The physiocrats great creation was the Tableau Economique. Its importance, according to Mirabeau, can be seen in this statement: "Trois grandes inventions principales ont fondé stablement les Societés, indépendamment de tant d'autres qui les ont ensuite dotées et decorées. Ces rois sont, 1% L'invention de l'écriture, qui seule donne a l'humanité le pouvoir de transmettre, sans altération, ses loix, ses pactes, annales, et ses découvertes. 2° Celle de la Monnaie, qui lie tous les rapports entre les sociétés policés. La troisième enfin, qui est due à notre age, et donc nos neveux profiteront, est un dérivé des deux autres, et les complete également en perfection- nant leur objet: c'est la decouverte du Tableau Économique'
Prepared meticulously by Quesnay, it became the group's hallmark, so much so that Mirabeau compared its importance with that of the discoveries of money and printing. But its original zigzag form, as it became known, made it difficult to under- stand. It has been said that it was based on contemporary diagrams of blood circulation.
A first interpretation of the Tableau is that of the different fiows of expenditures generated by an initial income. This interpretation has a parallel in the one often used to explain the Keynesian multiplier. Each expenditure is an income for another class, which then spends in accordance with specified norms; this generates new incomes, and so forth