The economic table f kene reveals the essence. The economic theory of Quesnay. Basic provisions. Edicts of J. Turgot

02.08.2021

François Quesnay (1694-1774)

Founder of the physiocratic school; was the court physician of Louis XV, and took up economic problems at the age of 60. He also formulated the economic and political program of the Physiocrats. The main works of Quesnay were published in the "Encyclopedia": "Population" (1756), "Farmers", "Grain", "Taxes" (1757), "Economic Table" (1758), etc. In these works, he tried to identify economic patterns capitalism, although he was a supporter of enlightened absolutism, monarchy. In his writings, the views of mercantilists on economic problems are strongly condemned. As a subject of study of political economy, he chose the problems of agricultural production, which is an integral part of the sphere of production. He developed the concept of the natural order, the legal basis of which is the physical and moral laws of the state that protect private property, private interests and ensure the reproduction and proper distribution of benefits. The private interest of one can never be separated from the common interest of all. Power should not be aristocratic or represented by a big landowners. He considered it expedient to concentrate power in one enlightened person with knowledge of the laws of the natural order. An important place in his teaching is the doctrine of the net product (national income). The sources of the net product are the land and the labor of people employed in agricultural production applied to it. Trade was recognized as a fruitless occupation. Society divided into three classes of citizens: the productive class (people employed in agriculture), the class of owners (landowners, the king, the clergy), the barren class (people outside agriculture). He considered money to be barren wealth that does not produce anything. The capital was divided into circulating and fixed. "Initial advances" (fixed capital) - agricultural tools, buildings, livestock and everything that is used in agriculture during several production cycles. "Annual advances" (working capital) - the cost of seeds, feed, wages of workers and others, carried out for the period of one production cycle.

Economic table F. Quesnay.

Francois Quesnay (1694 - 1774) - French economist, founder of the physiocratic school. The Physiocrats, and above all Quesnay, gave the first analysis of capital. It was they who stood at the origins of modern political economy. Quesnay and his school rejected the main thesis of mercantilism about the origin of profit from circulation and tried to explain the increase in wealth from the production process. Quesnay's first articles on bread prices and taxes were placed in D. Diderot's encyclopedia. In his philosophical views he was an opponent of materialism, in political views he was an adherent of absolute monarchy. Quesnay used the method of natural sciences in his works. Therefore, he considered society as a living organism and distinguished in it two states: healthy (normal) and diseased (abnormal). When a society is healthy, Quesnay erroneously believes that it is in balance. He showed such balance in his main work “Economic Table” (1758). In it, he first made an attempt to analyze social reproduction. He tried to establish certain balance proportions between the natural (material) and value elements of the social product). The great merit of F. Quesnay is that he analyzed economic processes as natural, having their own internal laws. Quesnay proposed the concept of "natural order", where capitalism is seen as an eternal mode of production. Quesnay divided the product of the farmer into two parts: one of them goes to his subsistence, and the other is the surplus, which constitutes the “pure product”. Therefore, the "pure product" is in fact surplus value. He erroneously asserted that the "pure product" is created only in agriculture. Quesnay recognized that the "net product" is a definite value, and it depends on the value of wages. He believed that and wage worker must be a strictly defined value and not exceed the minimum means of subsistence. He was one of the first to try to find out the economic basis for the division of society into classes. Quesnay divided society into three classes: productive (farmers and agricultural wage workers); owners (landowners and the king) and the "barren" class (here he included industrialists, merchants, artisans and wage workers in industry). Apparently, his class position did not allow him to be attributed to the “barren” class of landowners. He saw the significance of this class solely in the appropriation of surplus value. Quesnay analyzed the possibilities of simple reproduction on a national scale, as well as the economic connection between classes. Before him, no one had studied reproduction. The analysis was carried out on the example of France. He proceeded from the following prerequisites: a rental system was introduced everywhere, and with it large-scale land ownership; prices are constant, reproduction is simple; only conversions between different classes were taken into account; all purchases and all sales made during a goal between classes add up to a single cumulative system; the nation conducts only internal trade. The starting point of the table is the total harvest, equal to 5 billion livres (this amount expressed the approximate monetary value of the agricultural product of France).

