IV. SOCIALIST EXTENSIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF RENT 579 CHAPTER III: THE SOLIDARISTS (M. GIDE) 587 I. THE CAUSES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOLIDARISM 587 II. THE SOLIDARIST THESIS 593 III. THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF SOLIDARIST DOCTRINES 601 IV. CRITICISM 607 CHAPTER IV: THE ANARCHISTS (M. RIST) 614 I. STIRNER’S PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM AND THE CULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL 616 II. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ANARCHISM AND THE CRITICISM OF AUTHORITY 619 III. MUTUAL AID AND THE ANARCHIST CONCEPTION OF SOCIETY 629 IV. REVOLUTION 637 CONCLUSION (MM. GIDE AND RIST) 643 INDEX 649 BOOK I: THE FOUNDERS CHAPTER I: THE PHYSIOCRATS Political Economy as the name of a special science is the invention of one Antoine de Montchrétien, who first employed the term about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Not until the middle of the eighteenth century, however, does the connotation of the word in any way approach to modern usage. A perusal of the article on Political Economy which appeared in the _Grande Encyclopédie_ of 1755 will help us to appreciate the difference. That article was contributed by no less a person than Jean Jacques Rousseau, but its medley of politics and economics seems utterly strange to us. Nowadays it is customary to regard the adjective “political” as unnecessary, and an attempt is made to dispense with it by employing the terms “economic science” or “social economics,” but this article clearly proves that it was not always devoid of significance. It also reveals the interesting fact that the science has always been chiefly concerned with the business side of the State, especially with the material welfare of the citizens—“with the fowl in the pot,” as Henry IV put it. Even Smith never succeeded in getting quite beyond this point of view, for he declares that “the object of the political economy of every nation is to increase the riches and the power of that country.”[5]