French economist Leon Walras: biography, discoveries and interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

French economist Leon Walras became the man who turned economics into a full-fledged science, ridding it of excessive ideologization, and began to use the mathematical apparatus to derive the most general patterns. The creator of the theory of general equilibrium, he became the founder of the school of marginalism, whose representatives successfully applied their developments in practice, deservedly receiving Nobel Prizes in economics.

Forerunner

Paradoxically, the development of Leon Walras as a revolutionary in economics began long before his birth. His great-grandfather Andreas Walravens was a tailor in the Dutch province of Limburg who emigrated to France in the eighteenth century. The settler's children considered themselves French and adopted the surname Walras.

His grandson Auguste was born in Montpellier, in 1820 he entered the famous Ecole Normale. Here he ismet O. Cournot, who later became famous as the author of "Studies on the mathematical foundations of the theory of we alth." Despite the fact that their paths parted after the school closed, he did not forget his friend and later reminded of this in letters to Leon Walras.

In 1822, the Ecole Normale was disbanded, half of the students received a scholarship to continue their studies, others received places as school teachers. Among the latter was Auguste Walras. He worked as a teacher, professor of philosophy, rose to the position of a school teacher. However, the most important passion in his life was economics, which was in its infancy in those years.

It was thanks to his father, Marie Esprey, that Leon Walras became interested in science and devoted the best years of his life to it. The lively, inquisitive mind of Auguste could not help but see the numerous contradictions and shortcomings in the works of the adherents of the new science, he came up with his own terms and theories, tried to highlight the basic axioms of economics. The son of a school teacher continued his father's work and achieved tremendous success.

Becoming

The biography of Leon Walras did not develop quite smoothly, he happened to change many occupations on his life path before finding his true calling. Born in Normandy in 1834, he studied at the University of Paris, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in 1851 and 1853, respectively.

However, Leon Walras considered his education insufficient and tried to study engineering at the famous Mining Institute in Paris. Here he sufferedfailure, after which he began to try himself in a wide variety of branches of human activity. Leon Walras worked as a railroad clerk, dabbled in fiction and even wrote a couple of romance novels. At various times, he lectured on philosophy, and finally the position of a bank manager became the crown of his career.

As a result, after persistent persuasion from his father, Leon turned his attention to political economy, but initially he developed his own theories in his spare time.

Breakthrough

In his activities, Leon Walras emphasized the transformation of economics into a true science. It was he who first began to apply the mathematical apparatus and modeling in the thoroughly humanitarian and empirical branch of human knowledge, which was the economy in the middle of the nineteenth century. The funny thing is that he was not an outstanding mathematician and failed twice the entrance exams at the Polytechnic School.

For the first time, Leon Walras declared himself in a polemical work, where he argued with the authoritative Proudhon. The impudent newcomer dared to express seditious thoughts that the main way to eliminate injustice can only be complete equality of opportunities for all citizens.

One of the key events in the life of Walras was his participation in the international congress on taxation in Lausanne. With his speeches, he attracted the attention of the Swiss politician Ruonne, who later recommended him for the post of professor of economics atLausanne Academy, later transformed into a university.

Academic activities

Leon Walras has become one of the most respected professors at the University of Lausanne. He headed the department of economics for more than twenty years, until 1890. Retiring, he handed over his post to the no less authoritative scientist Paretto. However, even in retirement, he continued to engage in scientific research, remaining one of the main authorities in political economy.

Towards the end of his life, the great scientist fell into childhood. Everyone frankly laughed at how Leon Walras tried to promote his candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize. Nevertheless, he died in the status of one of the most respected people of his time, having managed to make a genuine revolution in the world of science.

Absolute theory

The quintessence of the research of Leon Walras was his most famous work "The Principles of Pure Political Economy or Theory of Public We alth". In this work, he tried to apply to economic science, which at that time was of an exclusively empirical nature, the scientific method proper, having developed a whole system of successively more complex models. The first model was an elementary exchange of one commodity for another, then it came to more complex structures, including money circulation, taxation.

Walras's predecessors faced an extraordinary complexity of the problem due to the huge number of influencing factors. Primarilyapparent randomness and the presence of a large number of variables became an obstacle for many scientists to develop rigorous mathematical methods for studying economic relations.

Leon Walras suggested starting small and began to apply the mathematical apparatus in conditions of perfect competition, that is, he proceeded from the presence of ideal conditions. Just as the development of applied mechanics is impossible without the foundations of theoretical mechanics, where many secondary factors are deliberately ignored, so the creation of applied methods for managing the economy is impossible without the foundation created by the Frenchman and his pure economic theory.

A two-word epitaph as a result of scientific activity

Many researchers place the theory of general equilibrium of Leon Walras on a par with fundamental achievements in theoretical physics.

According to the French economist, economic relations could be represented by the following scheme. The owners of the factors of production, to which he referred the owners of land, capital, raw materials, labor, sell their resources to entrepreneurs who convert them into goods.

Then, in turn, businessmen sell consumer goods to the owners of the factors of production, and the cycle begins anew.

From the reasoning of Leon Walras it follows that the most efficient state of the economy will be under conditions of equal prices for consumer goods and factors of production. Everyone depends on each other, the prices of goods rise along with wages andother factors, in turn, there is an inverse relationship. In the ideal model of the founder of marginalism, demand corresponds to supply, supply is based on real demand.

Leon Walras as a social philosopher

The economist was a worthy son of republican France and paid great attention to the social component in the economy. Having freed economic science from ideology and history, he nevertheless attached great importance to social justice. If in production Leon Walras recognized the principle of utility, then in the distribution of benefits he called for being guided by the principles of justice, justifying the important role of the state.

At the same time, he was skeptical of pure socialists, reproaching them for their idealistic approach.

His most radical ideas were the nationalization of the land, as he assumed that small farmers were able to effectively manage agriculture and introduce advanced technological methods.

Contribution of Leon Walras to economics

French scientist developed the concept of economic equilibrium. Leon was the first who dared to use the mathematical apparatus to derive the most general patterns in the economy. It was the Frenchman who introduced the concept of four markets: labor, capital, consumer goods, services.

On his grave, he bequeathed to knock out only two words - "Economic balance", which he considered the main result of his scientificactivities.