Chapter Eighteen - Captured by the Commercial Paradigm: Physiocracy Going Dutch

Summary

Introduction

In his lecture notes of 1806–1807 Adriaan Kluit (1735–1807), the first Dutch professor in economics, stated a few times that Quesnay cum sociis were mistaken. The example of Holland taught that the system of the Oeconomists could not be valid, because the agricultural sector in that nation would never be sufficiently productive to feed the urban population or to create sufficient surplus. Therefore, though beautiful in theory, the doctrine that declared agriculture to be a state's primary source of subsistence and wealth was erroneous. During his Leiden professorship in the antiquities and history of the United Provinces, Kluit was already used to dwelling on the state of Dutch commerce, past and present. Unfortunately, as an avowed adherent of the stadholder's party, the so-called Orangists, Kluit was forced to leave his academic post upon the advent of the revolutionary Batavian Republic in 1795. During the years of his removal from office he buried himself in the available literature on political economy and in 1797 he started private tutoring on that subject. In 1802 Kluit was reinstated in his academic position and from then on he lectured on economics, in public and in Dutch instead of the customary Latin. His diligent encouragement of the discipline was rewarded in 1806, a few months before his death, when the university board conferred upon him an additional appointment as professor statistices, a title revealing Kluit's approach to the subject. Though familiar with both French and British political economy, his lecture course ‘statistiek or staathuishoudkunde’, was modelled on both the Statistik-programme as developed by Gottfried Achenwall and August Ludwig von Schlözer in Göttingen and J.H.G. von Justi's cameralistic Staatswirtschaft. Kluit, like these German authors, treated Dutch commerce as the fourth of a state's means of subsistence, having discussed fishing, agriculture and industry first. This ranking did not mean commerce was least important. On the contrary, only commerce, with a little help from manufacturing, was capable of making up for the imbalance that characterized the Dutch economy which was caused, among other things, by the lack of natural resources. This reasoning, as will be discussed below, was the long-standing cornerstone of the commercial paradigm.