From Cantillon to Quesnay:

Birth and Evolution of the Tableau Economique

Giorgio Gilibert

François Quesnay, a surgeon, is rightly considered to be one of the founding fathers of

modern economic science. However, as an economist, his career shows two remarkable
aspects, which should not be overlooked. First, he came across political economy
relatively late, when he was already in his sixties1[2]. Second, his new interest in
economics was surprisingly short lived: less than 15 years2[3].

Indeed, his creative period, as far as economic theory is concerned, is limited to the
decade 1756-1766, which is marked by the succession of his famous Tableaux
Economiques. These Tableaux are of two different types. The zig-zag type represents
the result of the expenditure by a single representative land-owner of his revenue. The
first of these zig-zags was drawn by hand in 1757; the last was included in the
Philosophie Rurale, a book published six years later. In the same book, we find a new
type of Tableau, of a more compact complexion. This new Tableau assumed its
definitive shape with the Formule of the Tableau Economique, published in 1766: the
picture now portrays the economy as a whole and therefore represents the effects of the
expenditure by the whole class of land-owners of their revenue. The Formula is both the
last and the most well-known of all the Tableaux.

The question now arises as to where the original idea of representing the economic life
in a simple picture comes from. We can suppose that Quesnay simply invented it;
creating it, so to speak, ex nihilo. But this does not seem particularly reasonable. In fact,
a well-known and convincing answer does exist, according to which Quesnay’s original
idea of the Tableau arose from a reading of Cantillon’s Essay. The thesis was advanced
for the first time by Karl Marx, who wrote in vol. I of his Das Kapital that Quesnay had
‘largely drawn’ on Cantillon3[4]. Almost one century later, the same view was
authoritatively reasserted, in a much more emphatic way, by Schumpeter:
 Cantillon was the first to make this circular flow concrete and explicit, to
give us a bird’s-eye view of economic life. In other words, he was the first to
draw a tableau économique. And, barring differences that hardly affect
essentials, this tableau is the same as Quesnay’s, though Cantillon did not
actually condense it into a table. Cantillon’s priority is thus beyond question
as regards the ‘invention’ that Mirabeau, indulging as usual his generous
ardors, compared in importance to the ‘invention’ of writing.4[5]

Despite its wide acceptance, this argument has never been satisfactorily spelt out in
detail5[6]. This is rather surprising, since we know for certain the year in which
Cantillon’s Essay was read by Quesnay: 1756. And we are perfectly acquainted with the
analytical path followed by Quesnay in the following ten years, since the numerous
economic texts written by him in that period are readily available to us.

This paper intends to re-examine the whole question of the lineage Cantillon-Quesnay,
as far as the Tableau is concerned, The analytical path followed by Quesnay will be
reconstructed step by step, on the basis of his economic writings (and of the Tableaux in
particular). In order to make them easily comparable, the various arithmetical examples
(by Cantillon and Quesnay) and the various Tableaux (by Quesnay), whether in zig-zag
or in compact form, will be all translated into uniform graphs, showing both the
structure of the examples and the numbers which inhabit them. These graphs will prove,
hopefully, both rigorous and easily understandable.

Cantillon
Cantillon proposed in his Essay two arithmetical examples depicting the utilization of
the whole agricultural product in a national economy. The two examples are structurally
identical. They only differ in the distinct uses of them by the author. In the first case, the
example is utilized to show that ‘all Classes and Individuals in a State subsist or are
enriched at the Expense of the Proprietors of Land’ (part I, ch. 12). In the second case,
the example is used to evaluate the quantity of money which is necessary to ensure a
smooth commodity circulation (part II, ch. 2). From our particular point of view, this
different utilization is totally irrelevant.