He represented the circulation of the annual product as follows. Before the circulation process begins, the farmer class pays the landowning class a rent, which Quesnay considered the only form of "pure product", in the amount of 2 billion livres. The appeal itself consists of five acts:

1) The landowning class buys 1 billion livres worth of food from the farming class. Consequently, 1 billion livres return to the farming class and 1/5 of the annual product goes out of circulation.

2) The class of landowners, for the second billion livres of the rent received, buys industrial products from the "barren" class.

3) The “barren” class, with the 1 billion livres received for their goods, buys foodstuffs from the farmer class. Thus, the second billion livres are returned to the farming class, and two-fifths of the product is withdrawn from circulation.

4) The farming class buys from the “barren class” 1 billion livres worth of industrial products, used for the restoration of tools and materials, the value of which is included in the value of the annual product produced.

5) The barren class buys raw materials for 1 billion livres from the farmer class.

As a result of the analysis, Quesnay showed that the circulation of the annual product ensures the reimbursement of the funds used in agriculture and industry as a prerequisite for the resumption of production. Quesnay's theoretical system had progressive significance for its time, gave practical advice(for example, to shift all taxation to landowners), was anti-feudal in nature. In the "Economic Table" only simple reproduction was considered, there was no problem of accumulation. Quesnay did not show how the part of the agricultural product that remained with the farmers was sold. The need to restore the means of labor from the “barren” was ignored. However, Quesnay's "Economic Table" for the first time showed the conditions necessary for the implementation of the reproductive process.

Relations between classes are considered by Quesnay as economic relations, since they consist either in the purchase or sale of goods, or in the payment of income. It is this characteristic that makes it possible in this connection to speak of a system of political economy, since society is here described in terms of the circulation of wealth ("trade between different classes"). Moreover: these economic relations are not considered separately from other relations between people in society; the existence of society itself depends on their existence, since they express the natural order that ensures its well-being.

First of all, Quesnay represents these relations between classes in terms of the costs that their members produce. Thus he analyzes what may be called the circulation of money in society; it is described by the following diagram.

Circulation of money between classes

At the beginning of the period, the landowning class has an income of 2 billion lire, and the barren class has an amount of 1 billion lire, which it advances for production. The landowners spend half their income on the purchase of agricultural products and the other half on the purchase of products of the barren class. He uses the 1 billion lira advance to buy the raw materials needed for production and the 1 billion lira he has just received from the landowners to buy the livelihoods he will consume during the period.

The productive class uses the 1 billion lire received from the landowners (for the sale of agricultural products) to buy products of the sterile class (these are not the products that are bought by the landowners). With the help of the amount received, the sterile class returns their advance payment of 1 billion lire. Finally, with the proceeds from the sale of raw materials and livelihoods to the barren class, the productive class can pay the sum of 2 billion lire to the owners of the land it has used. At the end of the period, the proprietors again have an income of 2 billion liras, and the sterile class - 1 billion liras, and the circulation can start over.

Two observations can be made about this scheme. It is presented as a vicious circle, when the initial state, changed by the first costs, is eventually restored. In this case, the society can function indefinitely without the need to impose coherence on it; the expenditures incurred by the classes are sufficient to spontaneously maintain, through the circulation of money, this social coherence (what Quesnay calls " legal order"). On the contrary, the restoration of the initial state does not occur if the costs differ in magnitude from those indicated on the diagram.

However, these costs fall into two categories. The outlays from the productive or barren class are associated with purchases for production, and are therefore fixed by the conditions of production, and do not change if the latter remain unchanged. The costs of the owners are dictated only by their own desire. However, this class is unknowingly responsible for closing the circle. Let us suppose that 2 billion lira is spent in a different way and the original position is not restored, either due to the negligence of the productive class in paying income, or due to the negligence of the barren class in reimbursing the advance (adjustment by changing the costs of these two classes is not possible, since they set by the conditions of production). Thus, it can be concluded that the class of owners has a special responsibility for social coherence with the help of the impulses given to the circulation of money.

Purchases of goods correspond to this monetary circulation during the period. It is also necessary that these goods exist, i.e. were produced for the required amount: 3 billion liras of agricultural products and 2 billion liras of industrial products.

