270 A Positive Century (1815–1914)the expense of governments. In the legal sphere in general, this empower-
ment took three principal forms. First was economic freedom, in the form of
free trade in goods, as well as free movement of persons and capital. Second
was po liti cal freedom, in the sense of holding governments to account for
the wishes of the governed— insisting, that is, that governments exist to
serve individuals, not vice versa. Th ird was the protection of the liberties of
individuals against the intrusions and abuses of governments.Freedom of Trade
Liberalism began to be placed onto a systematic, scientifi c footing in the
middle of the eigh teenth century by the French physiocrats. It has been
observed that their beliefs (as well as their label) were rooted in natural law.
Th ey harbored a belief in a deep natural rhythm or equilibrium in the social
and economic worlds that— if allowed to operate unimpeded— would in-
eluctably bring about, by its own force, the maximum possible benefi t for
humankind at large. It was no accident that their leader, François Quesnay,
was a physician. His major contribution to the science of economics was the
famous tableau économique, which purported to trace out the fl ows of agri-
cultural goods throughout the economy, in the manner of a physician trac-
ing the paths of fl uids within the human body— thereby demonstrating the
need to keep those passages uninterrupted, for the continued good health of
what could be called, truly, the “body politic.”
Consequently, there is an urgent need to remove the myriad governmen-
tal distortions and interferences that prevent the natural mechanism from
working smoothly. Highest on the physiocratic target list were the various
programs under the general label of mercantilism— the elaborate network of
monopolies, subsidies, taxes, quotas, employment restrictions, and sumptu-
ary laws— that had the eff ect of diverting the natural fl ows and rhythms of
the economy into artifi cial channels. “Laissez faire, laissez passer,” a phrase
coined by A. R. J. Turgot in 1757, became their most famous motto. (Like all
good propagandists, the physiocrats were very prolifi c in the production of
mottoes.) Th is clarion call applied most directly to the dismantling of barri-
ers to the free fl ow of grain between the provinces of France, with the im-
mediate purpose of allowing supplies to fl ow freely from places of surplus to
places of shortage so as to avert famines.