Let us present both the examples:

Les fermiers ont ordinairement les deux tiers du produit de la terre, l’un
pour les frais et le maintien de leurs assistants, l’autre pour le profit de leur
enterprise: de ces deux tiers le fermier fait subsister généralement tous ces
qui vivent à la campagne directement ou indirectement, et même plusieurs
artisans ou entrepreneurs dans la ville, à cause des marchandises de la ville
qui sont consommées à la campagne.
 Le propriétaire a ordinairement le tiers du produit de sa terre, et de ce
tiers, il fait non seulement subsister tous les artisans et autres qu’il emploie
dans la ville, mais bien souvent aussi les voituriers qui apportent les denrées
de la campagne à la ville.
On suppose généralement que la moitié des habitants d’un État subsiste et
fait sa demeure dans les villes, et l’autre moitié à la campagne: cela étant, le
fermier qui a les deux tiers ou quatre sixièmes du produit de la terre, en
donne directement ou indirectement un sixième aux habitants de la ville en
échange des marchandises qu’il en tire; ce qui avec le tiers ou deux sixièmes
que le propriétaire dépense dans la ville, fait trios sixièmes ou une moitié du
produit de la terre.6[7]

C’est une idée commune en Angleterre qu’un fermier doit faire trios rentes:
1° la rente principale et veritable qu’il paie au propriétaire, et q’on suppose
égale en valeur au produit du tier de sa ferme; une seconde rente pour son
entretien et celui des hommes et des chevaux don’t il se sert pour cultivar sa
ferme, et enfin une troisième rente qui doit lui demeurer, pour faire profiter
son entreprise. . . .
La supposition donc que je suivrai dans cette recherché de la circulation de
l’argent sera que les fermiers font trois rentes, et même qu’ils dépensent la
troisième rente pour vivre plus commodément, au lieu de l’épargner. . .
La première rente doit être payee au propriétaire, en argent comptant;
pour la seconde et la troisème rentes il faut de l’argent comptant pour le fer,
l’étain, le cuivre, le sel, le sucre, les draps, et généralement pour toutes les
marchandises de la ville qui sont consommées à la campagne; mais tout cela
n’excède guère la sixième partie du total, ou des trios rentes. . . .
Le seul argent comptant qui est nécessaire à la campagne, sera donc celui
qu’il faut pour payer la rente principale du proprétaire et les marchandises
que la campagne tire nécessairement de la ville, telles que les couteaux, les
ciseaux, les épingles, les aiguilles, les draps pour quelques fermiers ou
autres gens aisés, la batterie de cuisine, la vaisselle et généralement tout ce
qu’on tire de la ville.7[8]

This scheme can easily be shown in a graph, which, though quite simple, is the most
complicated that will be met in this paper. The idea is the following: in our picture,
there are two sites: Country (C) and Town (T). In the Country, agricultural production is
carried out by wage-labourers with horses. Wages (and fodder) are anticipated, and
production is organized, by the Farmers (F), who also live in the Country.

In the Town merchants and artisans live, both groups being self-employed workers. In
the Town the Proprietors (P) live also and these spend their revenue – land-rent - buying
food and manufactured articles from merchants and artisans.

In the graph may be seen four points – C, T, F and P – connected by lines, which
represent value-flows. These lines are oriented according to the direction of the flows,
whose precise value is shown by the numbers. In this particular graph (illustrating
Cantillon’s example) the unit of value is represented by 1/6th of the value of total
agricultural production.

FIG. 1

The numbers associated with the lines leaving Country (C) amount to 6, which is the
value of total agricultural production. This agricultural product is partly destined for
agricultural self-consumption: C→C = 2. Cantillon calls this self-consumption the
“Second Rent”, composed by the ‘Farmer’s maintenance and that of the Men and
Horses he employs to cultivate the Farm’. The remaining part of agricultural production
belongs to the Farmer: C→F = 4.

In turn, the Farmers must pay land-rent to the Proprietors: F→P = 2. Therefore, 2 = 4 –
2 units are at the Farmers’ disposition. Cantillon calls the Farmer’s revenue the “Third
Rent” (‘the Profit of their Undertaking’). This is spent partly in the Country ‘on living
more comfortably’ (F→C = 1) and partly in the Town to buy ‘the Manufactures which
the Country necessarily draws from the City’: F→T = 1.

The Proprietors receive from the Farmers what Cantillon calls the “First Rent”, or ‘the
principal and true Rent’. They spend it in the Town, buying foodstuffs and other articles
from merchants and artisans: P→T = 2.

It can easily be seen that half of agricultural product is consumed in the Country and
half in the Town. This is in accordance with Cantillon, according to whom ‘one half of
the Inhabitants of a kingdom subsist and make their Abode in Cities, and the other half
live in the Country’.

