor, Quesnay abstracts from them and does not take them into account.

U productive class 3 billion livres left. Land Owner Class 1 billion is spent on purchasing agricultural products from the productive class, i.e. the productive class earns 1 billion livres. The owners spend the remaining 1 billion on industrial products, 1 billion is gained sterile class. The owner class has completely used up the money.

Barren class, having received money from the sale of industrial products to land owners, purchases agricultural products worth 1 billion. As a result performance class completely forms money fund, which he paid to the land owners. He has 1 billion worth of products left. For these products performance class exchanges industrial products with sterile grade. The process of reproduction for the productive class showed a balance of all the main parts.

Barren class sold 1 billion worth of products to the owners, exchanged 1 billion worth of their products for agricultural products, and consumed something.

IN " Economic table» Quesnay made a conclusion: barren class lives off unequal exchange, sells products for more than they cost.

Relations between classes are considered by Quesnay as economic relations, since they consist either in the purchase or sale of goods, or in the payment of income. It is this characteristic that allows us to speak in this regard about a system of political economy, since society is here described in terms of the circulation of wealth (“trade between different classes”). Moreover: these economic relations are not considered separately from other relations between people in society; the existence of society itself depends on their existence, since they express the natural order that ensures its well-being.

Circulation of money between classes

At the beginning of the period, the landowning class has an income equal to 2 billion liras, and the barren class has an amount of 1 billion liras, which it advances for production. Landowners spend half their income on purchasing agricultural products and the other half on purchasing sterile products. He uses 1 billion liras in advance to purchase the raw materials needed for production, and 1 billion liras just received from the landowners to purchase the means of subsistence that he will consume during the period.

Two observations can be made about this scheme. It is presented as a vicious circle, where the original state, changed by the first costs, is eventually restored. In this case, society can function indefinitely without the need to impose coherence on it; the costs incurred by the classes are sufficient to spontaneously maintain this social coherence through monetary circulation (what Quesnay calls “legal order”). On the contrary, restoration of the original state does not occur if the costs differ in magnitude from those indicated in the diagram.

However, these costs are divided into two types. The costs emanating from the productive or sterile class are associated with purchases for production, therefore they are fixed by the conditions of production and do not change if the latter remain unchanged. The costs of owners are dictated only by their own desires. However, this class is, without knowing it, responsible for closing the circle. Suppose that 2 billion liras are spent differently and the original position is not restored, either due to the negligence of the productive class in paying the income, or due to the negligence of the sterile class in recouping the advance (adjustment by changing the costs of these two classes is impossible, since they specified by production conditions). Thus, we can conclude that the owner class is especially responsible for social coherence through the impulses given to monetary circulation.

In industry, everything is simple: the sterile class buys 1 billion liras of raw materials and 1 billion liras of means of subsistence. The former are used in the production of products, the latter are consumed by infertile citizens (and their families) who produce the products. Their production therefore requires costs equal to 2 billion liras, and the proceeds from their sale are equal to this amount. This expresses the sterility of this class: it certainly produces goods, but adds nothing to their value. This is what Quesnay notes to prove that we are actually talking about “consumption”:

At the end of the period, this class (the sterile) retains this amount to recoup its advance, which was paid earlier to the productive class for the purchase of raw materials used for the production of goods. This advance does not produce anything: it was spent, then it was returned and it remains in stock all the time, year after year.

Everything is completely different in agriculture. How does production function in this industry? If we leave aside for the moment the purchase of goods from the sterile class, this production requires "annual advances," which "consist in the expenditure made annually on the work of cultivating the land." These advances correspond primarily to the means of subsistence consumed by the producers (and their families), and they do not appear in the scheme, since they do not lead to the circulation of money between classes (these goods do not leave the productive class, which both produces and consumes them). The difference with industry is this: these annual advances (assumed to be 2 billion liras) are not simply consumed; they reproduce a large total value (equal to 5 billion liras).

With 2 billion liras of annual advances, agriculture thus produces 5 billion liras of product, of which 3 are sold to other classes and 2 are used to restore stocks.

