Physiocracy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A school of thought in economics that views land and agriculture as the primary means of generating wealth
2. An economic philosophy that emphasizes the importance of land and farming as the foundation of a nation's wealth
3. A system of economic thought which considers agricultural production to be the main source of wealth and prosperity

Etymology: Physiocracy is a compound built from the Greek "physis," meaning nature, and "kratos," meaning rule or power, so the name literally means "rule of nature." The second element is the familiar one from words like democracy and aristocracy. The first is the key to the whole term, because the economic theory it names held that land and its produce were the only true source of wealth. The "physiocrats" were a group of French economic thinkers, centred on François Quesnay, who argued that agriculture was the sole productive activity, since farming created a surplus beyond what it consumed, while manufacturing and trade merely transformed or moved existing value. From this they proposed that taxes should fall on land rather than on other forms of income.