Adam Smith Versus François Quesnay on Chinese Economy and Society

Robert W. Dimand ()
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Robert W. Dimand: Brock University

A chapter in Waving the Swedish Flag in Economics, 2025, pp 355-369 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Arguing for the central importance of keeping the wages fund growing faster than population to keep wages above the natural price of labor, Adam Smith used China as the prime example of a country where the wages fund was large but not growing, so that the population had adjusted to keep the real wage at the natural price of labor. His account of China served as an implicit critique and rebuttal of Francois Quesnay's essay lauding China as an enlightened despotism where an absolute ruler promoted agriculture above other activities and followed the advice of the mandarins, seen by Quesnay as playing the role he wished the Physiocrats to play in Europe. This essay examines the analyses of China by Quesnay and Smith, exploring the extent and limitations of their knowledge of China and its economy and arguing that Smith and Quesnay were less concerned with China than with expounding their differing theories and policy prescriptions.

Keywords: Adam smith; Francois quesnay; Chinese economic history; China as a model for Europe; Physiocracy; B11 History of economic thought preclassical: physiocratic; B12 History of economic thought classical: Adam Smith; N15 Economic history: Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:spshcp:978-3-031-71511-2_19

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-71511-2_19

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