Saint-Simonianism and the Problem of Late Development: Exploring the Political Economy of Michel Chevalier

Teddy Paikin, McGill University

My paper contributes to the renewed wave of interest among historians and historical sociologists for comparative theories of economic development (Lafrance Miller 2024), accounts of the developmental state (Maggor Link 2020), and neomercantilist critics of classical liberalism (Helleiner 2021, Suesse 2023) by advancing a novel reading of the heterodox political economy of Michel Chevalier. Chevalier was a French mining engineer, renowned economist during the July Monarchy, a chief economic advisor to Napoleon III. The scholarly consensus on what differentiates Chevalier from the hegemonic laissez-faire liberalism of Say and Dunoyer was his unpopular preservation of Saint-Simonian themes of economic organization and state intervention from his youth as editor of the socialist journal Le Globe well into his mature political economy. Yet in the literature, the reasons behind this continuity remain obscure. I argue that Chevalier maintained his Saint-Simonian commitment to organization and state intervention against his liberal colleagues because of his acute consciousness of French comparative backwardness with respect to Britain and the US and the need to construct a developmental state capable of jumpstarting growth through investment in railway network and the organization of a sophisticated industrial banking sector. Like many 19th century French economists, Chevalier’s cognizance of France’s need to catch-up was only reinforced during his economic tourism in Britain. But it was paradoxically his time in the US which confirmed his belief in the weaknesses of laissez-faire, particularly as he witnessed active state intervention in railway construction and credit promotion. I argue that Chevalier took these lessons home, and as economic advisor to Napoleon III helped usher in a period of rapid economic transformation and growth through an authoritarian productivist dirigisme. Analysis of Chevalier’s political economy can help contribute to better understanding the theoretical justification of the French developmental state and the history of development economics more broadly.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 12. Political Economy, Trade, and Development