Quesnay | Smith | Ricardo | Malthus | Mill | Marx | Keynes
Someone called economists the "worldly philosophers", a name which came to mean a lot to me writing this article. The most prevalent common qualities of these charts turned out to be a Saturn (worldly) Jupiter (philosopher) connection. How kewl, as my Turkish friend says.
Economics comes from the Greek word oikonomikos meaning "skilled in household management". It's history begins in the 16th and 17th centuries with the Mercantilists.
MERCANTILISTS
Mercantilists believed that a nation's wealth came from its ability to accumulate silver and gold. If a nation didn't have mines, it needed to export goods in exchange for silver and gold. The leaders of these mineless-goldless-silverless nations needed to intervene extensively in the market with tariffs and restrictions. Thus the market became a matter of national policy.
Francois Quesnay (1694 - 1774)
Following Mercantilism in the 18th century were the Physiocrats, a group of French philosophers, who advocated a policy of laissez-faire, let the market work itself out. This policy was based on the belief that agriculture was the sole source of wealth in an economy.
The Physiocrats were founded by economist Francois Quesnay who published the very famous Tableau économique (Economic Table) in 1758, the first work to attempt to describe the workings of the economy in an analytical way.
Here's Quesnay's birth chart, sans birth time unfortunately.
FRANCOIS QUESNAY'S BIRTH CHART
Quesnay is a rags to riches story which you can see with Saturn in Capricorn and Nodes in Cancer/Capricorn. Like all the rest of the great economists he has prominent Aquarian/Uranian energy with Uranus conjunct his Sun and Gemini + mutable.
Quesnay has Moon and Venus square Jupiter, a mistrust of intangibles. Perhaps it is the Capricorn influence that makes him fond of a land-based wealth system.
Quesnay flourished in the court of Louis XV of France who was busy squandering in one generation the vast and incomparable wealth of Louis XIV, the Sun King.
CLASSICAL SCHOOL (Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Robert Malthus)
Adam Smith (1723 - 1791)
The Classical school began with probably the most famous economist of all, Adam Smith, and his publication in 1776 of The Wealth of Nations.
This classic is a difficult read. The style is rambling which was typical of that era. Nonetheless, this book shaped the thinking of the world as we know it.
Adam Smith wrote that the market should regulate itself, like an "invisible hand", as each man pursued his own enlightened self interest. I have always felt he meant this in a quasi religious sense, metaphysically, the way Hegel and Kant wrote later without actually using the word "God".
ADAM SMITH'S CHART
We don't know his exact time of birth so this is a solar chart drawn for high noon.
Smith is a conservative thinker. His chart has several kites and the larger patterns associated with people who make their mark on the world.
Smith's Mercury is opposed by Saturn with a trine to Venus. It concerns him how to define wealth. It pleasures him to see wealth wisely distributed. The North Node in Gemini conjunct the Sun would make him willing to talk about his theories as a means of self expression, though the Saturn aspect to Mercury might account for mumbling to himself at times, too. The same theme presents with Saturn in Sagittarius so near to Jupiter, concerned about the "best possible" world, not an ideal world. This connection is very preminent and beautiful in Smith's chart because Jupiter is in the sign ruled by Saturn (Capricorn) and Saturn is in the sign ruled by Jupiter (Sagittarius). Probably Smith is the top man in tihis field.
Pluto in Virgo is square the Moon Nodes and the Sun. Mutable signs are the ones I have found associated with these economists. Like composers, they are the structural idea people and willing to share their ideas.
In his personal life, Smith was captured by gypsies when he was around four. Later he attended Oxford and was scathingly critical of the teachers there. He blamed a system which did not make their pay depend on their ability to draw and keep students. He felt, too, it was easier for men like that to make a living in the clergy. All these things are quite Saturn in Sagittarius.
Smith never married and seems to have remained close to his mother with whom he lived. Many with Gemini/Sagittarius Moon Nodes are indifferent about sex.
All Smith's personal papers were destroyed at his death. It was discovered later that he had made many secret contributions to charity. His religious beliefs are ambiguous as would befit a man with Saturn in Sagittarius.
