Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau

Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau was a French political economist who was one of the founders and later patrons of the Physiocratic school of economic thought. He was born in Pertuis, Provence, on October 5, 1715, to a noble family with a long military tradition. He joined the army at the age of 13 and served in several wars until 1748. He then left the army to devote himself to the study of political economy. He was influenced by the ideas of Richard Cantillon, an earlier 18th-century British writer, who stressed the primacy of agriculture over commerce as a source of wealth. He also admired Montesquieu, whose work on the utility of provincial estates he praised in his first publication in 1750. In 1756, he published his most famous work, L'Ami des hommes ou Traité de la population (The Friend of Man or Treatise on Population), which was a popular and influential treatise on population, agriculture, trade, and taxation. He advocated for the establishment of provincial assemblies throughout France to decentralize the government and promote local interests. He also proposed a system of direct taxes on land and personal income to replace the indirect taxes collected by the tax farmers. He became associated with François Quesnay, the leader of the Physiocratic school, who regarded agriculture as the only productive sector of the economy and advocated for a laissez-faire policy of free trade and minimal government intervention. Mirabeau became a patron and promoter of the Physiocratic doctrine and bought a journal in 1765 to disseminate their ideas. He also wrote several other works on political economy, such as Théorie de l'impôt (Theory of Taxation) in 1760 and Philosophie rurale (Rural Philosophy) in 1763. His writings earned him both fame and enemies among the powerful tax farmers and courtiers who opposed his reforms. He was imprisoned for eight days at Vincennes in 1760 and then exiled to his country estate at Bignon near Nemours. He continued to write and correspond with other Physiocrats and enlightened thinkers until his death on July 13, 1789, coinciding with the outbreak of the French Revolution. He was the father of Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, who became a prominent leader of the Revolution and a champion of constitutional monarchy. Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau was a visionary thinker who anticipated many of the ideas that would shape the modern economic science and influence the political events of his time and beyond. He was a friend of man and a defender of liberty, justice, and progress.