Physiocracy in the eighteenth-century America. Economic theory and political weapons

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay aims at reconsidering the impact of Physiocratic ideas on the United States context during and after the American Revolution, which represented the first turning point concerning the democratic implications of political economy. In the confrontation in the 1790s between Jefferson’s Republicans and Hamilton’s Federalists the early scientific analysis of economics, grounded in the central role of agriculture formulated by Physiocracy, gave strong theoretical validation of the agrarian democracy ideology as an alternative to the British model and contributed to shaping the American identity. The article will investigate this opposition and the economic culture that provides theoretical foundations to two opposed political projects. The reasons and the forms of this impact will be explored through the confrontation between Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures and George Logan’s series of pamphlets conceived as an orchestrated campaign against the Secretary of the Treasury. The study of Physiocracy beyond Europe and the Old Regime can offer new and divergent outlooks compared to recent studies aiming at questioning the relevance of Physiocratic theory in the Old Regime social and political context and its impact during the French Revolution.