During the late 1800's, two great revolutions occurred, the American Revolution and the French Revolution. These two historical events happenedat the same time, but had a great number differences and very littlesimilarity. When French Revolution occurred, it turned into a very violentand bloody event, while the American Revolution was almost nonviolent,aside from the war.In 1774, King Louis XVI made a decision that could have prevented theFrench Revolution by breathing new life into the French economy: heappointed Physiocrat Robert Turgot as Controller General of Finance. ThePhysiocrats were a small band of followers of the French physician FrancoisQuesnay, whose economic prescriptions included reduced taxes, lessregulation, the elimination of government-granted monopolies and internaltolls and tariffs, ideas that found their rallying cry in the famous slogan,"laissez-faire, laissez-passer."The Physiocrats exerted a profound influence on Adam Smith, who had spenttime in France in the 1760s and whose classic The Wealth of Nationsembodied the Physiocratic attack on mercantilism and argued that nationsget rich by practicing free trade.2 Of Smith, Turgot, and the Physiocrats,the great French statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) wrote:"The basis of their whole economic system may be truly said to lie in theprinciple of self-interest. . . . The only function of government accordingto this doctrine is to protect life, liberty, and property."10Embracing the principle of free trade not just as a temporary expedient,but as a philosophy, Turgot got the king to sign an edict in January 1776that abolished the monopolies and special privileges of the guilds,corporations, and trading companies. He then dedicated himself to breakingdown the internal tariffs within France. By limiting government expense, hewas able to cut the budget by 60 million livres and reduce the interest onthe national debt from 8.7 million livres to 3 million liv...