The graph is clearly incomplete: no line leaves the Town, while the entries in the
Country are insufficient. What is lacking is a value flow from the Town to the Country,
to buy food and raw materials: T→C = 3. But it is worth noticing that Cantillon, unlike
Quesnay, is much more interested in the distribution of agricultural product rather than
in the structure of the circular flow.

Quesnay: Fermiers and Grains

Quesnay’s official entry into the field of political economy was marked by two articles
written for the Encyclopedie: Fermiers (Farmers) published in vol. VI (January 1756)
and Grains (Corn) published in vol. VII (November 1757). According to Dupont, the
official historian of the “school”:

Le mot Fermiers présentait quelques vérités mères d’une grande science.

Dans le mot Grains, on voit cette science formée et presque complète.8[9]

In fact, in the article Fermiers we find only one “mother-truth”: the superiority of
capitalist large-scale cultivation (la grande culture), using horses to plough the land,
over small-scale cultivation (la petite culture) based on share-cropping and where oxen
are used9[10].

It is in the article Grains that the central theoretical ideas of the new science are
introduced: in particular, the principle of the exclusive productivity of agriculture and
the notion of net product.

The question now arises as what happened in the few months between the publication of
Fermiers and the redaction of Grains. The answer undoubtedly is that Quesnay had
discovered Cantillon’s Essay.

Cantillon was dead, murdered, in 1734. His Essay was circulated in manuscript form
both in England and France, among a select few: Quesnay was certainly not among
them. In 1755, the Essay was unexpectedly published anonymously in Paris, with the
false name of a London publisher. In 1756 there was a second edition and also a pirated
edition in Amsterdam (all the editions are in French). The pirated edition had,
presumably, a greater diffusion (with a re-edition in 1761). Therefore, Quesnay’s
discovery of the Essay in 1756 is hardly surprising.

Cantillon is quoted only once in the article Grains, but his influence is recognizable in
many other places. Here are considered the two fundamental ideas cited above. The idea
of the exclusive productivity of agriculture is introduced in the middle of the article:

Les revenus du Roi, du clergé, des propriétaires, les gains du fermier et de

ceux qu’il emploie tournent en dépenses, qui se distribuent à tous les autres
états et à toutes les autres professions. Un auteur a reconnu ces vérités
fondamentales10[11].

This author quoted is Cantillon. Indeed, Quesnay’s sentence is a paraphrase of the title
(already cited) of a chapter of the Essay: ‘all Classes and Individuals in a State subsist
or are enriched at the Expense of the Proprietors of Land’11[12].
.
The treatment of the net product notion12[13] is no less reminiscent of Cantillon. Let us
begin with Quesnay’s definition of the net product. (The following definition is
relatively late. The use of the notion by Quesnay is always consistent and unambiguous;
however, he was remarkably reticent in giving an explicit definition).

[Le]produit, dis-je, qui excède les dépenses du travail de la culture, et les

dépenses des autres avances necessaries pour l’exploitation de cette culture.
Toutes ces dépenses étant réstituées par le produit qu’elles font naître, le
surplus est un produit net qui forme le revenue public et le revenue des
prpriétaires.13[14]

If this definition is applied to Cantillon’s examples, this surplus or net product is easily
recognizable. It is formed by the sum of the first and of the third rents (the sum of the
“true” rent of the Proprietors and of the profit of the Farmers). Consider now the
following numerical example advanced in the article Grains:

Dont il y aurait le produit net 40 l. distribuées ainsi:14[15]

Pur le fermage de deux années ½ ou 20 livres
Pour la taille ¼, ou 10
Pour le fermier ¼, ou 10
40

If we take into account that the taille is supposed to be paid by the farmer, then his
(gross) profit amounts to 20 livres. Thus, the ratio between rent and profit is the same as
the original ratio between the first and the third rent in Cantillon, and the profit partition
is also the same. Even the numbers are (virtually) equal.