Taking into account the purchase of industrial products, the operations of the productive class look like this: he advances 2 billion liras and buys 1 billion liras worth of products; total - 3 billion liras; it reproduces 5 billion liras; he has a difference left, called the net product (2 billion liras), which he gives to landowners, forming their income.

Two points need to be clarified: one concerns the exceptional productivity of agriculture, the other concerns the interest on initial advances and retention. The first point: why is there a pure product in agriculture and why only there? It is the answer to these two questions that lies at the heart of the difference between the productive and sterile classes. Quesnay gives only the most general considerations on this matter in the Economic Table. Two hypotheses can be presented that justify this productivity as a postulate.

The second hypothesis presents net product as a simple economic expression of land ownership. The existence of a class of landowners who have nothing to sell is unthinkable without their receiving an income, and this income can only be justified by the special privilege of this class, which confers on it a natural right: ownership of land.

The concept of the pure product thus plays a dual role: it expresses social reality (this is how the dominance of the landowning class in society is expressed in economic terms), but at the same time mystifies it (since it assigns to this pure product - and this dominance - a natural origin). The following paragraphs support this interpretation:

"The greater part of the expenses of landowners is at least fruitless; from this we can exclude only the expenses for the preservation and improvement of their possessions and for increasing fertility. But since they are by natural right obliged to manage and make expenses for the maintenance of their possessions, they must not be confused with part population, which constitutes a class absolutely sterile."

“It is precisely the necessity of the expenditure which only the landowners can make for the increase of their wealth and for the general good of society, which leads to the fact that the inviolability of landed property is the key condition of the natural order in the government of empires.”

The second point concerns interest on initial advances and retention. We must return to the significance of the purchasing of goods by the productive class from the sterile class. These purchases (1 billion lire) are mentioned by Quesnay in his analysis of the “trade market between different classes” (diagram). He does not return to them when studying reproduction, but he insists here on “interest on the advance payment for establishing a farm for landowners” (1 billion lire). Although the transition from one concept to another is not as simple as it is in the Economic Table, it must be recognized that we are talking about the same concept.

Agricultural production requires not only "annual advances" but also " down payments", which "form the basis of the agricultural economy and which are worth about five times more than the annual advances." We are talking about the means of exploitation that one must have in order to engage in agriculture and which do not disappear after the first harvest; today we would talk about fixed capital (buildings, implements, etc.) These means of farming break down over time and must be repaired every year to maintain them in working order (today we would talk about annual depreciation of fixed capital).In addition, farmers must form a fund , which insures them against accidents that could destroy crops.

Finally, the addition of 2 billion lire in annual advances and 1 billion lire in interest amounts to what Quesnay calls the "retentions" of the productive class (what he must deduct from the proceeds of the sale of products). The net product is thus equal to the difference between the proceeds from the sale of products by the productive class and this retention.

In addition, in this case, fruitless activity would also be reproduction (but for some reason without fixed capital). Reproduction involves three inextricably linked elements:

· it ensures the preservation of the natural order in society, i.e. restoration of the economic conditions of existence of classes. This is why Quesnay speaks of the “annual reproduction of the nation” (and not of this or that industry);
· this maintenance of the natural order presupposes the creation of a pure product intended for the maintenance of landowners. The conditions of this creation (the advances necessary for agriculture) must be restored (through the "contributions" of the productive class);
· this maintenance also presupposes the circulation of a certain part of the reproducible value (3 out of 5 billion liras). Reproduction is not only production, but also circulation.

The following phrase summarizes the meaning of this concept of reproduction:

“The sum of 5 billion, divided first between the productive class and the landowning class, is spent annually in a prescribed manner, which constantly ensures an equal annual reproduction.”

