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Abstract
What is the purpose of economic science? Is it about discovering general laws of economic behaviour? Is it about policy-making? And how do those objectives tie in with political views and normative preferences? In 1882–1883 a debate about the existence of economic laws arose between the French Liberal School and Émile de Laveleye, who had just published his Éléments d’économie politique. The debate concerned the form and meaning of economic science and it was bound up with the political views of both sides. A third party to this debate, Léon Walras, was having great difficulty in finding institutional and political support. Although he was closer to the French Liberals in terms of method, he was more inclined to Laveleye’s views concerning the purpose of political economy and in his political outlook. Based on unpublished letters, we will trace the imbroglio between method and purpose of political economy in the triangle formed by Émile de Laveleye, Léon Walras and the “orthodox” French Liberal School.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Francois Allisson, Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay, Cléo Chassonery-Zaïgouche, Roberto Baranzini and Raphael Fèvre for their help in writing this paper. The employees of the Ghent Library, the Brussels Archives and the Académie Royale provided patient help and support in finding the relevant archival material. The Walras-Pareto Center hosted me providing full access to their material. The Institut Mémoires de l’Edition Contemporaine and the Editor Hachette kindly provided access to Editorial informations on Laveleye’s books.
Notes
1 Many unpuublished letters will be discusses in this paper. Basically three different archives exist that contain unpublished material addressed to Émile de Laveleye: two are in Brussels (at the Académie Royale de Belgique and the Archives de l’Etat de Belgique) and one is in Ghent University. I will not quote letters from the Académie; none is pertinent for the present paper. To distinguish the remaining two archives, I will refer to B-letters for Brussels and G-letters for Ghent, followed by the date. Together with some other letters and material, these unpublished letters are my main source. A few papers from the Ghent University archive have been previously published (Bots Citation1992). Most of them are unrelated to political economy (outside those of John Stuart Mill). None of them is relevant for this paper.
2 It is not easy to define quite who the members of this school were. While the French Liberal School may be characterized to some extent as being composed of liberal economists who were regular contributors to the Journal des Économistes, it did not share a homogeneous set of opinions on economics, particularly on the matter of bimetallism (Silvant Citation2012) and on the legitimacy of limited state intervention (Silvant Citation2010; Faccarello Citation2010). For the purpose of this paper I shall focus on an orthodox “core” of French Liberals made up of Gustave de Molinari, Jean-Gustave Courcelle-Seneuil, Maurice Block and Henri Dameth who were active in the debate with Laveleye. Further names include Joseph Garnier and Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. I will discuss in more detail to what extent those names may be considered as a “hard core” of the French Liberal School.
3 Most of the information on Laveleye’s biography is from Dumoulin and Coppens (Citation1992) and Manheim (Citation1892).
4 Laveleye’s theoretical contributions were not to survive the man, but were considered important during his lifetime. The historicization of the concept of property was highly praised by Manheim (Citation1892) in his eulogy and Dumoulin and Coppens (Citation1992) credit Laveleye as a precursor of Max Weber’s famous thesis on the birth of capitalism.
5 Laveleye’s correspondence with Mill touches on several other subjects and raises concerns about others ambiguities, such as Laveleye’s support for the emancipation of women concerning their right to public instruction but his opposition to universal (female) suffrage.
6 The online archive of the Revue are available at http://rddm.revuedesdeuxmondes.fr/archive/search.php
7 Schmoller’s letters to Laveleye concern the exchange of books and papers (G-letter of 05.03.1874, G-letter of 22.10.1874) and are in French. A third later G-letter, in German (18.12.1882) concerns a possible collaboration with Schmoller’s former student Karl Theodor Von Eheberg. The correspondence was probably richer, but – as far as I know – has been lost.
8 I found seven letters, both in French and in German, dating from 1873 to 1881. Wagner wrote to Laveleye concerning academic collaboration, suggesting possible readings on Kathedersozialismus and showing great respect for Laveleye. In the first letter (G-letter 19.3.73), he acknowledges Laveleye’s defence of the historical method in his book (Laveleye Citation1874).
9 This letter, unpublished despite the existence of a published and almost exhaustive Correspondence of Léon Walras (Walras Citation1965a, Citation1965b, Citation1965c), was found in the Ghent Archive under the name “Léon Walsay,” jointly with two others. Whether this was an archivist’s lapsus calami or whether Léon Walras was confused with Léon Say is unclear, but the second hypothesis may count as historical calembour.
10 Unfortunately, the elegant (and uncommon) form chosen by Walras to end his letter cannot be translated literally into English. I have thus chosen a common polite form that despite loosing the literal meaning preserves the general tenor.
11 Thus, to be sure, Walras is not following a nomologico-deductive or hypothetico-deductive method. He is following a deductive method that ties very tightly together questions concerning what is and what ought to be, in a way that is peculiar to his own views on science. See also (Baranzini Citation1993; Tatti Citation2000a, Citation2000b; Berthonnet and Mueller Citation2016) for further readings on Walras’ understanding of laws of nature, and his opposition to Pareto, that better reflects our modern understanding.
12 Johan Baron d'Aulnis de Bourouill (1850–1930) was a Dutch economist.
13 The history of Walras as a socialist has been published in French mainly by Potier (Potier Citation2011a, Citation2012). This paragraph is strongly indebted to Potier’s presentations. Those two papers, with an impressive density of information and detail, also provide some content on the French liberal school and the context of its creation.