Impôts: profit leaves the scene

The articles Hommes (Men) and Impôts (Taxation) were also written for the
Encyclopédie in 1757, but Quesnay did not ever publish them, due to a change in the
political climate. Textual comparison suggests that Impôts was presumably written
before Hommes.
The fundamental thesis that ‘all Classes and Individuals in a State subsist or are
enriched at the Expense of the Proprietors of Land’ was established by Cantillon in a
striking way:

Si le Prince et les propriétaires des terres renfermaient leur terres, et s’ils

n’y voulaient laisser travailler personne, il est visible qu’il n’y aurait ni
nourriture ni habillement pour aucun des habitants de l’État15[16].
From this and other similar arguments, Quesnay draws his radical conclusion that the
net product is a gift of land, and therefore belongs exclusively to the land-owners.
Farmers organize agricultural production, but do not possess land, by definition, and
therefore cannot share in the net product. Thus Farmers’ profits (as a part of the net
product) have to be eliminated. The step is actually taken by Quesnay in his article
Impôts, a few months after Grains (where he accepted, as we have seen, Farmer’s
profit: for the first and last time16[17]):

Les profits ou les revenues que les propriétaires retirent de leur biens-
fond[s] sont donc les vrayes richesses de la nation. . . .
Les profits des fermiers et les gains des homes que les fermiers occupent à la
culture doivent être distingués des revenus que cette même culture rend
annuellement aux propriétaires.17[18]

Thus, if we stick to the original example by Cantillon, the question arises of what
happens to the “third rent”, which is formed precisely by the profit of the farmers. But,
before answering this question, another point should be clarified as to whether
Cantillon’s profits are, in modern terminology, net or gross profits.

It should be recalled that these profits, which amounted to 2 units, were equally divided.
The Farmers spend one unit in the country ‘on living more comfortably’, their bare
maintenance met by the “second rent”. This unit can undoubtedly be considered as
“net”. The other unit is spent in the Town to buy ‘the Manufactures which the Country
necessarily draws from the City’. Taking into account that this is the only opportunity
given to agriculture to acquire the manufactured articles it needs, this unit can be largely
considered as an expense for the replacement of the tools used in cultivation and of the
manufactured articles being part of labourers’ and farmers’ maintenance. This second
unit, therefore, cannot be considered as “net”, but more properly as an amortization.
Indeed, Quesnay always considered these purchases (by the Farmers in the Town) as a
cost: ‘interest on the original advances’18[19].

In conclusion, the elimination of Farmers’ “net” profits consists in excluding one of the
two units forming the “third rent”. We face here three choices: (i) to assign the unit to
the proprietor’s rent; or (ii) to add this unit to agricultural costs, or finally (iii) to remove
it altogether. Let us consider the three possibilities with the aid of graphs.

The graphs are now simpler, being reduced to three points. Since the Farmers are no
longer a source of net expenditure, there is no reason to consider them as separated from
the Country: Farmers are now representative of the whole rural sector, i.e. agriculture.
Analogously, the urban sector, i.e. manufacture, is substituted for the Town. And
manufacture is here represented by the Artisans (A).
A consequence of the substitution of the economic dichotomy between the two sectors
for the old spatial dichotomy between country and town is that the expenditure of the
Proprietors is now necessarily divided between foodstuffs (which are agricultural
products) and manufactured articles (which are made by the Artisans). As far as this
division of the proprietors’ expenditure between agriculture and manufacture is
concerned, the most obvious choice consists in assuming the two parts as being equal
(and, in fact, this division – where the luxe de subsistence equals in value the luxe de
décoration - is always assumed by Quesnay as corresponding to the natural order).

If we decide to transfer the unit of the ex-profit to Proprietors’ rent (alternative i) the
graph becomes:

FIG. 2

The Farmers F organize agricultural production, but are also part of it, since their
maintenance is now entirely included in the agricultural costs. F is therefore
representative of the whole agricultural sector. Their costs (agricultural advances) are
here represented by agricultural self-consumption, F→F = 2, and by the purchase of
manufactured articles, F→A = 1.

The rent (or net product) paid by the Farmers to the Proprietors is F→P = 3. This
revenue is spent equally in buying foodstuffs, P→F = 1.5, and manufactured articles,
P→A = 1.5.

One characteristic of this representation which particularly pleased Quesnay was the
ratio between the net product and the agricultural costs which is 3/(2+1) = 100%.
Quesnay became particularly attached to this ratio and this he always maintained in his
Tabeaux à zig-zag.

The graph is still obviously incomplete, as it was in Fig. 1. This topic will be treated in
the next paragraph.