Two clarifications follow from Quesnay's analysis:

· in the most general sense, capital is, first of all, a sum of money. This is explicit for the sterile class's advances, and implicit for the productive class's initial advances, which are spent on purchases from the sterile class (and therefore must be paid back). That the advances of the productive class are made in kind is only apparent, since they relate to items produced within the same class. Thus, capital for Quesnay is the amount of money advanced for production, and its expenditure makes it possible to provide the conditions for this production;
· There is one special category of capital, annual advances, which have the property of producing increased value. This property is expressed by a number (in the example given it is 250%), which can be considered as a measure of the ability of these advances to provide an increase in value. This phenomenon allows us to talk about a productive class.

Francois Quesnay (1694-1774)- the head of the school of physiocrats - tried to imagine the type of circulation of goods and money on the scale of the national economy. He proceeded from the division of society into three classes:

1) landowners;

2) farmers;

3) artisans.

Quesnay proposed for the first time in history general scheme, distracting from some real moments and relationships. In his scheme, income is completely spent, there is no accumulation, and exchange within classes and foreign trade relations are not taken into account.

The main thing in the Quesnay table- not arithmetic calculations depicting the movement of product and cash flows, but a graphical analysis of the overall picture of reproduction, in which individual acts of production and exchange are presented in the form of a zigzag pattern (“zigzags” - flows of goods and money from one class to another). In the Quesnay table products, “advances” (costs) for fixed and working capital appear, cash. The diagram shows where income comes from, where the total and net product is created, how it is distributed, how costs are reimbursed (for equipment, rent, land improvement, seeds, etc.).

The final point of “reproductive analysis” is the annual harvest, its redistribution in kind and money between producers (farmers), landowners and artisans. A pure product is formed only in agriculture.

Landowners have money in the amount of 2 billion livres. This is the rent paid by farmers for the use of land. Exchange occurs between landowners, farmers and artisans. Landowners purchase food and industrial goods for 2 billion livres, artisans purchase food for 1 billion and raw materials for 1 billion livres. Farmers purchase industrial products worth 1 billion and earn 2 billion livres by selling their food to artisans and landowners. They buy the products they produce from each other for the same amount. Then they pay landowners in the form of rent 2 billion livres, and it all starts again.

But, considering the economic table as a first attempt macroeconomic research you can note flaws:

1) a simple illustration of the interdependence of industries;

2) designation of the so-called unproductive sector, which has fixed capital;

3) recognition economic activity on land as a source of net income, without figuring out the mechanism for transforming land into a source of value.

Merit of F. Quesnay is that he created the first macroeconomic picture of the relationship between the three main classes (industries), presented a pattern of product movement in the form of annual turnover on the scale of the entire society.

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Introduction
Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) - French economist. Quesnay founded the "School" (dubbed the "Sect" by his opponents), which became the first organized movement in political economy aimed at influencing public debate with a scientific concept of society. This “School” was called the “school of physiocrats” - from the Greek words physis (nature) and kratos (power). The foundation of the views of the physiocrats was the recognition of productivity only in agriculture. In their view, it is the only sector that produces more than is needed for that production, in contrast to commerce and industry, which produces only value equal to the cost of production. And the wealth of the state depends, therefore, on the size of the product obtained in agriculture, and the object of reforms should be to stimulate the activity of farmers.

Although the work of the physiocrats is based on a view of economics marked by the characteristics of 18th-century French society, their contribution to the formation of economic science is significant. It involves viewing the economy as a system oriented simultaneously toward social classes and sectors of activity; an identification called "natural order"; economic laws, managing relationships between individuals; difference between capital and profit; the concept of reversing cost flows that ensure the reproduction of society as a whole, the stop of which leads to economic crises.

Quesnay became famous thanks to his main work, The Economic Table, published in 1758, in which the production and distribution of wealth in the “agricultural kingdom” is analyzed using a zigzag diagram. Many different versions of this scheme subsequently appeared with comments from the author or his students. The diagram from the Economic Table is generally accepted as the first representation economic system in general, with cash flows, technical production limitations, distribution of income between social classes.

1. F. Quesnay about the pure product, productive and “sterile” labor, classes and capital

The central place in Quesnay’s teaching was occupied by the problem of the “pure product” and its production. “Net product” is the surplus over that part of production that compensated for wages. In other words, by “net product” we meant surplus product. Rent was considered the only form of pure product.

