La política ilustrada y el libre comercio de granos: las ‘Reflexiones económico-políticas’ (1768) de Tomás Anzano

Abstract

This article analyses Reflexiones económico-políticas (1768) by the economist Tomás Anzano, whose contribution has almost been ignored historiographycalIy. An important work in the Spanish literature of the 18th century, Reflexiones must be contextualized within the debate on the agrarian markets liberalization and, in particular, subsistence goods developed by the European Enlightenment. Reflexiones constitutes an original and pragmatic but at the same time a moderate adaptation to the real interior market of the liberal legislation of 1765. Anzano's proposals on agriculture, based in the scholastic theory of prices, should take into account the contemporary political background: the Enlightened economic reform, the growing weight of the royal prerogatives in the political institutions, and the beginning of the economic demands of the territories that made up the Borbonic monarchy. AH together links Anzano to the structure of political power, because he was a part of it and also due to the fact that he stablished closed relationships with two of the main Aragonese politicians at that time: Manuel de Roda and the Count of Aranda.