ABSTRACT
A. R. J. Turgot (1727-81) was a major political and intellectual figure in prerevolutionary France. His economic writings are few and scattered, 1 but they mark a watershed in the history of economics; his contributions to capital theory, in particular, are recognized as a major achievement. 2 There has been some discussion of his relation to classical economics, focusing mainly on the extent of his influence on Adam Smith. 3
I will argue that Turgot substantially anticipated Ricardo’s theory of rent, profit and capital accumulation, so that the appropriate comparison is with Ricardo, not Smith. In Section I, I present a simple model embodying Turgot’s arguments, and in Section II I discuss some extensions of the model. Turgot’s style was strikingly modern, considering its date, but he stopped far short of presenting a formal model. The ‘rational reconstruction’ presented here is intended to reveal the logical structure of his system, and does involve making some additional assumptions, for the sake of completeness and tractability. The main elements of the model will be justified by citations from Turgot’s writings. Section III examines some possible discrepancies between Turgot’s writings and the interpretation presented here. It can be regarded as a test of the ‘rational reconstruction’ put forward in Sections I and II. It will be argued that these discrepancies are, in the main, apparent rather than real. Finally, Section IV deals with the argument that Turgot anticipated the ‘Ricardian’ theory of distribution, and argues specifically that the zero-rent margin, the key component of the Malthus-West-Ricardo theory of rent and profit, is implicit in Turgot’s theory.
