GROS DE BESPLAS, Joseph-Marie.

£1,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Des causes du bonheur public. First edition, a curious work by the Abbé Gros de Besplas, one of few incursions into the subject of political economy by the French clergy; a very attractive copy.Gros de Besplas (1734-1783) was priest at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and chaplain to the future Louis XVIII. The treatise, dedicated to the dauphin, is broadly conservative, and does not propose any major specific reforms. And yet, it is also critical of private property, supporting the fulfilment of the necessities of all, and the requirement of all to work. The author condemns celibacy and luxury, and of allowing land to be hoarded and left fallow. His writings have been seen as a forerunner of socialism (see André Lichtenberger, Le socialisme au XVIIIe siècle, 1895, pp. 391-3), with the author theorizing that land belongs to society and not to any individual.

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