Anne - Robert - Jacques Turgot , Baron de Laune Anne - Robert - Jacques Turgot , Baron de Laune ( 10 May 1727 – 18 March 1781 ) was a French economist and statesman . A physiocrat , he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic liberalism . Education . Born in Paris , he was the youngest son of Michel - Étienne Turgot , provost of the merchants of Paris , and Madeleine Francoise Martineau de Brétignolles , and came of an old Norman family . He was educated for the Church , and at the Sorbonne , to which he was admitted in 1749 ( being then styled " abbé de Brucourt " ) . He delivered two remarkable Latin dissertations , " On the Benefits which the Christian Religion has conferred on Mankind " , and " On the Historical Progress of the Human Mind " . The first sign we have of his interest in economics is a letter ( 1749 ) on paper money , refuting the abbé Jean Terrasson ' s defence of John Law ' s system . He was fond of verse - making , and tried to introduce into French verse the rules of Latin prosody , his translation of the fourth book of the " Aeneid " into classical hexameter verses being greeted by Voltaire as the only prose translation in which he had found any enthusiasm . He decided not to take holy orders , giving as his reason that he could not bear to wear a mask all his life . Idea of Progress . The first complete statement of the Idea of Progress is that of Turgot , in his " A Philosophical Review of the Successive Advances of the Human Mind " ( 1750 ) . For Turgot progress covers not simply the arts and sciences but , on their base , the whole of culture – manner , mores , institutions , legal codes , economy , and society . Early appointments . In 1752 he became " substitut " , and later " conseiller " in the parlement of Paris , and in 1753 " maître des requêtes " . In 1754 he was a member of the " chambre royale " which sat during an exile of the " parlement " . In Paris he frequented the salons , especially those of Mme de Graffigny – whose niece , Mlle de Ligniville ( " Minette " ) , later Mme Helvétius , he is supposed at one time to have wished to marry ; they remained lifelong friends – Mme Geoffrin , Mme du Deffand , Mlle de Lespinasse and the duchesse d ' Enville . It was during this period that he met the leaders of the " physiocrat ic " school , Quesnay and Vincent de Gournay , and with them Dupont de Nemours , the abbé Morellet and other economists . In 1743 and 1756 he accompanied Gournay , the intendant of commerce , during Gournay ' s tours of inspection in the provinces . ( Gournay ' s bye - word on the government ' s proper involvement in the economy – " " laisser faire , laisser passer " " – would pass into the vocabulary of economics . ) In 1760 , while travelling in the east of France and Switzerland , he visited Voltaire , who became one of his chief friends and supporters . All this time he was studying various branches of science , and languages both ancient and modern . In 1753 he translated the " Questions sur le commerce " from the English of Josias Tucker , and in 1754 he wrote his " Lettre sur la tolérance civile " , and a pamphlet , " Le Conciliateur " , in support of religious tolerance . Between 1755 and 1756 he composed various articles for the " Encyclopédie " , and between 1757 and 1760 an article on " Valeurs des monnaies " , probably for the " Dictionnaire du commerce " of the abbé Morellet . In 1759 appeared his work " Eloge de Gournay " . Intendant of Limoges , 1761 – 74 . In August 1761 Turgot was appointed " intendant " ( tax collector ) of the genéralité of Limoges , which included some of the poorest and most over - taxed parts of France ; here he remained for thirteen years . He was already deeply imbued with the theories of Quesnay and Gournay , and set to work to apply them as far as possible in his province . His first plan was to continue the work , already initiated by his predecessor Tourny , of making a fresh survey of the land ( cadastre ) , in order to arrive at a more just assessment of the " taille " ; he also obtained a large reduction in the contribution of the province . He published his " Avis sur l ' assiette et la repartition de la taille " ( 1762 – 1770 ) , and as president of the " Société d ' agriculture de Limoges " offered prizes for essays on the principles of taxation . Quesnay and Mirabeau had advocated a proportional tax ( " impôt de quotité " ) , but Turgot proposed a distributive tax ( " impôt de repartition " ) . Another reform was the substitution for the " corvée " of a tax in money levied on the whole province , the construction of roads being handed over to contractors , by which means Turgot was able to leave his province with a good system of highways , while distributing more justly the expense of their construction . In 1769 he wrote his " Mémoire sur les prêts à intérêt " , on the occasion of a scandalous financial crisis at Angoulême , the particular interest of which is that in it the question of lending money at interest was for the first time treated scientifically , and not merely from the ecclesiastical point of view . Turgot ' s opinion was that a compromise had to be reached between both methods . Among other works written during Turgot ' s intendancy were the " Mémoire sur les mines et carrières " , and the " Mémoire sur la marque des fers " , in which he protested against state regulation and interference and advocated free competition . At the same time he did much to encourage agriculture and local industries , among others establishing the manufacture of porcelain at Limoges . During the famine of 1770 – 1771 he enforced on landowners " the