Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

Born 10 May 1727, Turgot came up through the intellectual currents of Enlightenment France and carved out a place as both economist and government official. He aligned with physiocratic thinking but moved past it, becoming an early voice for freer markets in an age of royal monopolies and guild restrictions. Somewhere in his work on agriculture he outlined what would later be recognized as diminishing marginal returns, a concept that wouldn't get its full theoretical treatment for decades. He died 18 March 1781, before the revolution that might have vindicated or devoured him.