This is one of the most famous lines from Wealth of Nations, reference to the enlightened self interest for which he is so well known.
- "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
Smith is ranked #30 among most influential people of all times by Michael H. Hart. [Referring to astrophysicist Hart's ranking does not endorse his white separatist policies in any way.]
Smith's figure is found on the back of the current UK 20£ note.
David Ricardo (1772 - 1823)
David Ricardo, the next important economist, emphasized conflict between landowners, workers and capitalists. He was concerned about the demands of population and capital versus a fixed supply of land. He is a jumping off place for the dour Malthus who comes next.
DAVID RICARDO'S CHART
Ricardo's Moon and Mercury square both Jupiter and Saturn, making him think in terms of pressing limits. His North Node in Libra encourages him to think in terms of opposing forces.
In his personal life, Ricardo is one economist who created personal wealth. He was a businessman, financier and speculator. Ricardo came from a Sephardic Jewish family, also wealthy, but was disinherited when he married for love a Quaker woman. Likely his mother never spoke to him again. At this time he became a Unitarian. This befits someone with Saturn in Leo. They can rebel from their "special son" status to become the blackest of black sheep.
Ricardo's book, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation introduced the idea of comparative advantage. Even if a country could produce something, it would still be better off producing only those things it was best at.
Thomas Malthus (1766 - 1834)
Thomas Malthus made the gloomy observation that population would always outstrip resources since people reproduce geometrically and resources can only be (re)produced arithmetically under the very best of conditions. You could call him the Uber Father of Zero Population Growth.
Malthus was a Classical economist.
MALTHUS' CHART
Malthus shows the Aquarian influence. His Moon in conservative Taurus makes a Grand Trine with Neptune and Pluto, the planets of absolute overwhelm! He was probably giving voice to some very primal personal fears, the Dark Mother opening her womb to emit whole tribes of hungry babies with no thought as to how to feed them.
Again we see the Jupiter/Saturn conversation as Malthus has Sun, Jupiter and Saturn in a fixed T-square. It is hard to see solutions when one has fixed squares. Malthus' Saturn is in Taurus, the placement noted for misery regarding resources. Many with Saturn in Taurus are struggling, poor, have low self esteem or an inherent belief in personal and universal lack.
Malthus was unique (until John Maynard Keynes) in believing that unemployment was based on people's tendency to save too much.
In his personal life Malthus had a hare lip and cleft palate. Physical birth defects are attributed to Saturn in Taurus. After his harelip was corrected surgically, he was considered quite handsome.
Malthus' passion in life was mathematics. His position of pessimism regarding world population is sometmies considered a reaction to the optimism of his father and his father's friends, David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This could be the negative relationship with father that might be expected with Sun square Saturn.
To keep population under control Malthus proposed "moral restraint" but only for the poor and huddling masses. This might reflect the sometimes appalling royal attitude of those with South Moon Node in Leo. He himself had three children.
Malthus had a tremendous influence on posterity being ranked #80 in Hart's worldwide ranking. His work influenced Darwin, Ehrlick, Huxley, Marx and others. [Referring to astrophysicist Hart's ranking does not endorse his white separatist policies in any way.]
John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
John Stuart Mill was the last of the great economists of the Classical School and perhaps the best known of all economists along with Adam Smith and Karl Marx.
JOHN STUART MILL'S CHART
Mills' chart is interesting. The geometric pattern is quite unique. I've not seen a chart like this before. It seems very symmetrical with big sweeping triangles.
Like many profound thinkers he has Saturn in Libra (conjunct Uranus). There is a tendency to see things in opposition to one another. Mill opposed the other Classicists in drawing a distinction between the two opposing roles he saw in the market: allocation of resources and distribution of income. Mill felt the market was efficient at the former but not the latter and that intervention by society or government was appropriate in the latter case.
In his personal life, Mill was raised to be a child genius by his father, a follower of the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. At the age of 21, he suffered a mental breakdown due to the pressure of his studies. He healed himself by reading William Wordsworth. This might be signfied by Moon/South Node in Gemini - North Node iin Sagittarius, the pressures of too much intellectualizing relieved by appreciation of nature and rectification of the balance of too much left brain with a big dose of right brain intuition and poetry.