obligation of relieving the poor " and especially the " métayers " dependent upon them , and organized in every province " ateliers " and " bureaux de charité " for providing work for the able - bodied and relief for the infirm , while at the same time he condemned indiscriminate charity . It may be noted that Turgot always made the curés the agents of his charities and reforms when possible . It was in 1770 that he wrote his famous " Lettres sur la liberté du commerce des grains " , addressed to the controller - general , the abbé Terray . Three of these letters have disappeared , having been sent to Louis XVI by Turgot at a later date and never recovered , but those remaining demonstrate that free trade in grain is to the interest of landowner , farmer and consumer alike , and in forcible terms demand the removal of all restrictions . . Turgot ' s " Réflexions " . Turgot ' s best known work , " Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses " ( " Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth " ) , was written early in the period of his intendancy , ostensibly for the benefit of two young Chinese students . Written in 1766 , it appeared in 1769 – 1770 in Dupont ' s journal , the " Ephémérides du citoyen " , and was published separately in 1776 . Dupont , however , made various alterations in the text , in order to bring it more into accordance with Quesnay ' s doctrines , which led to a friendship between him and Turgot . In the " Réflexions " , after tracing the origin of commerce , Turgot develops Quesnay ' s theory that the land is the only source of wealth , and divides society into three classes , the productive or agricultural , the salaried ( the " classe stipendice " ) or artisan class , and the land - owning class ( " classe disponible " ) . After discussing the evolution of the different systems of cultivation , the nature of exchange and barter , money , and the functions of capital , he sets forth the theory of the " impôt unique " , i . e . that only the net product ( " produit net " ) of the land should be taxed . In addition he demanded the complete freedom of commerce and industry . Turgot as minister , 1774 – 76 . Turgot owed his appointment as minister of the navy in July 1774 to Maurepas , the " Mentor " of Louis XVI , to whom he was warmly recommended by the abbé Very , a mutual friend . His appointment met with general approval , and was hailed with enthusiasm by the " philosophes " . A month later ( 24 August ) he was appointed controller - general . His first act was to submit to the king a statement of his guiding principles : " No bankruptcy , no increase of taxation , no borrowing . " Turgot ' s policy , in face of the desperate financial position , was to enforce the most rigid economy in all departments . All departmental expenses were to be submitted for the approval of the controller - general , a number of sinecure s were suppressed , the holders of them being compensated , and the abuse of the " acquits au comptant " was attacked , while Turgot appealed personally to the king against the lavish giving of places and pensions . He also contemplated a thorough - going reform of the " Ferme Générale " , but contented himself , as a beginning , with imposing certain conditions on the leases as they were renewed – such as a more efficient personnel , and the abolition for the future of the abuse of the " croupes " ( the name given to a class of pensions ) , a reform which Terray had shirked on finding how many persons in high places were interested in them , and annulling certain leases , such as those of the manufacture of gunpowder and the administration of the royal mails , the former of which was handed over to a company with the scientist Lavoisier as one of its advisers , and the latter superseded by a quicker and more comfortable service of " diligences " which were nicknamed " " turgotines " " . He also prepared a regular budget . Turgot ' s measures succeeded in considerably reducing the deficit , and raised the national credit to such an extent that in 1776 , just before his fall , he was able to negotiate a loan with some Dutch bankers at 4 % ; but the deficit was still so large as to prevent him from attempting at once to realize his favourite scheme of substituting for indirect taxation a single tax on land . He suppressed , however , a number of " octroi s " and minor duties , and opposed , on grounds of economy , the participation of France in the American Revolutionary War , though without success . Turgot at once set to work to establish free trade in grain , but his edict , which was signed on 13 September 1774 , met with strong opposition even in the " conseil du roi " . A striking feature was the preamble , setting forth the doctrines on which the edict was based , which won the praise of the " philosophes " and the ridicule of the wits ; this Turgot rewrote three times , it is said , in order to make it " so clear that any village judge could explain it to the peasants . " The opposition to the edict was strong . Turgot was hated by those who had been interested in the speculations in grain under the regime of the abbé Terray , among whom were included some of the princes of the blood . Moreover , the " commerce des blés " had been a favourite topic of the salons for some years past , and the witty Galiani , the opponent of the physiocrats , had a large following . The opposition was now continued by Linguet and by Necker , who in 1775 published his " Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains " . But Turgot ' s worst enemy was the poor harvest of 1774 , which led to a slight rise