The Birth of Economics as a Social Science

Sismondi’s Concept of Political Economy

Francesca Dal Degan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429537585
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Although considered a classic thinker, Sismondi is seldom discussed, at least in English. In this context, this volume offers a key reference work on the intellectual and economic contribution of Sismondi to the economic, political, and social sciences. The book explores his works in order to rediscover the direction of a viable path to individual and public happiness.

Through examining Sismondi's work, The Birth of Economics as a Social Science contributes to the current debate on the relationships between liberty, interpersonal relations, and wealth. Moreover, Dal Degan presents an analytical and historical example of the ways in which an author from the past attempted to connect these aspects in his scientific discourse. The first part of the book focuses on Sismondi's political thought, paying particular attention to the different cultural and political traditions that pepper the author's reflections on the conditions for liberty. The second part analyzes the epistemological view underlying how Sismondi's historical method and multidisciplinary approach respond to the need to base economic discourse on a contextual and causal analysis that also addresses the historical and institutional structure of social organizations. Finally, the third part of the book is dedicated to Sismondi's economic theory.

This work brings the works of Sismondi to a wider readership. It will be of great interest to those studying and researching economic theory and the connections between economics and society, as well as the broader social sciences.

Part 1

Origins and method

1 A biographical note

Jean Charles Léonard Sismondi was born in 1773 in Geneva to François Gedeon, a Calvinist pastor and member of the Council “dei Duecento,” and Henriette Gabrielle Esther Girod, a well-read woman from a merchant family who had moved to Geneva after the revocation of the Nantes edict. They lived in a large house on Place de Bourg de Four. Simondi’s father, who was a scholar of botany, passed on his passion for scientific studies to his son. Indeed, Sismondi’s library,¹ which brought together volumes reflecting his tenacious aspiration to penetrate the mysteries of nature and theological books that can be attributed to his father’s pastoral commitment, is indicative of this. Sismondi also inherited from his father a desire to devote himself to the study of agriculture, and this led him to draft Tableau de l’agriculture toscane (1801), a volume that inaugurated his career as an economist²:

Tu ne me dis rien de tes travaux et succès en agriculture, et cependant c’est une partie où je mets beaucoup plus d’intérêt qu’à celle en politique … Comme il y a aussi ici (à Genève) une société d’agriculture … je voudrais bien que tu pusses y obtenir une place … il faudrait pour cela pouvoir présenter à ton arrivé un mémoire relatif à tes observations sur l’agriculture en Toscane et particulièrement sur quelque objet qui fut applicable à ce pays–ci³ [You tell me nothing about your work and achievements in agriculture, and yet it is a part where I put much more interest than in politics … As there is also here (in Geneva) an agricultural society … I wish you could get a place … to do so, you would have to be able to submit a dissertation on your observations on agriculture in Tuscany and particularly on something that was applicable in this country]

While several stimuli can be attributed to Sismondi’s father, from his mother, with whom he had a very close relationship, Sismondi inherited sensitivity to an idea of justice rooted in the self and at the same time open to others. She wrote to him:

Mon cher petit … viens que je t’enseigne à voir les choses du beau côté, et, si tu l’apprends de moi, fais-m’en honneur devant tout le monde. Quand je dis du beau côté, c’est un fleur de rhétorique, car je ne te demande que d’être juste et conséquent.⁴ [My dear … come and let me teach you to see things from the bright side, and, if you learn it from me, do me honor in front of everyone. When I say on the bright side, it’s a flower of rhetoric, because I only ask you to be fair and coherent.]

Henriette took care of Jean Charles and his sister Sara’s moral and cultural education in the fertile years of childhood, which were almost entirely spent in Chatêlaine in the family’s country residence, situated in a hilly area between the Rhône and l’Arve près du village d’Aire, aux confines de la république de Genève et du Royaume de France, sur la route qui conduit à Ferney⁵

She invited children daily to shared reading sessions in the garden or in the large reception room of the Chatêlaine residence and encouraged them to reflect on the works of Rousseau, Necker, Hume, and Robertson. She alternated these moments of guided mediation with the sermons of Hugh Blair, a minister of the Scottish church and rhetoric teacher at Edinburgh University.⁶ She prepared along with her children for their imminent departure to England, after a series of revolutionary events in Geneva, by reading books such as Hume’s History of England in the original language. It was Henriette who first pushed Sismondi to apply himself to the study of history: “… on ne recueille que ce qu’on a semé, et voilà pourquoi je désirais tant que tu te jetasses dans l’histoire.”⁷ This study, which was articulated in the analysis of the constitutions of different countries,⁸ the reconstruction of the history of the Italian republics,⁹ as well as French history,¹⁰ accompanied Sismondi to the end of his days, constantly interweaving with his economic research:

Ma vie s’est partagée entre l’étude de l’économie politique et celle de l’histoire; aussi l’économiste doit se montrer souvent dans ce long récit à côté de l’historien. J’ai tâché de ne point laisser perdre les leçons que donne l’expérience, sur ce qui a contribué à créer, à maintenir la prospérité des nations. Mais surtout j’ai toujours considéré la richesse comme un moyen, non comme un but; je lui ai toujours demandé si elle contribuoit réellement à répandre l’aisance dans toutes les classes¹¹ [My life has been shared between the study of political economy and the study of history, so the economist has to reveal himself in this long narrative alongside the historian. I have tried not to let the lessons of experience be lost, on what has helped to create and maintain the prosperity of nations. But above all, I have always considered wealth as a means, not as a goal; I have always questioned it about its effective contribution to the distribution of wealth and well-being among all classes.]