However, the physiocrats interpreted the production of a “pure product” contradictorily. On the one hand, it was presented as the result of the natural process of growth characteristic of agriculture, and therefore as a gift of nature. At the same time, the “net product” also appears to them as the result of agricultural labor, an excess over wages. “The net product,” wrote Quesnay, “is the wealth created annually which forms the income of the nation, and represents the product extracted from land holdings after the removal of all costs.”

Thus, the physiocrats believed that a pure product arises only in agriculture. And they had the very obvious on their side, because nowhere is the increase in production demonstrated as clearly as in the field of livestock and crop production. Physiocrats argued that in industry there is only consumption; industry was declared a “sterile industry” due to the fact that it only transformed the form of a product, a given product. In industry, due to its “sterility,” no surplus product is created, and the income of the entrepreneur and the wages of the worker represent production costs.

Closely connected with the doctrine of the pure product among the physiocrats is the concept of productive and unproductive labor. For the first time in the history of economic thought, they classified only labor that creates a “pure product” as productive labor. Accordingly, according to their views, only labor engaged in agriculture is productive, while labor in other spheres of the national economy is unproductive, or “sterile.” This criterion (participation in the creation of a pure product) was the basis for the classification of society when analyzing the process of social reproduction, given by F. Quesnay in his famous work “Economic Table”. In it, society is viewed as a single organism uniting three main classes:

· productive class, which includes everyone involved in agriculture;

· the class of owners, which includes everyone whose existence is connected, directly or indirectly, with income from land ownership;

· sterile class, which includes all those engaged in non-agricultural (industrial) activities.

Thus, the productive class includes peasants, farmers and agricultural wage workers, that is, everyone who is employed in agriculture. The owner class is those who receive the annual net product created in agriculture. Quesnay included the king, landowners, the church and all their servants as owners. He declared all people employed in industry to be a “sterile” or unproductive class. This included wage workers, artisans, capitalists, merchants and small traders. It should be noted that the “productivity” or “sterility” of two of the three classes is not determined by the presence or absence of products in a material sense. Both “peasants” and “sterile citizens” create goods with their labor, which Quesnay calls, respectively, “agricultural products” and “products.” The difference between these classes does not lie in the commercial or non-commercial nature of their products. In both cases, these products are intended partially or completely for sale, and this, in turn, is necessary for the purchase of products of another class. The sterile class, just like the class of owners, according to Quesnay, does not create a pure product, but unlike the latter, this class works and with its labor creates as much as it consumes. kene productive labor class

A description of the class structure of society was necessary for Quesnay, since in his "Economic Table" the total annual product is distributed through the process of circulation among three classes. Quesnay's task was to preserve the king and the landowners as the basis of society. But he could not put the owner class in first place; this would contradict his physiocratic concept of the primacy of agriculture. Therefore, he found landowners in a special class, placed between the “productive” and “sterile” classes. It is quite obvious that the theory of Quesnay classes is erroneous. According to his scheme, workers and capitalists in both industry and agriculture were united into one class. When dividing society into classes, Quesnay ignored the main principle - the relationship of class to the means of production. However, this limitation of Quesnay's teaching is explained by historical conditions. In France at that time there was no working class as such, and capitalist contradictions were then in their infancy, since capitalism was just being formed in the womb of feudalism. The division of society into farmers, property owners and industrialists actually corresponded to the division of society that existed in the Middle Ages into peasants, nobility and townspeople.

2. Analysis of reproduction in the “Economic Table” by F. Quesnay

The “Economic Table” embodied all the main provisions of the physiocrats: the division of society into three classes (landowners, farmers and “sterile”); the net product (surplus value) is produced only in agriculture; industry is characterized only by the addition of values; exchange of equivalents in trade as a result of free competition. Farmers' capital is divided into initial annual advances. Quesnay introduced a distinction between the value and natural forms of the total social product, and distinguished between the categories of capital and income.

