Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and His Relevance to the French...

Introduction Anne Robert Jaques Turgot, baron l Aulne, was born in Paris on May 10, 1727 to a noble French family of Normandy. Following in the footsteps of his ancestors, who had furnished the state with numerous public officials, Turgot would achieve public renown as Intendent of Limoges and later as Controller General of all France. Although Turgot ended his public career in unfortunate circumstances, being dismissed by Louis XVI for ineffectiveness, his political theories became a major influence in the remaining years of the Old Regime. The depth of Turgots economic thought was not recognized at the time because it largely went against what the ruling aristocracy wanted to hear. His clairvoyance is much more fully noted in†¦show more content†¦It would certainly not be able to handle every instance of fraud and as it is compelled to regulate more and more the progress of industry would suffer. Turgot also touched on the subject of taxation by calling for a single tax on the net product of the land. Turgot feelings on taxation are found in more an outline than a paper called Plan for a Paper on Taxation in General written in 1763. He felt that taxes on towns tended to shift backward to agriculture and illustrated how taxation crippled commerce. Taxes on capital destroyed accumulated thrift and seriously hampered industry. Turgot, therefore, advocated a single land tax. Unfortunately, Turgots tax theories concentrated on the destructive forms and largely avoided discussing the supposed merits of the single land tax. Turgots preceding ideas are largely in accordance with Physiocrat teaching. The Physiocrats were a group of enlightened economic reformers whose theories of loosening government restriction and imposing a single land tax became popular in the 1760s. While Turgot is largely in agreement in this area, it is important to notice, in passing, that in other economic spheres Turgot often breaks with and improves Physiocrat doctrines. To label him just another land-productivity theorist in the mold of the Physiocrats is a grave injustice. However, for our purposes, one may make that connection. It is fundamentally