Even the games that enlivened Jean Charles’ days contributed to refining his taste and nourishing his inclinations, which quickly turned into authentic intellectual interest. Twelve-year-old Sismondi played “Republic” with Victor Constant, Gratien, and Jean Louis de Gallatin, his neighbors in Châtelaine. The name of this ideal republic was Consigal, formed from the initials of their respective names, Constant, Sismondi, and Gallatin. The context of the game was expressly created by the “founders of the republic” to express the relevance of the role played by education within their métropole. The space where they played had a life-size statue of Rousseau at the centre, with Emile at his feet building “un petit chariot,” Rosalie de Constant wrote in her Journal a Victor:¹²

sur le piédestal se voyait l’Opinion sur son trône élevé et posé sur une mer orageuse. Un père la montrait à son fils en lui faisant signe de s’y soustraire; une mère amenait sa fille avec l’expression contraire. L’ensemble était agréable, quoique l’exécution ne fut peut être pas parfait

[on the pedestal, Opinion was seen on its high throne and set on a stormy sea. A father showed it to his son, waving at him to escape it; a mother brought her daughter with the opposite expression. The ensemble was pleasant, although the work was not perfect.]

Thucydides and Tacitus were the classical sources used to draft Histoire de la République de Consigal, which was used to plan the game.¹³ The Consigal Republic was established on the basis of a social contract that entrusted power to magistrates, provided for a rotation of appointments, contemplated the establishment of a General Assembly and a Legislative Council, and required the maintenance of the people’s right to resist and rebel if despotism loomed. Much importance was attributed to the “speech” that each participant had to make regarding the problems of the constitution, the council, and the army, expanding its scope to encourage a reflection on vaster and deeper themes: justice, reason, equity, and the rights of man.

After years of games and family readings, it was time to give a more precise orientation to Sismondi’s personal interests and choices. Thus, after completing a commercial traineeship at Eynard in Lyons, Sismondi enrolled in the Geneva Academy and began studying physics with Marc August Pictet¹⁴ and philosophy with Pièrre Prevost.¹⁵ However, his studies were soon interrupted by the revolutionary events. The conditions of relative stability and prosperity that the Geneva city-state had enjoyed for a long period were soon overturned. As Chapuisat wrote: “L’on peut dire que Genève en 1793 vit s’éloigner d’elle, dans un même temps, le pain et la liberté.”¹⁶ Thus, in his youth in Geneva, Sismondi was able to relate to Republican ideals that drew on a cultural heritage peppered with references to freedom and the active participation of citoyens in the construction of their polis in the full exercise of sovereignty. Along with Rousseau, Sismondi held sovereignty to be the most inviolable right. However, in the same context, a little later, he took note of the reneging on any prerequisites for the exercise of those same freedoms and participation.

Emigration to England became a chance to rediscover relative stability and an escape from revolutionary violence as well as to undertake a systematic study of history and political constitutions in order to understand the conditions that foster and guarantee the freedom of small states in the modern world.¹⁷ Several readings of History of Scotland and History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V by William Robertson, Constitution William d’Angleterre by Jean-Louis Delolme, Commentaries of the Laws of England by Blackstone, and the Systematical View of the Laws of England by Richard Wooddeson along with A defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America by John Adams About Sismondi relationships with english intellectuals’ reflection on liberty see King (1973)¹⁸ gave Sismondi elements to begin building his own reflection on freedom. This was defined in the pages of Essais and then Recherches sur les constitutions des peuples libres, which revealed Sismondi’s inclination to identify the structural conditions, that is, the institutional substance of society as a primary factor for setting off social advancement and economic development trajectories. England is also the place where Sismondi first encountered Adam Smith. It was during his stay that he began reading Smith’s first work, Wealth of Nations, and thus began the forging of an intellectual relationship that accompanied him in subsequent phases of thought.¹⁹

On his return to Geneva in 1794, Sismondi was once again involved in serious episodes of violence caused by new revolutionary waves. Plans for a democratic constitution²⁰ had been overturned due to tensions generated by the city’s serious economic difficulty. In particular, discussions on the theme of a new taxation that would have hit the great fortunes²¹ contributed to reigniting the revolutionary fires. During this time, the young Sismondi and his father were put on trial, imprisoned and their fortunes confiscated. The Chatelaine residence, which had been the cradle of his happy childhood and the games he played with Constant and Gallatin, was sacked and violated during the night of 24 July, 1794. M. Cayla, who had been a member of the High Magistrature of the Republic before the 1792 revolution, had sought refuge in the Sismondi residence but was discovered and shot that same night.²² This revolutionary experience had an indelible impression on the young Sismondi’s mind, and from that moment onward, he repudiated all forms of abuse of freedom in any manner of “planning” that was unrelated to social pluralism or a general will built on the basis of authentic civil participation.

These events were an “exceptional apprenticeship”²³ for Sismondi and impressed on his already developed sense of rigor and moral coherence the essential need to accompany all words uttered in favor of liberty with the responsibility to seek conditions for its practical implementation. This approach is evident in the pages of his first work on “constitutions des peuples libres” which, in its different versions, from Essais to Recherches, interweaved a more theoretical reflection on liberty with an analysis of the institutions and relational dynamics able to foster it and increase the practical and active presence of citizens in the politica...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1: Origins and method
• PART 2: Political thought
• PART 3: Economic thought
• Afterword
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index