France’s social, political and economic state through the exaggeration of English liberties.
Montesquieu (1689 – 1755), in a political sense, was one of the most influential of the French philosophers. His main matter of interest was to limit monarchial power to an extent where the privileges of the nobility were destroyed and the absolute power of the king was impeded. Montesquieu favored the idea of referendum and, like Voltaire, found the English legal system to be more suitable than that of the French. In 1782, Montesquieu published “The Spirit of The Laws” in which his most important ideas were brought forward.
Another important philosopher of the Enlightenment was Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778). The basic idea of Rousseaau, as he expressed it in his famous work Du Contract Social (The Social Contract) was that the general will of the people should be the ruling force in any society.15 His theory of the Social Contract was that once the people of France had expressed their approval of the existence of a monarchy, then those kings and governments should rule solely to protect or endorse the rights or civil liberties of the people. He regarded the best form of government for France as the representative system.16 He believed that only through liberty and an anti-oppressive society, could the most valuable aspects of the peoples’ character be displayed.
Among the great intellectual influences of this movement were the Encyclopedists. The two greatest philosophes behind this were Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784) and D’Alembert. The main aim of the Encyclopedists was to advocate social utility and attack tradition and this was achieved through the production of the monumental
Encyclopopédie (1751 – 1772). The Encyclopédie was both a repository of information and polemical arsenal.17 During the era, of and before the revolution, the Encyclopédie was the largest and most influential collection of general information. In the articles, were “attacks” of every despised aspect or defect of France. The intention of the Encyclopédie was to provide a complete alphabetical treatment of the whole field of human knowledge from the standpoint of the Enlightenment.18 It focused on the ideas of theoretical equality, and democracy as the ideal form of government.
Another important group among the philosophes were the physiocrats. The physiocrats was a group of French thinkers in the 18th century who evolved the first complete system of economics.19 The sole aim of the physiocrats (simply referred to as the “economists” or the “sect”) was to revolutionize the economic structure of France. They spread ideas such as freedom of trade and tax reform. The physiocrats encouraged concepts of equal land wealth as they believed that all affluence originated with the land and that only agriculture could enlarge or multiply wealth.
Alongside the physiocrats were Jacques Necker and A.R.J. Turgot. Both Turgot and Necker were governmental officials and economists. During his intendancy, Turgot produced a pioneer work in political economy, Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (Reflections on the Accumulation and Distribution of Wealth, 1766). 20 In his analysis of this piece, he attacked the unfair imposition of taxes by the French government by stating that because the sole source of wealth is land, only agricultural products may be taxed. Necker introduced a number of financial reforms, including a more equitable system of taxation and a plan for the funding of national debt.
In 1781, he completed the Compte rendu au Roi (Report to the King), a comprehensive analysis of the national finances.21