A. R. J. Turgot

(1727-81) French politician and economist. A follower of the physiocrats, Turgot tried to free the grain trade in France from internal tariffs during his brief career as Louis XVI's finance minister (1774-6). After protests from those whose rent-seeking he had disrupted, he was dismissed. This episode drove Turgot's disciple Condorcet away from the ‘beautiful dream’ that Enlightened administrators could influence practical politics towards his highly theoretical study of voting and juries.