Voltaire et l’économie politique by Patrick Neiertz (review)

In recent years researchers have returned their attention to Voltaire’s place in the wider realm of the history of ideas, as a historian and philosopher, not only as a littéraire. At the same time, in works such as John Robertson’s The Case for the Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2005), political economy has become a central feature in the definition of the European Enlightenment. Bringing both of these aspects together, Patrick Neiertz’s study, the first on the topic, is thus a very timely contribution. It stresses the importance and the coherence of Voltaire’s views on political economy throughout his entire career. After a general introduction to early modern political economy and a chapter giving an overview of Voltaire’s engagement with it, the book discusses four areas in particular, beginning with public finance. Outlining the problems of public finance in Ancien Régime France, focusing generally on tax regimes, monetary policy, and the Law Scheme, the third chapter explores early modern writings on the topic and Voltaire’s responses to them, including his engagement with Boisguilbert, Vauban, Castel, Forbonnais, the Physiocrats, Montesquieu, Hume, and Turgot. The second area concerns the economy of luxury. After an outline of the debate and a brief exploration of its neo-Epicurean foundations, Neieretz analyses Voltaire’s relationship with Mandeville, Montesquieu, and Melon, concluding with the Mondain and the development of Voltaire’s thought on luxury in the later histories and contes. Next follows a substantial chapter on Voltaire’s engagement with the Physiocrats, outlining his pose as an agrarian patriarch as well as his links to the school through his friendship with Dupont de Nemours, Turgot, and his subscription to the Ephémérides. Neiertz’s conclusion is nuanced, finding that Voltaire’s overall rejection of the physiocratic system qua system was tempered with a good deal of sympathy for some of its tenets. A final chapter, ‘Le Philosophe-entrepreneur’, launches into the realm of the practical: the establishment of Voltaire’s personal fortune, and his efforts to make Ferney and the Pays de Gex prosper. This chapter is particularly lively and interesting and as such contrasts with the early ones, which are quite dry and also rather perplexing, not only because of their sometimes unsystematic nature, but, more significantly, because they do not engage with any of the historiography on the topic. The entire book, in fact, makes practically no reference to critical literature published after about 1980 and ignores any of the recent debates in the field of eighteenth-century political economy, be they about the role of public debt (Michael Sonenscher), virtue (John Shovlin), the global dimension (Paul Cheney), neo-Epicurean versus neo-Stoic traditions (John Robertson, Pierre Force, Christopher Brooke), or the nature of nascent French liberalism (Simone Meysonnier, Catherine Larrère, Loïc Charles). Thus the book ends up being a little too dry to fall into the category of the popular, and too disengaged to fall into that of the academic. Nevertheless, it will undoubtedly be helpful to any reader who seeks to understand the importance of economics in Voltaire’s life and thought.