The author of the “Economic Table” proceeded from the fact that there is large-scale agriculture, where land is owned by owners who receive rent, and farming is carried out by farmers who rent land and own capital. Farmers' capital consists of two parts:

1) initial advances (fixed capital) in the amount of 10 billion livres, which serve for 10 years, annually a tenth (1 billion livres) is included in the cost of the annual product;

2) annual advances (working capital) in the amount of 2 billion livres, which cover the costs of raw materials and wages of all agricultural workers; this part of the capital serves for one year, and its value is included in the cost of the product; it is fully refundable. The cost of farmers' annual product, except transferred capital value(3 billion livres), includes a net product value of 2 billion livres and totals 5 billion livres.

In its natural form, the agricultural product consisted of:

1) seeds and food required to reimburse working capital;

2) food for exchange

3) food used as raw materials for industry.

The value of the total social product also includes the value of the product produced by the “sterile” (2 billion livres). In their natural form, these are industrial products. The value of the total social product as a whole is thus 7 billion livres.

Quesnay’s “Economic Table” includes essentially two tables: a large one, reflecting the movement of the “net product,” and a small one, containing an image of the entire process of reproduction and circulation of social capital. The sale of the social product is timed to coincide with the end of the business year (harvest). The whole process can be summarized in the form of several large acts:

1) Land owners with money in the amount of 2 billion livres (rent received for previous period), purchase food from farmers for 1 billion livres;

2) For the second billion livres they buy industrial products from the “sterile”.

3) The “sterile” class uses the proceeds (1 billion livres) to purchase food from farmers.

4) Farmers, in turn, buy 1 billion livres worth of manufactured goods from the “sterile” to replace the worn-out part of the tools.

5) Barren” purchase from farmers 1 billion livres worth of raw materials needed to continue production (Act 5).

The implementation process is mediated by the movement of money. The first half of them (1 billion livres) after the first act goes out of circulation and remains with farmers. The second billion livres serve sales and ultimately also end up with farmers. Money in the amount of 2 billion livres will be paid by landowners as rent. Taking this circumstance into account, F. Quesnay put forward the demand that all taxes in the state be paid by the recipients of rent - land owners.

Two clarifications follow from Quesnay's analysis:

· in the most general sense, capital is primarily a sum of money. This is explicit for the sterile class's advances, and implicit for the productive class's initial advances, which are spent on purchases from the sterile class (and therefore must be repaid). That the advances of the productive class are made in kind is only apparent, since they relate to items produced within the same class. Thus, capital for Quesnay is the amount of money advanced for production, and its expenditure makes it possible to provide the conditions for this production;

· There is one special category of capital, annual advances, which have the property of producing increased value. This property is expressed by a number which can be considered as a measure of the ability of these advances to provide an increase in value. This phenomenon allows us to talk about a productive class.

3. The significance of Quesnay’s views for the development of economic thought

In the “Economic Table” only simple reproduction was considered, there was no problem of accumulation. Quesnay did not show how the remaining part of the agricultural product from the farmers was sold. The need to restore the means of labor to the “sterile” was ignored. But Quesnay's genius lies in understanding the economy as a set of quantitative relations that ensure its constancy (what he calls reproduction). In particular, the values appearing in the “Economic Table” represent two types of relationships that reflect the characteristics market economy: relations of production with their technical limitations and the mutual correspondence of sectors and the relation of treatment with their cash flows corresponding to the exchange or payment of income. Quesnay anticipates the classical school and invents a method for analyzing the economy as a closed process.

Although in general Quesnay’s teaching on classes is primitive and unscientific, the fact that he was one of the first to divide society into classes into economic basis, made it possible to show in the “Economic Table” how the annual product is distributed between classes through circulation. This distribution provides the conditions for the resumption of production, or simple reproduction. Moreover, in the "Economic Table" countless individual acts of circulation are combined into a mass movement of the created annual product between the economic classes of society.

