Revisiting John Law and his Système

Abstract

“Economic Leviathan”: Arnaud Orain marshalled the felicitous phrase in his recent book La politique du merveilleux (18), and it goes a long way toward capturing the extraordinary reconfiguration of French commercial, fiscal, financial, and imperial arrangements that was envisaged under the Regency of Philippe d’Orleans. At its apex in 1720, a single joint stock company had acquired exclusive access to the vast majority of France’s global trade and exercised powers associated with sovereign au...