Decline and progress: the economic agent in Condillac's theory of history

Abstract

In the conception of history of the abbe de Condillac, one thing is really original. He establishes a causal relation between the functioning of the human mind and the history of societies. First, the understanding of humankind is not disordered: society develops, stages follow one another. But the commercial stage leads societies to divide into classes, the landowners are interested only in frivolous, luxurious objects: they have become denatured. Their behaviour entails society in a long phase of decline. However, this course is not inevitable. Condillac wishes to reform the individual in order to modify society and he proposes economic safeguards capable of reducing disparities. Life is simple, but history is not halted.

An ‘exception culturelle’? French sensationist political economy and the shaping of public economics

“…But his system is so idiosyncratic (Faccarello 2005) that I prefer to concentrate on the above-mentioned authors. The same can be said of Condillac, qua economist -in spite of the fundamental importance of Condillac, qua philosopher (see for example Orain 2003). 4 'An essential feature of the classical approach, still widely followed, is that the economics of expenditure and taxation are pursued as separate issues: while benefit taxation was viewed as the ideal, the bulk of tax revenue and hence tax analysis had to be examined in a context of ability to pay, with the required total set from the expenditure side' (Musgrave 1985: 3).…”

Progressive indirect taxation and social justice in eighteenth-century France: Forbonnais and Graslin's fiscal system

“…Secondly, they indeed denounce a kind of weakness in the behaviour of landowners, who finally only look for a life of leisure. As Condillac explained a few years later (Orain 2003), it is a kind of vice and madness: 35 subject to fashion's whims, which continuously present desires in fresh forms, the landowner 'wants to enjoy; and for him, to enjoy is to consume. His ecstasy, like that of childhood, is drawn to damage and devastation' (Forbonnais 1847(Forbonnais [1767: 189).…”

James Mill on Intemperance and Individual Preferences

“… 1 The possibility of a gap between preferences and pleasure had already been noted within the work of earlier authors such as David Hume and Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, although this gap was not explained in the same way as for James Mill. For Hume’s analysis of the decision process, see André Lapidus (2010); for Condillac’s, see Arnaud Orain (2003, p. 391).…”