14 But he succeeded in publishing this text only four years later.
15 Walras’ notes d’humeur paint an amusing picture of his personal consideration of the French Liberal School. While sometimes he just shows a certain embitterment – Levasseur, Léon Say and Leroy-Beaulieu seemingly were his favourite targets (Walras Citation2000, 530–37) – he also displays a liking for humour and satire: “Economists say that the crises contain their own remedies. Certainly. And two clashing trains contain their own resting point!” (Walras Citation2000, 524).
16 Frederic Le Play (1806–1882) was a French politician and sociologist.
17 This letter to Le Play was published, jointly with Le Play’s answer in (Le Play Citation1881). The original letter from Laveleye was probably lost, but I managed to find Le Play’s answer in the Ghent Archives.
18 Paul Leroy-Beaulieu (1843–1916) was a French economist. Louis Wolowski (1810–1876) was a Polish economist, naturalized French, and translator of Wilhem Roscher Principles of Political Economy. Both were of liberal views, but much less radical than Molinari or Courcelle-Seneuil (Potier Citation2016). Both of them were on good epistolary terms with Laveleye. Leroy-Beaulieu’s correspondence (6 letters) mentions two successful collaborations in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Wolowski’s letters refer to an earlier period (three of 1865, three undated) and concern a discussion on bimetallism (both authors were in favor of bimetallism (Silvant Citation2012). The letters reflect both Laveleye’s and Wolowski’s interest in empirical knowledge.
19 The book was a frank success: according to Hachette’s archives Laveleye’s heirs will continue to enjoy royalties for thousand of Francs up to 1914, with a ninth edition, and due to the translations in Dutch (1900) and Arab (1907).
20 Levasseur to Laveleye, G-Letter of 14.3.1883.
21 Jean-Gustave Courcelle-Seneuil (1813–1892) was a French economist of liberal views.
22 Henri Dameth was a professor in Lyon’s “Chambre de commerce.” He was, at least in his early years, a follower of Fourier, but later became a liberal economist.
23 I have not succeeded in finding the original source: it is Dameth himself that refers to his own criticism (but gives no date).
24 According to a widespread legend, when forced to deny his Copernican theory, Galileo Galilei pronounced this apocryphal sentence. “And yet, it moves” has become a paradigmatic statement of objectivity, the triumph of legitimate scientific truth against obscurantism and dogmatic views. Block is thus playing Galileo, the scientist, and implicitly suggests that Laveleye is Bellarmino, the cardinal, blinded by his socialist dogmas.
25 Block’s letters are to be found in the Archives de l’Etat de Bruxelles. Contrary to the Ghent papers, the records in Brussels have never received the attention of an archivist. The letters from Block were kept in a booklet in alphabetic order, probably compiled by Laveleye himself. Only the “B” letter was there. According to the register of the library, half of Laveleye’s letters (at least) were for a time in the library but are now lost.
26 Most probably Henry Charles Carey the American economist. Molinari may be talking about the third volume of his Principles of Political Economy.
27 I have been unable to find any reference to this society, which may have been an aborted project, and probably never came into existence.
28 Probably Ange Henry Blaze, baron of Bury, a regular contributor to La Revue des Deux Mondes.
29 Alfred Jourdan (1823–1891) was a French economist of liberal sympathies.
30 This letter was probably not the only one, but any others have been lost. Gide provides no explanation for sending this list of Jourdan’s works.
31 Walras had been interested in political reforms since at least his intervention at the Congrès de l’Impôt in 1860. His speech, which had been noticed by Louis Ruchonnet, then a promising young Swiss politician, was to be the main reason for his appointment as a professor in Lausanne 10 years later. Ruchonnet’s career as a politician in the Radical Democratic Party was to take him to the pinnacle of Swiss institutions: a member of the Grand Conseil in 1863, he was elected to the Conseil d’Etat in 1868, failed to secure election to the Conseil National in 1866 but finally became a Federal Counsellor in 1881. Ruchonnet and Walras corresponded from time to time, mainly about institutional issues but occasionally also about political economy, with Walras sending copies of his works. Ruchonnet may cogently be viewed as the political protector of the Lausanne economist. Walras openly acknowledged his debt on several occasions, and even wrote a paper entitled Ruchonnet et le socialisme scientifique (Walras Citation1987b (1909)), confirming his own socialist views and acknowledging Ruchonnet as the political leader who gave him the chance to freely develop and profess his scientific socialism.
32 Ernest Roguin, son of Jules, was to become an important sociologist and a friend of Vilfredo Pareto (Tappy Citation2010). He was a law professor in Lausanne and one of the co-signers of Walras’ candidature for the Nobel Prize (Walras Citation1965a, 270). He was the son of Jules Roguin, a Swiss politician and federal judge who became a member of the Conseil des Etats, and professor of law in Geneva, as Walras explicitly mentioned in his letter.
33 Walras considered his Théorie mathématique de l’échange as analogous to the theory of gravitation (Walras Citation2000, 518, notes d’humeur), and considered his mathematical economics as analogous to the discoveries of Galileo and Newton (Letter to Errera, 13 April 1874, 378, letter to Jules Ferry, 2. July 1879, (Citation1965b, 617).