in the price of bread in the winter and early spring of 1774 – 1775 . In April disturbances arose at Dijon , and early in May there occurred those extraordinary bread - riots known as the " guerre des farines " , which may be looked upon as a first sample of the French Revolution , so carefully were they organized . Turgot showed great firmness and decision in repressing the riots , and was loyally supported by the king throughout . His position was strengthened by the entry of Malesherbes into the ministry ( July 1775 ) . All this time Turgot had been preparing his famous " Six Edicts " , which were finally presented to the " conseil du roi " ( January 1776 ) . Of the six edicts four were of minor importance , but the two which met with violent opposition were , firstly , the edict suppressing the " corvée s " , and secondly , that suppressing the " jurandes " and " maîtrises " , by which the craft guild s maintained their privileges . In the preamble to the former Turgot boldly announced as his object the abolition of privilege , and the subjection of all three Estates of the realm to taxation ; the clergy were afterwards excepted , at the request of Maurepas . In the preamble to the edict on the " jurandes " he laid down as a principle the right of every man to work without restriction . He obtained the registration of the edicts by the " lit de justice " of 12 March , but by that time he had nearly everybody against him . His attacks on privilege had won him the hatred of the nobles and the " parlement s " ; his attempted reforms in the royal household , that of the court ; his free trade legislation , that of the " financiers " ; his views on tolerance and his agitation for the suppression of the phrase that was offensive to Protestants in the king ' s coronation oath , that of the clergy ; and his edict on the " jurandes " , that of the rich bourgeoisie of Paris and others , such as the prince de Conti , whose interests were involved . The queen disliked him for opposing the grant of favours to her protege s , and he had offended Mme . de Polignac in a similar manner . All might yet have gone well if Turgot could have retained the confidence of the king , but the king could not fail to see that Turgot had not the support of the other ministers . Even his friend Malesherbes thought he was too rash , and was , moreover , himself discouraged and wished to resign . The alienation of Maurepas was also increasing . Whether through jealousy of the ascendancy which Turgot had acquired over the king , or through the natural incompatibility of their characters , he was already inclined to take sides against Turgot , and the reconciliation between him and the queen , which took place about this time , meant that he was henceforth the tool of the Polignac clique and the Choiseul party . About this time , too , appeared a pamphlet , " Le Songe de M . Maurepas " , generally ascribed to the comte de Provence ( Louis XVIII ) , containing a bitter caricature of Turgot . Before relating the circumstances of Turgot ' s fall we may briefly resume his views on the administrative system . With the physiocrats , he believed in an enlightened political absolutism , and looked to the king to carry through all reforms . As to the parlements , he opposed all interference on their part in legislation , considering that they had no competency outside the sphere of justice . He recognized the danger of the recap of the old parlement , but was unable effectively to oppose it since he had been associated with the dismissal of Maupeou and Terray , and seems to have underestimated its power . He was opposed to the summoning of the states - general advocated by Malesherbes ( 6 May 1775 ) , possibly on the ground that the two privileged orders would have too much power in them . His own plan is to be found in his " Mémoire sur les municipalités " , which was submitted informally to the king . In Turgot ' s proposed system , landed proprietor s alone were to form the electorate , no distinction being made among the three orders ; the members of the town and country municipalités were to elect representatives for the district municipalités , which in turn would elect to the provincial municipalités , and the latter to a grande municipalité , which should have no legislative powers , but should concern itself entirely with the administration of taxation . With this was to be combined a whole system of education , relief of the poor , etc . Louis XVI recoiled from this as being too great a leap in the dark , and such a fundamental difference of opinion between king and minister was bound to lead to a breach sooner or later . Turgot ' s only choice , however , was between " tinkering " at the existing system in detail and a complete revolution , and his attack on privilege , which might have been carried through by a popular minister and a strong king , was bound to form part of any effective scheme of reform . American Revolution . As minister of the navy from 1774 to 1776 , he opposed financial support for the American Revolution . He believed in the virtue and inevitable success of the revolution but warned that France could neither financially nor socially afford to overtly aid it . French intellectuals saw America as the hope of mankind and magnified American virtues to demonstrate the validity of their ideals . Turgot , however , emphasized what he believed were American inadequacies . He complained that the new American state constitutions failed to adopt the physiocratic principle of distinguishing for purposes of taxation between those who owned land and those who did not , the principle