In industry, everything is simple: the barren class buys 1 billion lira of raw materials and 1 billion lira of livelihood. The former are used in the manufacture of items, the latter are consumed by barren citizens (and their families) who produce the items. Their production thus requires an expenditure equal to 2 billion liras, and the proceeds from their sale is equal to this amount. This expresses the sterility of this class: it certainly produces goods, but adds nothing to their value. This is what Quesnay points out to prove that it is actually about "consumption":

At the end of the period, this class (sterile) leaves this amount to replace its advance, which was previously paid to the productive class in purchasing raw materials used for the production of products. This advance does not produce anything: it was spent, then it was returned and it remains all the time in reserve from year to year.

Raw materials and labor for the production of products determine the volume of sales of the sterile class at 2 billion, of which 1 billion is spent on the living of the members of this class; only consumption is visible here, or the absence of production and the moment of reproduction, since this class exists only due to the subsequent payment of remuneration for one's labor, inseparable from the costs used for living.

Everything is completely different in agriculture. How does production work in this industry? If we leave aside for the time being the purchase of products from the barren class, this production requires "annual advances" which "consist in the outlays made annually on the labors of cultivating the land." These advances correspond primarily to the means of subsistence consumed by the producers (and their families), and they do not appear in the diagram, since they do not lead to money circulation between classes (these goods do not leave the productive class, which both produces and consumes them). The difference with industry is this: these annual advances (assumed to be 2 billion lira) are not simply consumed; they reproduce a large total value (equal to 5 billion liras).

With annual advances of 2 billion lire, agriculture thus produces 5 billion lire of product, of which 3 are sold to other classes and 2 are used for restocking.

Taking into account the purchase of industrial products, the operations of the productive class look like this: he advances 2 billion liras and buys products for 1 billion liras; total - 3 billion lira; it reproduces 5 billion lire; he is left with a difference called the net product (2 billion liras), which he gives to the landowners, forming their income.

Two points need to be clarified: one concerns exceptional productivity Agriculture, the other - a percentage of the initial advances and deductions. The first point: why is there a pure product in agriculture and why only there? It is the answer to these two questions that underlies the difference between the productive and sterile classes. Quesnay gives only the most general considerations on this subject in the Economic Table. Two hypotheses can be presented that substantiate this productivity as a postulate.

The first presents a pure product as a gift of nature associated with the use of the land. Agriculture is mainly associated with the cultivation of the land, so only it enjoys this gift. There are two possible objections to this naturalistic explanation.

First, nothing prevents us from considering as productive industries that also, but in a different way, exploit the land or nature, such as mining. However, this is not done in the concept of the Physiocrats. Secondly, how to understand that this pure product, coming from the fertility of the land, goes not to those who cultivate it, but to those who own it? Another explanation is needed.

The second hypothesis presents the net product as a simple economic expression of landed property. The existence of a class of landowners who have nothing to sell is inconceivable without their income, and this income can only be justified by a special privilege of this class, which gives it a natural right: ownership of the land.

The concept of net product thus plays a twofold role: it expresses social reality (as in economic terms expresses the dominance of the landowning class in society), but at the same time mystifies it (because it assigns to this pure product - and this domination - a natural origin). The following paragraphs support this interpretation:

“Most of the expenses of landowners are at least fruitless; from this only the expenses for maintaining and improving their possessions and for increasing fertility can be excluded. But since they are obliged by natural right to administer and make expenses for the maintenance of their possessions, they of a population which constitutes an absolutely barren class."

“It is precisely the necessity of expenditure, which only landowners can make for the increase of their wealth and for the general good of society, that leads to the fact that the inviolability of landed property is key condition natural order in the administration of empires.

The second point concerns the percentage of initial advances and deductions. We should return to the meaning of the purchase of products by the productive class from the barren class. These purchases (1 billion lire) are mentioned by Quesnay in the analysis of the "market of trade between different classes" (diagram). He does not return to them in the study of reproduction, but he insists here "on the interest on the advance payment for equipping the landowners with farming" (1 billion lire). Although the transition from one concept to another is not as simple as it happens in the Economic Table, it must be recognized that we are talking about the same concept.

Agricultural production requires not only "annual advances", but also " initial contributions", which "form the basis of the agricultural economy and which are worth about five times more than the annual advances." We are talking about the means of exploitation that you need to have in order to engage in agriculture and which do not disappear after the first harvest; today we would talk about fixed capital (buildings, implements, etc.) These means of farming wear out over time and need to be repaired every year to keep them in working order (today we would talk about the annual depreciation of fixed capital) In addition, farmers must form a fund , which insures them against accidents that can destroy crops.

