Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

Comments

Re: 18th century economic theories

[cahn]

Huhhhhh this is very interesting! So, why there aren't famines anymore in Tuscany, as opposed to France -- is it solely due to the free trade of grain? Because wow, that's a pretty amazing advertisement for free trade!

And so it sounds like Tuscany was the only place where semi-physiocracy was applied in a workable way (as opposed to trying to build it on top of existing structures like you say was being done in Baden)?

Re: 18th century economic theories

[mildred_of_midgard]

Weeelllll...even if you have reams of data at hand and have lived through a period, economists will argue about what caused the economy to improve or get worse. So without even any data, I can't really tell you that it was solely due to this or that. What I can say, without getting on a political hobby horse, is that there were famines, the worst one in centuries was ongoing when Leopold was taking over, Leopold made reforms, no more famines. So whatever he did at least didn't make it worse! Determining actual cause and effect is much harder. ;)

And so it sounds like Tuscany was the only place where semi-physiocracy was applied in a workable way (as opposed to trying to build it on top of existing structures like you say was being done in Baden)?

Yeah, the three places I've seen attempts at implementing physiocracy mentioned are:

France: Proposed physiocratic reforms blocked at the political level, never implemented.
Baden: Applied badly, ended badly.
Tuscany: Applied selectively but not dogmatically, arguable worked reasonably well as long as Leopold was on hand, serious revolts (not just because of physiocracy and the grain trade situation, but also because of that) as soon as he left.