Abstract
Having come to the end of the book, there is no choice but to accept the extreme heterogeneity between what Plato, Bodin, the mercantilists and Quesnay had to say about population. There are two reasons for this heterogeneity: firstly, these thinkers belonged to very different historical contexts which influenced their thinking on population; secondly, because of their strong internal coherence each of these systems of thought is a very seductive intellectual construction. Some may be more convincing than others and some may lend themselves to criticism, but they are totally incapable of being organised along hierarchical lines. Hence, neither theories, nor, a fortiori, doctrines, can be construed as the stages of a continual progress.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, Montesquieu’s criticism of the way Catholic Spain treated its colonies is a veiled reference to absolutist and Catholic France. At the same time, he is against the praise of political liberalism in Holland and Switzerland. Regarding Montesquieu, Hume and Rousseau, see Tomaselli (1988: 9–15).
- 2.
L’Ordre naturel, I: 297.
- 3.
Especially in ancient China (Lao-Tseu) and in the Arabic civilisation (Ibn-Khaldoun).
- 4.
See in particular: Chapters I.1, II.10, and III.4.
- 5.
Deuxième Traité…, see in particular § 53, 69, 182.
- 6.
Pufendorf (1740: Book VI, Chapter II, §10). This explanation figures in the French edition of 1740, translated by Barbeyrac, which we have used. But De jure naturae et gentium(The Law of Nature and of Nations) came out in 1572, that is before Filmer’s son published his father’s book. For a clear and precise presentation of Filmer’s work see Goyard-Fabre (1984: 43–54).
- 7.
Grotius: Book II, Chapter V, II.1. Aritotle: see Politics, Book I, 12, §1 and Book I, 13, §7.
- 8.
Book II, Chapter VI. Quotation: Book II, Chapters V and XXIIII.
- 9.
Six livres… The quotations are on pp. 66 and 68.
- 10.
L’Ordre naturel. Quotations: I: 32, (also see I: 40–41), 258 (also see I: 167)
- 11.
See Charbit (1981).
- 12.
The Hanseatic League, for instance, originated in 1241 when Lübeck formed an alliance with Hamburg. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, it gathered nearly one hundred cities allover northern and eastern Europe. The Hanseatic cities had achieved political autonomy, solidly grounded on a powerful trading economy. The power of the League reached a peak towards the end of the fourteenth century when it won a war against Denmark. But from then, Western and Eastern territorial states progressively weakened the League, which was dissolved in 1669.
- 13.
Significantly enough, the major undertaking was the Enquiry into noble status (Enquête de noblesse) by Colbert in 1667, the aim of which was to prove that the status of noble was proven and therefore that the taille had not to be paid.
- 14.
L’Ordre naturel. The quotations are in I: 82–93.
- 15.
In spite of recent evolutions in research on networks.
- 16.
1685: Book I, Chapter III, VIII.1, and IX.1.
- 17.
See in particular Book I, Chapters IV and XVI (right to depose a tyrant or a usurper) and Book I, Chapter IV, 1.3 (right to disobey if an order goes against God’s commandments). Grotius thus established a clear distinction between “the acts performed by a King as a King and the acts that a King may commit as an individual”. Because the King was bound by the contracts that he had signed, which were not laws (Book II, Chapters XIV, 1.2 and IX).
- 18.
Hobbes, s.d.: 112.
- 19.
Pufendorf (1740: Book VII, Chapters I and II).
- 20.
Traité théologico-politique, 246, 251; quotation: 254.
- 21.
Submission to authority: 107–108, 230, etc.; quotation: 246.
- 22.
“I think I have shown enough of the fundamentals of the democratic state of which I have spoken in preference to others because it seemed the most natural thing and the one that is least distant from the freedom that Nature confers of each person” (268). And “The less men are allowed the freedom to judge, the further one moves from the most natural state and the more violence there is in government. So that it may now be seen how this freedom has no disadvantages that can be avoided only by the sovereign’s authority and how only by this authority men professing different opinions can be easily prevented from harming one another […]. May the city of Amsterdam be an example for us…” (334).
- 23.
Quoted by Appuhn (1965: 8). Also see Hazard (1994: 134–141).
- 24.
Traité…: 218.
- 25.
Second Treatise…, see in particular §4, 53, 69, 95, 96, 131, 182. Last quotation on absolutism: §90.
- 26.
Charbit (2009).
Bibliography
Pufendorf Samuel, Le droit de la nature et des gens ou système général des principes les plus importants de la morale, de la jurisprudence et de la politique, Paris 1740. (First edition 1672)
Charbit Yves, Du malthusianisme au populationnisme, les Economistes français et la population, 1840–1870, Paris, INED-PUF, 1981.
Hazard Paul, La crise de la pensée européenne 1680–1715, Paris, Fayard, 1994. (First edition 1935).
Charbit Yves, Economic, Social and Demographic Thought in the XIXth Century. The Population Debate from Matlhus to Marx, Springer, Milton Keynes, 2009.
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Charbit, Y. (2011). Towards Demography. In: The Classical Foundations of Population Thought. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9298-4_6
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