At the time Quesnay wrote, French society was already facing the problems that would lead to the French Revolution fifteen years after his death. French agriculture was in a bad state. Farmers were choked by high taxes, imposed by their usually noble landlords to fund their lavish lifestyles and by central government to finance war and trade. Adding to this burden, the French government’s mercantilist policy, faced with a now aggressively expanding Britain, kept the prices of agricultural produce low to provide cheap subsistence to domestic manufactures, which could in turn be cheaply made and
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