Regulation and commodification of the state through taxation and finance: The case of offices in France from the 12th to the 17th century.

Summary This thesis analyzes the process of production, reproduction, and change of the state from an institutionalist and regulatory perspective on the basis of a long-term economic history. It focuses on the establishment of the tax system in France from the 12th to the 17th century, through the study of one of the central organizations of the state structures of the period: the offices. The research protocol of abduction structures this work and makes it possible to reveal the social relationships that run through the socio-historical formations. The first part of the thesis inscribes its analytical framework in the Parisian school of regulation: by crossing the neo-realist approach with the concept of the fiscal-financial regime, the foundations of the modern state can be examined through the prism of taxation and finance. Original data collected through archival work allows us to highlight the process of appropriation of the offices and the inscription of this state organization in a legal framework of private property. The latter leads to a phenomenon of commodification of offices, which allows officers to bequeath them, but also to sell them in order to make monetary profits, while the royal power, through various tax measures, increases its revenues through this phenomenon. By mobilizing concepts of market socio-economics and notions of the Marxist school of derivation, the third part consolidates the analysis of the formation of market relations by inserting it into the problematic of state power. The power relations that constitute the state are then updated and defined as relational, asymmetrical, and part of an institutional architecture. Finally, on the one hand, the development of the modern State is achieved through its commodification. On the other hand, its regulation is based on relations of domination and indirect and collective exploitation.