In order to cover these two elements, the productive class must deduct from the proceeds of sales a "percentage of the advance on the establishment of a household," that is, a certain proportion of the original advances. They reach, according to Quesnay, five times the annual advance, that is, 10 billion lire, and assuming that the percentage is one tenth, we get for its value 1 billion lire. This billion is spent in the form of the purchase of articles from the barren class, by which are meant, in particular, the implements of agriculture which they produce.

Finally, the addition of 2 billion lire in annual advances and 1 billion lire in interest constitutes what Quesnay calls the "deductions" of the productive class (what he must deduct from the proceeds from the sale of products). The net product is thus equal to the difference between the proceeds from the sale of products by the productive class and this deduction.

Together with the use of initial advances (which wear them out by one tenth over the period), annual advances to agriculture reproduce 5 billion liras of production, of which 3 billion liras are sold to other classes, and 2 billion liras reimburse annual advances. Purchasing items from the barren class for an amount equal to a percentage of the original advance (1 billion lire) allows it to be restored to its original value. Thus, the reproduction process can be resumed in the next period.

Reproduction should not be understood as an obsolete synonym for production. Nothing would be more erroneous than to reduce agricultural activity to a combination of fixed capital and labor (paid for in annual advances) resulting in the production of goods.

In addition, in this case, fruitless activity would also be reproduction (but for some reason without fixed capital). Reproduction involves three inextricably linked elements:

· it ensures the preservation of the natural order in society, i.e. restoration of the economic conditions for the existence of classes. That is why Quesnay speaks of the "annual reproduction of the nation" (and not of this or that branch);
This maintenance of the natural order presupposes the creation of a pure product intended for the maintenance of the landowners. The conditions of this creation (the advances necessary for agriculture) must be restored (thanks to the "deductions" of the productive class);
· this maintenance also involves the circulation of some part of the reproduced value (3 out of 5 billion lira). Reproduction is not only production, but also circulation.

The following phrase summarizes the meaning of this concept of reproduction:

"The sum of 5 billion, divided first between the productive class and the landowning class, is annually spent in a prescribed manner which constantly ensures the same annual reproduction."

The concept of advances introduces into political economy what will later be called capital, to designate the conditions of production to be advanced at the beginning of a period and restored at the end.

Two refinements follow from Quesnay's analysis:

In the most general sense, capital is, first of all, the sum of money. This is explicit for barren class advances, and implicit for initial productive class advances that are spent on purchases from the barren class (and therefore must be paid). That the advances of a productive class are made in kind is only apparent, since they refer to items produced within the same class. Thus, capital for Quesnay is the amount of money advanced for production, and their expenditure makes it possible to ensure the conditions of this production;
· There is one special category of capital, annual advances, which have the property of producing increased value. This property is expressed as a number (250% in the example given), which can be thought of as a measure of the ability of these advances to deliver value. This phenomenon allows us to speak of a productive class.

Finally, the concept of the net product illustrates from two angles that this increase in value is the basis for a special return. In other words, the income of landowners, which they receive by virtue of the natural right to land, is of the nature of monetary profit. Since this profit is produced in agriculture, the income of one class (landowners) comes from another class (peasants).

RYAZAN BRANCH

TEST

Course: "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC DOCTRINES"

Topic: “Economic Table” by Francois Quesnay.

Completed: st-t gr. EB - 241

Lebedev N.V.

Checked: d.e. n., professor

Badalyants Y. S.

Ryazan 2003

Plan

Introduction. 3

1. F. Quesnay on the pure product, productive and "unfruitful" labor, classes and capital. 4

2. Analysis of reproduction in the "Economic table" F. Quesnay. eleven

3. Significance of Quesnay's views for the development of economic thought. 17

Conclusion. 19

François Quesnay (1694-1774) French economist. Quesnay founded the "School" (nicknamed "The Sect" by his opponents), which was the first organized movement in political economy aimed at influencing public debate through a scientific conception of society. This "School" was called the "School of the Physiocrats" - from the Greek words physis (nature) and kratos (power).

The foundation in the views of the Physiocrats was the recognition of productivity only for agriculture. In their opinion, this is the only sector that produces more than is necessary for this production, in contrast to trade and industry, which produce only value equal to the cost of production. And the wealth of the state depends, therefore, on the size of the product obtained in agriculture, and the object of reforms should be to stimulate the activity of farmers.