The main problem that Quesnay solved in the “Economic Table” was the identification of the main economic proportions that ensure the development of the country’s economy. An “economic table” is a diagram that shows how the annual product of society is realized and how the preconditions for reproduction are formed. In order to show the possibility of simple reproduction on a national scale and economic connections between "classes, Quesnay quite naturally simplified the process of implementation and abstracted from a number of points. He excluded from the analysis the study of the process of accumulation and considered simple reproduction. The "Table" assumes a constant value of money, stability of commodity prices, distraction from influence foreign trade on the implementation process. Subsequently, K. Marx uses this approach and, in the analysis of simple reproduction, just like Quesnay, will abstract from price fluctuations and the influence of the external market. K. Marx understood the genius of Quesnay’s “Economic Table” and gave a comprehensive analysis of this work. He wrote that “this was an attempt to present the entire process of production of capital as a process of reproduction, and circulation only as a form of this process of reproduction... at the same time, it was an attempt to include in this process of reproduction the origin of income, the exchange between capital and income, the relationship between reproductive and final consumption, and in the circulation of capital to include the circulation between producers and consumers (in reality, between capital and income); finally, it was an attempt to present, as moments in the process of reproduction, the circulation between two large divisions of productive labor - between the production of raw materials and industry - and all this in one “Table”.

This attempt, made in the second third of the 18th century, during the infancy of political economy, was a highly ingenious idea, undoubtedly the most ingenious of all that political economy has put forward to this day.” It was F. Quesnay who gave the first sufficiently deep theoretical substantiation of the provisions on capital in the history of economic thought. Quesnay believed that “Money itself is a sterile wealth that produces nothing.” F. Quesnay not only divided capital into fixed and circulating capital, but was also able to convincingly prove that both of them are in motion. Quesnay showed how commodity and money flows between classes move in the national economy, as a result of which farmers produce food for all classes, raw materials for industry, and seeds for the next year. They transfer the resulting net product to the land owners in the form of rent. For its time this was a very progressive opinion.

Conclusion

The doctrine of Quesnay's reproduction suffered from a number of significant shortcomings. The "Economic Table" was built on the erroneous division of society into classes. By leaving the industrialists without the tools of production (they had completely sold their products), Quesnay deprived them of the opportunity to begin a new production process. The landowner class was mistakenly placed at the center of the implementation process. Quesnay’s “table” does not fully reveal the distribution of the social product; it did not show the sale of agricultural products within the class of farmers. The influence of the traditions of subsistence farming was felt, in which only surpluses were sold. All this did not allow Quesnay to fully reveal the mechanism of capitalist reproduction. But the scientific limitations of the “Economic Table” do not negate its merits. The Quesnay table is the first macroeconomic grid of natural (commodity) and cash flows of material assets in the history of political economy. The ideas contained in it are the embryo of future economic models.

Literature

1. Raizberg B.A. Economics course: textbook / B.A. Reisberg, E.B. Starodubtseva; edited by B.A. Reisberg. 5th ed., revised. and additional - M.: Infra-M, 2010.

2. E.I. Lavrov, E.A. Kapoguzov / The economic growth: theories and problems: tutorial. - Omsk: Omsk State University Publishing House, 2006. - 214 p.

3. Yu. Dus. Economic history/Forum, Infra-M ISBN 978-5-91134-873-1, 978-5-16-009684-1; 2014

4. Titova N. E. History of economic teachings: Course of lectures. -M.: Humanite.

ed. VLADOS center, 1997.

5. Blaug M. Quesnay, Francois // 100 great economists before Keynes - St. Petersburg: Economicus, 2008.

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Economic theory of Quesnay. Basic provisions. Economic teaching of the physiocrats The meaning and significance of the economic table f kene

Introduction

1. F. Quesnay about the pure product, productive and “sterile” labor, classes and capital

2. Analysis of reproduction in the “Economic Table”

F. Quesnay

3. The significance of Quesnay’s views for the development of economic thought

Conclusion

Literature

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Introduction

1. F. Quesnay about the pure product, productive and “sterile” labor, classes and capital

2. Analysis of reproduction in the “Economic Table” by F. Quesnay

3. The significance of Quesnay’s views for the development of economic thought

Conclusion

Literature

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