Charles Gide
Encyclopedia
Charles Gide was a leading French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 economist
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 and historian of economic thought
History of economic thought
The history of economic thought deals with different thinkers and theories in the subject that became political economy and economics from the ancient world to the present day...

. He was a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the University of Bordeaux
University of Bordeaux
University of Bordeaux is an association of higher education institutions in and around Bordeaux, France. Its current incarnation was established 21 March 2007. The group is the largest system of higher education schools in southwestern France. It is part of the Academy of Bordeaux.There are seven...

, at Montpellier, at Université de Paris and finally at Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

.

Academic work

A founder of the Revue d'économie politique in 1887, Gide was a proponent of the French historical approach to economics
Historical school of economics
The Historical school of economics was an approach to academic economics and to public administration that emerged in 19th century in Germany, and held sway there until well into the 20th century....

.

Gide was one of the few supporters of Leon Walras
Léon Walras
Marie-Esprit-Léon Walras was a French mathematical economist associated with the creation of the general equilibrium theory.-Life and career:...

, as they shared a social philosophy, social activism, and disdain for the "Manchester-style" economics of the journalistes. Gide later resisted the influence of Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics is a school of macroeconomic thought based on the ideas of 20th-century English economist John Maynard Keynes.Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and, therefore, advocates active policy responses by the...

 in France.

The Charles Gide Association for the History of Economic Thought website, in French, is at http://www.charlesgide.fr. In keeping with Gide's views, the association is free of any exclusive doctrinal, theoretical or epistemological bias.

Social activism

As a Protestant Christian Socialist, Gide was at the center of progressive politics in France, supporting the université populaire movement in the aftermath of the Dreyfus Affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...

. He promoted the establishment of a School for Advanced Social Studies (Ecole superieure de sciences sociales) (1899). In addition, he served among the early faculty of the Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Paris
Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Paris
The Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme is an institution of higher education, a French Grande École in Paris dedicated to journalism and related studies...

. Together with the School for Social Studies, it was established in 1899 as one of three grandes écoles developing from the Collège libre de science sociales founded in 1895.

Gide supported the Union pour la Verite (League for Truth) created by Paul Desjardins
Paul Desjardins
Paul Desjardins is a former all-star professional Canadian football offensive lineman who played nine seasons in the Canadian Football League.-External links:*...

 in 1892 in support of the French officer Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...

 during the political scandal
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...

, which aroused heated passions across the nation. Gide was interested in reform projects as well, such as the Alliance d’Hygiene Sociale (Social Hygiene League, created in 1905), and reported on the social economy exhibition at the Paris World's Fair
Exposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from April 15 to November 12, 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next...

 in 1900.

Gide was a tireless champion of the cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...

 movement: both agricultural and consumers' cooperatives during the first third of the 20th century. His book, Consumers' Co-operative Societies, which first appeared in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 in 1904, and in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 in 1921, is a classic in the field of co-operative economics
Co-operative economics
Co-operative economics is a field of economics, socialist economics, co-operative studies, and political economy, which is concerned with co-operatives.-History:...

, in the tradition of Co-operative Federalism
Co-operative Federalism
Cooperative federalism is a school of thought in the field of cooperative economics. Historically, its proponents have included J.T.W. Mitchell, Charles Gide, Paul Lambart, and Beatrice Webb...

.

Works


v. 4 (2001)
  • Charles Gide, "Economic Literature in France at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century", The Economic Journal, Vol. 17, No. 66 (Jun., 1907), pp. 192–212. doi:10.2307/2220664
  • Cours d'economie politique (1909); Paris, Librairie de la Société du Recueil Sirey, 5e édition, refondue et augmentée (1919) On line ed. Marcelle Bergeron, École polyvalente Dominique-Racine de Chicoutimi, Province de Québec.
  • Les Societes Cooperatives de Consomption, (1904); tr. as Consumers' Co-operative Societies (1921).
  • A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day, with Charles Rist; tr. R. Richards. London, George P. Harrap (1915).
  • Les Colonies Communistes et Co-Operatives (1930).

Further reading

  • Marc Penin. Charles Gide 1847-1932. L’esprit critique. Paris: l’Harmattan (1998). ISBN 2-7384-6072-0

External links


See also

  • History of Economic Thought
    History of economic thought
    The history of economic thought deals with different thinkers and theories in the subject that became political economy and economics from the ancient world to the present day...

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