Although the work of the Physiocrats draws on a view of economics marked by features of 18th-century French society, their contribution to the formation economics is significant. It includes the presentation of the economy as a system oriented at the same time to social classes and sectors of activity; an identification called "natural order"; economic laws, managing relationships between individuals; the difference between capital and profit; the concept of circulation of cost streams that ensure the reproduction of society as a whole, the stop of which leads to economic crises.

Quesnay becomes famous thanks to his main work, The Economic Table, published in 1758, in which the production and distribution of wealth in the "agricultural kingdom" is analyzed using a zigzag scheme. Many different versions of this scheme appeared subsequently with comments by the author or his students.

The diagram from the "Economic Table" is generally recognized as the first representation economic system in general, with cash flows, technical production constraints, the distribution of income between social classes.

Central to Quesnay's teachings was the problem of the "pure product" and its production. "Net product" is the excess over that part of the produced, which reimbursed wages. In other words, the “pure product” meant the surplus product. Rent was considered the only form of pure product.

However, the physiocrats interpreted the production of a “pure product” contradictoryly. On the one hand, it was presented as the result of a natural growth process inherent in agriculture, therefore, as a gift from nature. At the same time, the “pure product” also appears among them as a result of agricultural labor, an excess of over salary.

“The net product,” wrote Quesnay, “is the annually created wealth that forms the income of the nation, and represents the product extracted from land holdings after the removal of all costs.”

Thus, the Physiocrats believed that a pure product arises only in agriculture. And on their side was the very evidence, because nowhere is the increase in production demonstrated so clearly as in the field of animal husbandry and crop production.

The Physiocrats argued that in industry there is only consumption, industry was declared a "barren industry" because the form of the product, the given product, was only transformed there. In industry, however, because of its “sterility”, no surplus product is created, and the income of the entrepreneur and the wages of the worker are the costs of production.

The physiocrats' concept of productive and unproductive labor is closely connected with the doctrine of a pure product. For the first time in the history of economic thought, they referred to productive labor only labor that creates a "pure product." Accordingly, according to their views, only labor employed in the sphere of agriculture is productive, while labor in other spheres of the national economy is unproductive, or "fruitless".

This criterion (participation in the creation of a pure product) was the basis for the classification of society in the analysis of the process of social reproduction, given by F. Quesnay in his famous work "Economic Table". In it, society is considered as a single organism, uniting three main classes:

· the productive class, which includes all those engaged in agriculture;

· a class of owners, including all whose existence is connected, directly or indirectly, with income from the ownership of land;

· a barren class, including all those who are engaged in non-agricultural (industrial) activities.

Thus, the productive class includes peasants, farmers and agricultural wage-workers, i.e., all who are employed in agriculture. The class of proprietors are those who receive the annual net product created in agriculture. Quesnay referred the king, landowners, the church and all their servants to the owners. He declared all people employed in industry to be a sterile, or unproductive, class. This included hired workers, artisans, capitalists, merchants and small traders.

It should be noted that the "productivity" or "barrenness" of two of the three classes is not determined by the presence or absence of production in the material sense. Both "peasants" and "barren citizens" create goods by their labor, which Quesnay calls, respectively, "agricultural products" and "products." The difference between these classes does not lie in the commercial or non-commercial character of their products. In both cases, these products are destined, in part or in full, for sale, and this, in turn, is necessary for the purchase of products of another class. The sterile class, like the class of owners, according to Quesnay, does not create a pure product, but unlike the latter, this class works and creates with its labor as much as it consumes.

The description of the class structure of society was necessary for Quesnay, since in his "Economic Table" the total annual product is distributed through a process of circulation among three classes. Quesnay's task was to keep the king and the landowners as the backbone of society. But he could not put the class of owners in the first place; this would contradict his physiocratic concept of the primacy of agriculture. Therefore, he found landowners in a special class, placed between the "productive" and "barren" classes. It is quite obvious that Quesnay's theory of classes is erroneous. According to his scheme, workers and capitalists, both in industry and in agriculture, were united in one class. When dividing society into classes, Quesnay ignored the main principle - the relation of the class to the means of production. However, this limitation of Quesnay's teaching is explained by historical conditions. In France at that time there was no working class as such, and capitalist contradictions were then in their infancy, since capitalism was only taking shape in the depths of feudalism. The division of society into farmers, property owners and industrialists actually corresponded to the division of society that existed in the Middle Ages into peasants, nobility and townspeople.

