Linguet was a critic of the physiocrats and of what he perceived as the disastrous consequences the liberalisation of the trade in grain on the people. Linguet's rhetorical use of the voice of the people is studied here through its rhetorical device and its fantasmatic and ideological echoes. With his dramatised and polyphonic style Linguet quotes many different protagonists, but he chooses to neuter the people's voice on the rare occasions when it is heard. Despite this rather conventional suppression of the people's voice, Linguet's claims to be a spokesman or advocate of the people are quite convincing. Through his detailed and hyperbolic depiction of the physical suffering of starving people, Linguet shines a light on one of the blind spots of the Physiocratic doctrine which sees no damage in economic prosperity.

A body without a voice: A literary approach to Linguet's opposition to the physiocrats over the free trade in grain

'Il faut faire la guerre aux fous'. Les physiocrates à l'assaut de l'iconoclaste Linguet

Brigitte Burmeister : Linguet's paradoxes. ; The social theories of Linguet (1736-1794) combine lucid criticism of 18th-century capitalism with pessimistic, even reactionary conclusions. In his Theory of Civil laws (1767), a critique of the Esprit des lois, Linguet begins with a description of the suffering caused by social inequality, to finish with a plan of reform which rejects any social change. Taking as a starting-point two " paradoxes " of Linguet — his apologies for slavery and for oriental despotism — the author demonstrates how these theories reveal the limitations of Enlightenment ideology by reflecting the contradictions of capitalistic society, insoluble within the framework of bourgeois emancipation. This results in the case of Linguet, not in a communistic Utopia but in an equally utopie, and yet reactionary, rejection of Enlightenment thought.

Brigitte Burmeister

Papers

Les paradoxes de Linguet