The alternative (ii) consists in adding the unit of ex-net-profits to the agricultural costs
(as Farmers’s maintenance, for instance). This situation is described by Quesnay in a
paragraph, which is remarkably reminiscent of Cantillon:

Il en est de même des depenses que fait le laboureur pour cultivar la terre,
ces dépenses qui sont environ égales aux deux tiers du produit de la récolte
 doivent être rendues au laboureur par la récolte même pour être dépensées
de nouveau à la culture de la terre. Les deux tiers de la récolte ne font donc
pas partie du profit que l’on retire de cette récolte. . . .
Les richesses annuelles qui consistent dans des revenues de la nation sont les
produits qui, toutes dépenses reprises, forment les profits que l’ont retire
des biens-fonds.19[20]

The graph becomes:

FIG. 3

The obvious disadvantage of this choice is that the ratio between net product and
agricultural advances is here reduced to the undesirable low level of 50%.

The third possibility (alternative iii) which consists in simply removing the unit which
formed the net profit, is also significant. The corresponding graph thus becomes:

FIG. 4
The rent paid by the Farmers to the Proprietors (F→P) is always equal to 2 units and is
spent in equal parts to buy agricultural products and manufactured articles. This graph
has a characteristic which may have pleased Quesnay. It is clear, notwithstanding the
usual incompleteness of the graph, that the Artisans have to buy 2 units of agricultural
products. If we assume, as Quesnay does in every Tableau, that half of these purchases
are for foodstuffs and half for raw materials, it follows that the foodstuffs consumed in
the country are twice the amount of foodstuffs consumed in the town, a conclusion
which matches Quesnay’s opinion, according to which the rural population should be
double that of the urban population.

Hommes: full circle

In the article Hommes, Quesnay presents a first numerical example of a circular flow:

Tout ce qu’un home dépense de ses gains, ou de ses revenues, profite à

d’autres homes, et retourne à la source qui l’a produit, et qui le renouvelle.
Un laboureur a vendu 100 septiers de bled 1600#, le propriéttaire a reçue
[reçu] ces 1600# pour le fermage de la terre. Celui ci emploie cette somme à
faire bâtir, les ouvriers à qui ils la distribuent en achettent du bled pour se
nourrir: ainsi les 1600# retournent au laboureur qui leur vend le bled. Ce
laboureur emploie cette somme à la culture, pour faîre naitre d’autre bled:
ainsi les dépenses du propriétaire forment le gain des ouvriers, qui rendent
au laboureur la somme qu’il a païée au propréttaire.20[21]

The corresponding graph is quite elementary. H stands for the Husbandman; W for
Workers, and P, as always, for the Proprietor. The value unit is now the livre.

FIG. 5

What is relevant here is that the arrows return to the starting point: H→P→W→H. The
graph of the circular flow is finally complete.
This example can be considered as a first attempt to draw a Tableau Economique. It was
presumably written in the first months of 1757. In the same first months Marmontel
found Quesnay ‘so busy in drawing the zig-zag of the net product’ as to overlook his
visit to Mme de Pompadour21[22].

The Tableau Economique

The first true Tableau was actually hand-drawn at the end of 1757. New versions were
published in 1759. These are Tabeaux à zig-zag: they are all structurally identical and
differ only in the estimate of the net product at the Proprietor’s disposition. The last
Tableau à zig-zag was finally published in 1763 in a book entitled Philosophie
Rurale22[23].

After the article Hommes, Quesnay is able to represent a complete circular flow. But
that corresponding to the example depicted in fig. 5 is clearly oversimplified. A realistic
complication was already suggested by Cantillon in his examples: the possible division
of the expenditure of each participant in two ways (with the ensuing possibility of self-
consumption both in agriculture and manufacture).

Quesnay is apparently anxious to achieve a picture sufficiently complicated as to seem

realistic; and, at the same time, he is fascinated by the possible perfect symmetry of his
picture. He therefore supposes that each one of the three participants divides its own
expenditure in two parts, which are equal. This supposition ensures a perfect
symmetrical aspect to his picture. Moreover, this supposition has the extra advantage of
strongly differentiating his own numerical accounts from those of Cantillon, as
Quesnay, at this point, presumably wished.