Analysis of reproduction in the "Economic Table"

Relations between classes are considered by Quesnay as economic relations, since they consist either in the purchase or sale of goods, or in the payment of income. It is this characteristic that makes it possible to speak in this connection of a system of political economy, since society is here described in terms of the circulation of wealth ("trade between different classes"). Moreover: these economic relations are not considered separately from other relations between people in society; the existence of society itself depends on their existence, since they express the natural order that ensures its well-being.

Circulation of money between classes

At the beginning of the period, the landowning class has an income of 2 billion lire, and the barren class has an amount of 1 billion lire, which it advances for production. Landowners spend half of their income on the purchase of agricultural products and the other half on the purchase of products of the barren class. He uses the 1 billion lira advance to buy the raw materials needed for production and the 1 billion lira he has just received from the landowners to buy the livelihoods he will consume during the period.

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education

National Research University "MIET"

abstract

In the discipline "History of economic doctrines (IEU)"

Subject: Francois Quesnay. Economic table»

Performed student of study group EU-25

A. D. MATYUKHOVA

checked Associate Professor NIKITINSKAYA Yu.V.

Moscow 2014

Introduction

1. Basic elements of the theory

Conclusion

Introduction

The foundation in the views of the Physiocrats was the recognition of productivity only for agriculture. In their opinion, this is the only sector that produces more than is necessary for this production, in contrast to trade and industry, which only produce value equal to the cost of production. And the wealth of the state depends, therefore, on the size of the product obtained in agriculture, and the object of reforms should be to stimulate the activity of farmers.

Although the work of the Physiocrats draws on a view of economics marked by features of 18th-century French society, their contribution to the formation of economics is significant. It includes the presentation of the economy as a system oriented at the same time to social classes and sectors of activity; an identification called "natural order"; economic laws that govern relationships between individuals; the difference between capital and profit; the concept of circulation of cost flows that ensure the reproduction of society as a whole, the stop of which leads to economic crises.

The scheme from the "Economic Table" is generally recognized as the first representation of the economic system as a whole, with cash flows, technical production restrictions, income distribution among social classes.

quesne physiocrats productivity economic

1. Basic elements of the theory

“The net product,” wrote Quesnay, “is the annually created wealth, which forms the income of the nation, and represents the product extracted from land holdings after the removal of all costs.”

The productive class, which includes all those engaged in agriculture;

The class of owners, including all whose existence is connected, directly or indirectly, with income from the ownership of land;

A sterile class, including all those who are engaged in non-agricultural (industrial) activities.

Thus, the productive class includes peasants, farmers and agricultural wage-workers, i.e., all who are employed in agriculture. The class of proprietors is those who receive the annual net product produced by agriculture. Quesnay referred the king, landowners, the church and all their servants to the owners. He declared all people employed in industry to be a sterile, or unproductive, class. This included hired workers, artisans, capitalists, merchants and small traders.

2. Significance of Quesnay's views for the development of economic thought

Some of Quesnay's hypotheses seem outdated today: profit is created only in agricultural sector, there is no capital gain. In constructing the "economic table" Kene proceeded from certain premises, made a number of assumptions. He abstracted from the influence of the external market, price fluctuations, considering simple reproduction, which is legitimate to start the analysis. Analyzing social reproduction, Caene took the movement of commodity capital, revealing the right economic tact, since the problem of reproduction is, first of all, the problem of realizing the social product.

In the "Economic Table" only simple reproduction was considered, there was no problem of accumulation. Quesnay did not show how the part of the agricultural product that remained with the farmers was sold. The need to restore the means of labor from the “barren” was ignored.

But the genius of Quesnay is in understanding the economy as a set of quantitative relations that ensure its constancy (what he calls reproduction). In particular, the quantities appearing in the "Economic Table" represent two types of relationships that reflect the features market economy: relations of production with their technical limitations and the mutual correspondence of sectors and the relation of circulation with their cash flows corresponding to the exchange or payment of income. Quesnay anticipates the classical school and invents a method of analyzing the economy as a closed process.