of direct taxation of property holders had not been followed , and a complicated legal and administrative structure had been created to regulate commerce . On the social level , Turgot and the philosophes suffered further disappointment : a religious oath was required of elected officials and slavery was not abolished . Turgot died in 1781 before the conclusion of the war . Although disappointed , Turgot never doubted positive evolution . The fall of Turgot . The immediate cause of Turgot ' s fall is uncertain . Some speak of a plot , of forged letters containing attacks on the queen shown to the king as Turgot ' s , of a series of notes on Turgot ' s budget prepared , it is said , by Necker , and shown to the king to prove his incapacity . Others attribute it to the queen , and there is no doubt that she hated Turgot for supporting Vergennes in demanding the recall of the comte de Guînes , the ambassador in London , whose cause she had ardently espoused at the prompting of the Choiseul clique . Others attribute it to an intrigue of Maurepas . On the resignation of Malesherbes ( April 1776 ) , whom Turgot wished to replace by the abbé Very , Maurepas proposed to the king as his successor a nonentity named Amelot . Turgot , on hearing of this , wrote an indignant letter to the king , in which he reproached him for refusing to see him , pointed out in strong terms the dangers of a weak ministry and a weak king , and complained bitterly of Maurepas ' s irresolution and subjection to court intrigues ; this letter the king , though asked to treat it as confidential , is said to have shown to Maurepas , whose dislike for Turgot it still further embittered . With all these enemies , Turgot ' s fall was certain , but he wished to stay in office long enough to finish his project for the reform of the royal household before resigning . To his dismay , he was not allowed to do , and on 12 May was ordered to send in his resignation . He at once retired to La Roche - Guyon , the château of the duchesse d ' Enville , returning shortly to Paris , where he spent the rest of his life in scientific and literary studies , being made vice - president of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles - Lettres in 1777 . In character Turgot was simple , honourable and upright , with a passion for justice and truth . He was an idealist , his enemies would say a doctrinaire , and certainly the terms " natural rights , " " natural law , " frequently occur in his writings . His friends speak of his charm and gaiety in intimate intercourse , but among strangers he was silent and awkward , and produced the impression of being reserved and disdainful . On one point both friends and enemies agree , and that is his brusquerie and his lack of tact in the management of men ; August Oncken points out with some reason the schoolmasterish tone of his letters , even to the king . As a statesman he has been very variously estimated , but it is generally agreed that a large number of the reforms and ideas of the Revolution were due to him ; the ideas did not as a rule originate with him , but it was he who first gave them prominence . As to his position as an economist , opinion is also divided . Oncken , to take the extreme of condemnation , looks upon him as a bad physiocrat and a confused thinker , while Leon Say considers that he was the founder of modern political economy , and that " though he failed in the 18th century he triumphed in the 19th . " Commentary on Turgot . Andrew Dickson White wrote in " Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason " ( 1915 ) : TURGOT . . . I present today one of the three greatest statesmen who fought unreason in France between the close of the Middle Ages and the outbreak of the French Revolution – Louis XI and Richelieu being the two other . And not only this : were you to count the greatest men of the modern world upon your fingers , he would be of the number – a great thinker , writer , administrator , philanthropist , statesman , and above all , a great character and a great man . And yet , judged by ordinary standards , a failure . For he was thrown out of his culminating position , as Comptroller - General of France , after serving but twenty months , and then lived only long enough to see every leading measure to which he had devoted his life deliberately and malignantly undone ; the flagrant abuses which he had abolished restored , apparently forever ; the highways to national prosperity , peace , and influence , which he had opened , destroyed ; and his country put under full headway toward the greatest catastrophe the modern world has seen . He now , in 1749 , at the age of twenty two , wrote . . . a letter which has been an object of wonder among political thinkers ever since . Its subject was paper money . Discussing the ideas of John Law , and especially the essay of Terrasson which had supported them , he dissected them mercilessly , but in a way useful not only in those times but in these . . . . As regards currency inflation . . . It still remains one of the best presentations of this subject ever made ; and what adds to our wonder is that it was not the result of a study of authorities , but was worked out wholly from his own observation and thought . Up to this time there were no authorities and no received doctrine on the subject ; there were simply records of financial practice more or less vicious ; it was reserved for this young student , in a letter not intended for publication , to lay down for the first time the great law in which the modern world , after all its puzzling and costly experiences , has found safety .