Michel Chevalier

Michel Chevalier

Michel Chevalier (January 13, 1806—November 18, 1879) was a French engineer, statesman, economist and free market liberal.

Biography

Born in Limoges, Chevalier studied at the École Polytechnique, obtaining an engineering degree at the Paris École des mines in 1829.

In 1830, after the July Revolution, he became a Saint-Simonian, and edited their paper Le Globe. The paper was banned in 1832, when the "Simonian sect" was found to be prejudicial to the social order, and Chevalier, as its editor, was sentenced to six months imprisonment.

After his release, Minister of the Interior Adolphe Thiers sent him on a mission to the United States and Mexico, to observe the state of industrial and financial affairs in the Americas. In 1837 he wrote a well received work, Des intérèts matériels en France, after which his career took off.

At age 35, he was appointed professor of political economy at the Collège de France. He was elected a député for the département of Aveyron in 1845, an appointment of Senator followed in 1860.

Together with Richard Cobden and John Bright he prepared the free trade agreement of 1860 between the United Kingdom and France, which is still called Cobden-Chevalier-treaty.

He died in Montpellier.

Works

• Des intérèts matériels en France, 1837
• Histoire et description des voies de communication aux États-Unis, 1840-42, 2 volumes
• Essais de politique industrielle, 1843
• Cours d'économie politique, 1842-44 u. 1850, 3 volumes
• L'isthme de Panama, suivi d'un apercu sur l'isthme de Suez, 1844
• Les Brevets d'invention examinés dans leurs rapports avec le principe de la liberté du travail et avec le principe de l'égalité des citoyens, 1878

References

• Robinson, Moncure (1880). "Obituary Notice of Michel Chevalier". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 19 (107): 28-37.

See also

• Manchester capitalism
• Saint-Simonianism

External links

• Gallica includes works of Michel Chevalier

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