Although, in general, Quesnay's teaching on classes is primitive and unscientific, however, the fact that he was one of the first to divide society into classes into economic basis, made it possible to show in the "Economic Table" how the annual product is distributed among the classes by means of circulation. This distribution provides the conditions for the resumption of production, or simple reproduction. Moreover, in the "Economic Table" countless individual acts of circulation are combined into a mass movement of the created annual product between economic classes society.

Considering Quesnay's doctrine of the pure product and the classes of society, Marx showed that declaring agriculture the only productive industry, and the class of farmers the only productive one, had its own background. Land rent as a surplus product created in agriculture appears in the most tangible form.

The main problem that Quesnay solved in the "Economic Table" is the identification of the main national economic proportions that ensure the development of the country's economy. The "economic table" is a diagram that shows how the annual product of society is realized and how the prerequisites for reproduction are formed. In order to show the possibility of simple reproduction on a national scale and the economic ties between `classes, Quesnay quite naturally simplified the process of implementation and abstracted from a number of points. He excluded from the analysis the study of the process of accumulation and considered simple reproduction. The "Table" assumes a constant value of money, the stability of commodity prices, a distraction from the influence of foreign trade on the sales process. Subsequently, K. Marx uses this approach and, in the analysis of simple reproduction, like Quesnay, will abstract from price fluctuations and the influence of the external market.

K. Marx understood the genius of Quesnay's "Economic Table" and gave a comprehensive analysis of this work. He wrote that “it was an attempt to present the entire process of capital production as a process of reproduction, and circulation only as a form of this process of reproduction ... at the same time, it was an attempt to include in this process of reproduction the origin of income, the exchange between capital and income, the relationship between reproductive and final consumption, and to include in the circulation of capital the circulation between producers and consumers (actually between capital and income); finally, it was an attempt to present as moments of the reproduction process the circulation between two large divisions of productive labor - between the production of raw materials and industry - and all this in one "Table" ... This attempt, made in the second third of the 18th century, during childhood political economy, was an idea of genius in the highest degree, indisputably the most brilliant of all that political economy has put forward to this day.

It was F. Quesnay who, for the first time in the history of economic thought, had a sufficiently deep theoretical substantiation of the provisions on capital. Quesnay believed that "Money itself is barren wealth that does not produce anything." F. Quesnay not only subdivided capital into fixed and circulating, but was also able to convincingly prove that both of them are in motion.

Quesnay showed how goods and money flows between classes in the national economy, as a result of which farmers produce food for all classes, raw materials for industry, seeds for the next year. The resulting net product they transfer to the owners of the land in the form of rent. For its time, this was a very progressive opinion.

Its importance for the development of economic thought was noted by V. S. Nemchinov, who called Quesnay's "Economic Table" a brilliant take-off of human thought. “If one characterizes the Quesnay table in modern economic terms, then it can be considered the first experience of macroeconomic analysis in which central location occupies the concept of the total social product ... "The Economic Table" by Francois Quesnay is the first macroeconomic grid of natural commodity and cash flows material values. The ideas embedded in it are the germ of future economic models. In particular, when creating a scheme of expanded reproduction, K. Marx paid tribute to the ingenious creation of Quesnay.

Conclusion

In the Table of Economics, Quesnay attempted, for the first time in the history of political economy, to show the main proportions and main ways of realizing the social product by combining numerous acts of exchange into a mass movement of money and goods. It was he who discovered that the process of reproduction and sale can proceed smoothly only if certain proportions of the development of the national economy are observed.

Quesnay's doctrine of reproduction suffered from a number of significant shortcomings. The "economic table" was built on the erroneous division of society into classes. Leaving the industrialists without tools of production (they had completely sold their products), Quesnay deprived them of the opportunity to start a new production process. The class of landowners was erroneously placed at the center of the implementation process.

Quesnay's "table" does not fully reveal the distribution of the social product; it did not show the sale of agricultural products within the class of farmers. The influence of the traditions of subsistence farming, in which only surpluses are sold, affected. All this did not allow Quesnay to fully reveal the mechanism of capitalist reproduction. But the scientific limitations of the "Economic Table" does not negate its merits.

Quesnay's table is the first macroeconomic grid of natural (commodity) and cash flows of material values in the history of political economy. The ideas embedded in it are the germ of future economic models.

Bibliography

1) Agapova I. A. History of economic doctrines. M., 2011.

2) Bartenev S. A. History of economic doctrines. M., 2010.

3) Vasilevsky E.G. "History of Economic Thought".

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