Ce revenue se partage par la depense du proprietaire a peu pres egalement,

la moitie retourne a l’agriculture pour les achats de pain, vin, viande, bois,
etc[.] . . .
L’autre moitié du revenue du proprietaire est employee par celui-ci aux
achats des ouvrages de main-d’oeuvres pour ses entretiens de vetements,
emmeublement, ustenciles et de toutes autres choses qui s’usent ou qui
s’eteignent sans reproduction renaissante de ces memes choses. . . .
Les ouvriers de la classe de l’industrie depensent dans leur classe meme la
moitie de la somme de leur salaire pour les marchandises de main-d’oeuvre
don’t ils ont besoin pour leur entretien, et l’autre moitie retourne a
l’agriculture pour l’achat de leur subsistence. On voit la meme chose du
coté de l’agriculture, les colons y employment pour leur subsistence la
moitié de la somme qu’ils recoivent et portent l’autre moitié a l’industrie
 pour les marchandises de main-d’oeuvre necessaries pour leur
entretien.23[24]

To this analysis Quesnay adds his preferred ratio of net product to agricultural costs:

On suppose . . . que les avances des fermiers soient suffisantes pour que les
dépenses de la culture reproduisent au moins cent pour cent: car si les
avances ne sont pas suffisantes les dépenses de la culture sont plus grandes à
proportion et donnent moins de produit net.24[25]

The result of these three assumptions (different composition of each expenditure,

symmetry and 100% rate of net production) is the following graph. The numbers
indicate thousands of livres: they correspond to the data included in the last version
(1763) of the Tableau à zig-zag.

FIG: 6

The rent paid by the Farmers to the Proprietor is F→P = 2. Every participant spends 1 in
buying agricultural products and 1 in buying manufactured articles. This implies self-
consumption both in agriculture (F→F = 1) and in manufacture (A→A = 1).

This Tableau represents the result of the expenditure by a representative Proprietor of

his revenue. The aggregate picture of the economy should be obtained simply by
multiplying the values in the Tableau by the number of the Proprietors. But, if we look
at the Tableau as a small-scale picture of the circular flow taking place in the economy
as a whole (as it is supposed to be) we are forced to conclude that it does not work.

Indeed, while for the Proprietors incomes exactly counterbalance outgoings, this is not
true for Artisans and Farmers: the incomes of the Artisans (1 + 1 + 1 = 3) exceed their
outgoings (1 + 1 = 2), while the outgoings of the Farmers (1 + 1 + 2 = 4) exceed their
incomes (1 + 1 + 1 = 3).
La formule arithmétique du Tableau Economique

Quesnay took three years to solve the theoretical puzzles connected with the Tabeaux à
zig-zag not because this achievement was particularly difficult, but because it required
the giving up of two features to which Quesnay was deeply attached: the 100% ratio of
net production and the symmetry in the circular flow. This definitive25[26] version of the
Tableau may be shown with the aid of a final graph (the numbers indicate now milliards
of livres):

FIG. 7

The lack of symmetry is evidenced by the disappearance of Artisans’ self-consumption.

A disappearance, which had at least one agreeable side-effect, that of stressing the
purely transformative (i.e. sterile) nature of manufacture. Agricultural self-consumption,
on the contrary, is now doubled, in accordance with the idea that the rural population
should be roughly twice as numerous as the urban population. More painful was
presumably the abandonment of the 100% ratio of net production: the higher value of
agricultural advances (2 + 1 = 3) now lowers this strategic ratio to a more modest
66,6%.

On the other hand, incomes and outgoings now perfectly balance for each of the three
participants. In particular, the outgoings of the Farmers (2 + 2 + 1) are equal to their
incomes (1 + 2 + 2); and the same is true for the Artisans (2 = 1 + 1).

Finally, there is a surprising point, which deserves some attention. In a sense, we can
say that Quesnay has also come full circle. After ten years of different Tableaux, he
returns very near to his original starting point, i.e. Cantillon’s examples. The last and
definitive Tableau, that of the Formula, is, among all the Tableaux drawn in the
preceding ten years, the most similar to Cantillon’s example. Their structures are almost
identical; even the numbers are nearly the same. From this point of view, the
comparison between the graphs (figures 4 and 7) can be particularly enlightening.
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