Pierre Paul Mercier de La Rivière, 1720-1794 

 Pierre Paul François Joachim Henri Le Mercier de La Rivière de Saint-Médard  (his full name is quite a mouthful!) was a Physiocratic philosopher and economist.

From a wealthy family of Saint-Médard, Mercier de la Rivière was a magistrate and councillor in the parlement of Paris from 1747 and an intendant of the Caribbean colony of Martinique from 1759 to 1764.

In the mid-1760s, Mercier de la Rivière was recruited by Mirabeau into the Physiocrat sect.  In 1767, he published his most famous work, l'Ordre naturel.  Here, Mercier de la Rivière concentrated on Physiocratic political philosophy, articulating a theory of the State in terms of "natural" rights and duties in a manner consistent with the laissez-faire policies recommended by the Physiocrats.  There was, he claimed, an original "contract" between private individuals and government, where the government's took up the duty to "secure" private property of individuals and in return acquired the right to a share of the produit net which it takes up in the form of taxation.  In his words, the government, by "divine right", has "co-proprietorship" of property and hence a right to a share. But, Mercier de la Rivière cautions, this share is not "arbitrary" and no more should be claimed than what is absolutely necessary to perform the "natural" functions of government (i.e. secure property).   

One of his more interesting conclusions is that the laissez-faire doctrine should apply equally to foreign trade as well as domestic.  In other words, Mercier de la Rivière not only recommended that internal restrictions on commerce be lifted, but also external ones.  He argued for this in terms of the "natural" responsibilities of the government to the exporters and importers among its citizenry -- and that considerations of the policies of other nations should not be involved.  In other words, a nation should lift its external trade restrictions unilaterally, even if all other countries happen to have protectionist regimes.

Famously, it was Mercier de la Rivière who best articulated the Physiocratic theory of "enlightened despotism".  In effect, he argued that the function of government was making human laws in accordance with "natural" laws.  Surprisingly, Mercer de la Rivière believed that republican governments are too beholden to various private interests to ever be able to govern "well" (i.e. according to "natural" laws).  An absolutist monarch, beholden to no one and owing no one, is in a much better position to do so -- although the historical record shows that they tend to govern arbitrarily and thus no better.  But he blames this arbitrariness not on a lack of will to govern well, but rather on a lack of knowledge of the natural laws.  If an absolutist monarch were "educated" about to the natural laws, he would be much more effective at implementing them than a republican government ever could. He paints a picture of an "ideal" society and holds up imperial China as the example to follow.

Mercier de la Rivière's endorsement of the "enlightened despot", naturally, infuriated the closet republicans of Enlightenment France, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  The Abbé de Mably's 1768 treatise was a powerful point-by-point assault on Mercier de la Rivière's book. 

Mercier de la Rivière's arguments and celebrity led the powerful Empress Catherine II of Russia to summon him to St. Petersburg in 1767 as a consultant for her political reforms.  However, he cut a very bad impression.  Mercier de la Rivière babbled on about the necessity of setting up the State in accordance with "nature's plan", without giving any practical legislative suggestions.  The famous exchange went reportedly as follows:

Cath.: "Sir, could you tell me the best way to govern a State well?"
M.d.R.: "There is only one, Madame, it is to be just, i.e. maintain order, and enforce the laws."
Cath.: "But on what basis should the laws of an empire repose?"
M.d.R.: "On one alone, Madame, the nature of things and of men."
Cath.: "Exactly, but when one wishes to give laws to a people, what rules indicate most surely the laws which suit it best?"
M.d.R.: "To give or make laws, Madame, is a task which God has left to no one. Ah! what is man, to think himself capable of dictating laws to beings whom he knows not, or knows so imperfectly? And by what right would he impose laws upon beings whom God has not placed in his hands?"
Cath.: "To what, then, do you reduce the science of government?"
M.d.R.: "To study well, to recognize and manifest, the laws which God has so evidently engraven in the very organization of man, when He gave him existence. To seek to go beyond this would be a great misfortune and a destructive undertaking."
Cath.: "Monsieur, I am very pleased to have heard you. I wish you good-day."

Mercier de la Rivière quickly became the laughing stock of the Russian Court and quietly returned to France in 1768.  Catherine's brief interest in Physiocracy came to an abrupt and disgusted end.  

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