Physiocratic Rhetoric of bienfaisance and the making of a social program

We are glad to invite you to our sixth event of the Webinar series in 18th-Century History of Political Economy. In this webinar, we will have the pleasure to have Prof. Arnault Skornicki talking about The Physiocratic Rhetoric of bienfaisance and the making of a social program in 18th Century France.

The webinar is open to everyone interested in the topic.
If you are not a Young Scholar and not interested in creating an YSI account, please fill this form that we will send you the zoom link 30 minutes before the webinar.

This talk will deal with the Physiocratic approach to poverty, and more specifically "Économistes"’s rhetorical strategy for legitimizing their liberal views. In 18th Century France, bienfaisance (“beneficence”) was a new word for charity: a passion for virtue and a love of humanity, whereas charity emphasized love of god. Even though the Physiocrats had broken with paternalism and criticized the traditional assistance, they were fully aware that mere liberalization may not completely eliminate poverty. Unexpectedly, when Adam Smith seemed to consider here benevolence here as the contrary of self-interest, the Physiocrats tried to reconcile “bienfaisance” and self-interest through a social program compatible with a free market and private property.

Prof. Arnault Skornicki is Associate Professor in Political Science, Université Paris Nanterre/ISP and the author of the book "L'économiste, la cour et la patrie".