Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1980 Agrarian Political Economy: the Order of Ends and Means. Andrew Warnie Foshee Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Foshee, Andrew Warnie, "Agrarian Political Economy: the Order of Ends and Means." (1980). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3481. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3481 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. 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ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND 80- 21,743 FOSHEE, Andrew Warnie AGRARIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY: THE ORDER OF ENDS AND MEANS. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1980 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 © Copyright ioso by ANDREW WARNIE FOSHEE All Rights Reserved AGRARIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY: THE ORDER OF ENDS AND MEANS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Economics by Andrew W. Foshee B.A., McNeese State University, 1975 M.S., Louisiana State University, 1976 May 1980 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Professor William F. Campbell, for sending me on a life long exploration -of a world that I never knew existed... To Professor Paul Paskoff, for the energetic curious- ity needed to make the trip... To Brenda, for coming with me. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................... i i ABSTRACT.................................................. V Chapter 1. AGRARIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY: THE PROBLEM AND A METHODOLOGY.............. 1 ENDS AND MEANS.............................. 29 Chapter 2. THE ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN AGRARIANS..... 33 THE GREEKS................................... 34 Hesiod.................................. 34 Xenophon .............................. 41 Aristotle.............................. 49 THE ROMANS................................... 62 Marcus Porcious Cato.................. 63 Marcus Terentius Varro................ 66 Virgil.................................. 70 Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella 76 CONCLUSIONS.................................. 80 Chapter 3. SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH AND BRITISH AGRARIANS............... 83 THE FRENCH................................... 84 Seventeenth Century Christian and Secular Agrarians...................... 85 Fenelon................................. 86 Belesbat........... 89 Boisguilbert........................... 91 The Precursors of Physiocracy......... 94 The Physiocracy of Quesnay............ 97 THE BRITISH.................................. 103 James Harrington— Seventeenth Century Commonwealthman...103 Eighteenth Century Commonwealthmen....116 CONCLUSIONS.................................. 131 Chapter 4. ANTE-BELLUM SOUTHERN AGRARIANS— JEFFERSON , TAYLOR, RANDOLPH................. 133 Thomas Jefferson....................... 136 John Taylor............................. 154 John Randolph...........................174 CONCLUSIONS.................................. 182 iii Chapter 5. ANTE-BELLUM SOUTHERN AGRARIANS— Page DEW AND FITZHUGH.............................. 186 Thomas R. Dew............................188 George Fitzhugh..........................205 CONCLUSIONS................................... 242 Chapter 6. TWENTIETH CENTURY SOUTHERN AGRARIANS AND THE DISTRIBUTISTS..............246 The Agrarian,Manifesto— I'll Take My Stand...................... 249 PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES...................... 271 Agrarianism and Distributism in Who Owns America? and the American Review..279 CONCLUSIONS................................... 297 Chapter 7. CONCLUSIONS.................................... 300 The Agrarianism of Richard Weaver...... 300 Ends and Means...........................311 Methodology and Welfare Economics...... 313 SUMMARY........................................319 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................... 321 VITA 336 ABSTRACT From the earliest economic thought there has existed the notion that agriculture is the, most preferred of all forms of economic activity. This preference is grounded in the belief that when agriculture is the dominant form of economic activity a set of ends will be attained which are consistent with human nature and conducive to human happiness. These are the ends of limited wealth, internal and external freedom, and piety. Writers expressing this belief were engaged in a study of political economy which was not bounded by the methodological strictures of logical positivism. For these agrarian political economists there existed no distinction between the logical status of state­ ments of what is and statements of what ought to be, no fact-value distinction. It was possible -to arrive at a scientific knowledge of ends or values. Hence, unlike modern political economists seeking to provide people with the means to do what they will, agrarian political econ­ omists sought to provide people with the means to attain a set of ends believed conducive to human happiness. While not entirely ignoring the subject, historians of economic thought have failed to provide even a partial overview of agrarian political economy. The absence of such a study suggests that there exists the tacit supposi­ tion that no coherent meaning is to be found in the v expressions of agrarian writers taken as a whole. It is argued here, however, that these expressions do constitute a coherent if heterogeneous body of ideas. Furthermore, it is suggested that the inherent orderliness of this body of ideas becomes clear as soon as agrarianism is recognized as a branch of pre-fact-value distinction political econ­ omy. In response to the objections of one historian, this study argues that a general definition of agrarianism is defensible if one is prepared to recognize that agrarian thought is grounded in pre-fact-value distinction method­ ology. As a way of revealing the orderliness of this body of ideas and at the same time gaining some insight into the methodology of pre-fact-value distinction political economy, this study makes use of a methodological tool which recognizes and gives form to the status the agrarian writers attached to ends and means. It involves an analy­ sis and classification of writers first according to the ends which they found desirable and then according to the means by which they felt agriculture and an agrarian so­ ciety would achieve those ends. By clarifying the rela­ tionship that they drew between ends and means this analy­ tical classification scheme reveals the coherent and yet heterogeneous nature of agrarian thought. This study draws on the works of agrarian writers be­ ginning with the ancients and continuing with the works of seventeenth and eighteenth French and British agrarians. The greatest amount of attention is reserved for the works of agrarian political economists of the American South. Southern Agrarianism has been sufficiently broad to en­ compass most of the recurrent themes of agrarian political economy. It also leads directly to the question.raised in this work regarding the value of a social science method­ ology grounded in the fact-value distinction.