Summary: The Physiocrats were an important group of economic thinkers in 18th-century France. They believed that the land was the ultimate source of all wealth and that markets should not be constrained by governments. Their ideas were important not just to economists but to the course of politics in France. Later they influenced the work of Adam Smith. Melvyn Bragg is joined by Richard Whatmore, Professor of Intellectual History & the History of Political Thought at the University of Sussex; Joel Felix, Professor of History at the University of Reading and Helen Paul, Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton.
