Francois Simiand
Francois Simiand (1934, portrait)
Born	( 1873-04-18 ) 18 April 1873
Died	13 April 1935 (1935-04-13) (aged 61) Saint-Raphael
Nationality	French
Academic career
Field	Social economics
School or tradition	French historical school
Influences	Henri Bergson , Emile Durkheim

Francois Joseph Charles Simiand (18 April 1873 ? 13 April 1935) was a French sociologist and economist best known as a participant in the Annee Sociologique . As a member of the French Historical School of economics , ^[1] Simiand predicated a rigorous factual and statistical basis for theoretical models and policies. His contribution to French social science was recognized in 1931 when, at the age of 58, he was elected to the faculty of the College de France and accepted the chair in labor history.

Simiand's career was unusual. Like many destined to become influential academics in France , he entered the Ecole Normale Superieure and graduated in philosophy at the top of his class in 1896. However, he quickly became interested in law and economics and submitted a thesis on the wages of coal miners in France (1904) to the faculty of law rather than becoming an academic. As a result, he foreclosed forever the possibility of a prominent university appointment. Thus in 1901 he became the librarian for the French Ministries of Commerce and Labor, a post he held until the outbreak of World War I . From 1910 on he also taught Economic History at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes , an institution which did not require a doctorate from its lecturers.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century Simiand joined the editorial board of the Annee Sociologique . He became a central member of the group as editor of the economic sociology section and served as its expert on statistics. At the same time, as someone removed from the politics of French academics, he was at an institutional remove from Emile Durkheim 's ambitions for transforming the French university.

Simiand moved further into the administrative apparatus of the French state during World War I when he left his position as a librarian for work in the Ministry of Armaments where he played a prominent role in making policy. After the war, he served for a year as the Director of Labor for the province of Alsace-Lorraine . In addition, he took up a more permanent position as a teacher at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers .

A student of Henri Bergson and Emile Durkheim , Simiand advanced a view of economics as a social science grounded in observable phenomena rather than convenient assumptions. This would imply a large program of historical and statistical research. Joseph Schumpeter , who denied the existence of a French or an Italian Historical School despite the historical current evident in their economics, acknowledged the significance of Simiand's contributions. In Schumpeter's view, Simiand should be considered a French Institutionalist. ^[2]

Simiand's views on scope and method, which appear in La Methode positive en science economique (1911), ^[3] were applied in his studies of real wages, ^{[4] [5]} money ^[6] and long economic cycles. ^[7] They were applied in criticism of the work of contemporary economists, as well. ^[8]

Works [ edit ]

• Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi, Les classiques des sciences sociales: Francois Simiand.
• "Methode historique et Science social" Revue de synthese historique (1903); re-edited Annales ESC 15, no. 1. Paris (1960)
• Review of Vialles, La consommation et la crise Economique, in Annee sociologique 7 p. 582 (1902/1903)
• Review of May, Das Grundgesetz der Wirtschaftskrisen, in Annee sociologique 7 p. 585 (1902/1903)
• Le salaire des ouvriers des mines de charbon en France Societe Nouvelle de Librarie et D'edition, 1904
• "La causalite en histoire" Bulletin de la Societe francaise de philosophie 6, pp. 245?272, 276?290 (1906)
• [2] M. F. Simiand, Review of Jevons, Pareto and Marshall L'annee sociologique pp. 516?45 (1909) New School Net (on line)
• La Methode positive en science economique (1911); in Critique sociologique de l'economie. Paris, PUF. VI ISBN   2-13-054756-7
• Le Salaire: l'evolution sociale et la monnaie 3 vols., Librairie Felix Alcan, Paris (1932)
• Recherches anciennes et nouvelles sur le mouvement general des prix du VXIe au XIXe siecle Paris, Domat-Montclirctien (1932)
• Les Fluctuations economiques a longue periode de la crise mondiale (1933)
• "La monnaie, realite sociale", Les Annales Sociologiques, serie D, fascicule 1 p. 45 (1934); in Critique sociologique de l'economie. Paris, PUF. VI ISBN   2-13-054756-7
• La psychologie sociale des crises et les fluctuations economiques de courte duree, Paris, Felix Alcan (1937). Originally published in Annales Sociologiques.

See also [ edit ]

• History of economic thought

References [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]

• Marina Cedronio, Francois Simiand: Methode Historique et Sciences Sociales Taylor & Francis (1987) ISBN   2-88124-188-3
• Lucien Gillard and Michel Rosier , Francois Simiand (1873-1935): Sociologie. Histoire. Economie. Paris, Editions des archives contemporaines (1996) ISBN   2-88449-057-4
• Jean-Jacques Gislain, La sociologie economique, 1890-1920: Emile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, Joseph Schumpeter, Francois Simiand, Thorstein Veblen et Max Weber, Presses universitaires de France (1995)
• Robert Marjolin, G. Jaffe, W. Jaffe, "Francois Simiand's Theory of Economic Progress", The Review of Economic Studies Vol. 5, No. 3 (Jun., 1938), pp. 159?171
• Frederic Lebaron, "Bases of a Sociological Economy: From Francois Simiand and Maurice Halbwachs to Pierre Bourdieu" International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, University of Picardie (on line)
• Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas, "La corriente de los Annales y su contribucion al desarrollo de la historia economica en Francia" Aportes: Revista de la Facultad de Economia-BUAP VI No. 17, Puebla, Mexico, August 2001 (in Spanish, on line)
• Gerard Noiriel, "L'ethique de la discussion chez Francois Simiand. A propos de deux conferences sur l'Histoire (1903-1906)", in Penser avec, penser contre. Itineraires d'un historien, pp. 47?61. Paris, Belin, (2003)