Mill married Harriet Taylor after 21 years of Platonic love/friendship. She was married when they met. She was brilliant in her own right and seems to have influenced him. This long Platonic relationship may be symbolized by Saturn in Libra.
MARGINALIST SCHOOL
Marginalists introduced the idea of supply and demand, degree of consumer satisfaction and a mathematical framework for dealing with this information. They saw a productive relationship between land, labor and capital, sometimes used to justify the status quo.
KARL MARX
Karl Marx (1818 - 1883)
Karl Marx advocated a labor theory of value, seeing capitalism as an evolutionary stage in economic development. As it turned out communism was an evolutionary stage in economics but Marx had and still has tremendous influence around the world.
Marx believed exploitation of workers by capitalists would create such misery that revolt was inevitable. "Workers of the world unite."
MARX' CHART
People with Saturn in Pisces are pretty selected by evoluation (or doomed) to deal with the misery of the masses. They can't help an orientation sensitive to suffering in great numbers. Marx' Aquarian influence is shown by rising sign and houses since they are available in this case. The South Node in Scorpio can give a predilection to disaster and worst case scenarios.
In his personal life, Marx' father converted from Judaism, in fact a long line of Rabbis, to be able to practice law in Germany. Marx' life changed dramatically when he met Freidrich Engels in London. Together they wrote Das Kapital and Engel financed Marx during much of his later life. Marx married Jennie von Westphalen against the wishes of both parents. Marx generally led a hand-to-mouth existence, dying poor and relatively obscure.
Uranus in the 10th house can be posthumous fame. A life of nagging poverty and hardship/sacrifice to an ideal would also fit Uranus/Neptune in the 10th.
INSTITUTIONALIST SCHOOL
The big three in this movement are Leon Walras (1834 - 1910) whose mathematics revolutionized economics in terms of the mechanics of the price system.
Alfred Marshall (1842 - 1924) gave us the critical distinction between the short and long runs and demonstrated the theoretical power of supply and demand curves.
Thorstein Veblen (1857 - 1929) is perhaps best known for his theory of "conspicuous consumption".
I may add these charts at a later time.
Keynesians, based on the publication by John Maynard Keynes called General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, were largely reacting to the Great Depression. They came to the conclusion that government intervention was necessary to prevent a depression. Thus, the Federal Reserve Bank among other things.
John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1947)
John Maynard Keynes lived from 1883 to 1946. The other important member of the Keynesian school was Irving Fisher (1867 - 1947) who used sophisticated statistical techniques to provide much of the basis for recent theoretical work in economics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES' CHART
Keynes' chart shows the Gemini influence I've come to expect. In fact he has a stellium of Gemini planets.
He also shows the economists' trend away from Jupiter/Sagittarius in that his North Moon Node is in the opposing 3rd house.
With that packed 10th house, it's no wonder Keynes has had such impact.
His chart is unique in having no aspects to Saturn other than the conjunction with Pluto. Jupiter in the 11th house would give him a positive disposition toward government intervention.
In his personal life, Keynes was homosexual until he met his wife Lydia Lopokova at 31.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ECONOMICS
Recent developments in economics include Monetarism, Rational Expectations Theory and Supply-side Economics. As the Federal Reserve says in its ebook, people will always want to know: How do we decide what to produce with our limited resources? How do we ensure stable prices and full employment of resources? How do we provide a rising standard of living both for now and the future?'
CONCLUSION
We have looked at the charts of the most prominent men who have enjoyed contemplating such matters.
These are the things these men's charts have in common:
Prominence of Taurus and Gemini energy
Aquarius ,Uranus or 11th house influence
Connection between Jupiter and Saturn, thus their nickname "worldly philosophers"
A seeming reaction against or from Jupiter/Sagittarius and exaggerated idealistic theories (except in the case of Mill who fell in the abyss between the two and was healed by reaching for Jupiter)
I expected to see much more Virgo. Perhaps there is a sixth house influence in these charts but we don't have most of the birth times so we cannot know.
Here are some books of general interest.
