A body without a voice: A literary approach to Linguet's opposition to the physiocrats over the free trade in grain

Florence Magnot-Ogilvy

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2015, vol. 22, issue 3, 420-444

Abstract: Linguet was a critic of the physiocrats and of what he perceived as the disastrous consequences the liberalisation of the trade in grain on the people. Linguet's rhetorical use of the voice of the people is studied here through its rhetorical device and its fantasmatic and ideological echoes. With his dramatised and polyphonic style Linguet quotes many different protagonists, but he chooses to neuter the people's voice on the rare occasions when it is heard. Despite this rather conventional suppression of the people's voice, Linguet's claims to be a spokesman or advocate of the people are quite convincing. Through his detailed and hyperbolic depiction of the physical suffering of starving people, Linguet shines a light on one of the blind spots of the Physiocratic doctrine which sees no damage in economic prosperity.

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09672567.2015.1026919 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:22:y:2015:i:3:p:420-444

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REJH20

DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2015.1026919

Access Statistics for this article

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought is currently edited by José Luís Cardoso

More articles in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().