Blanqui, Jérôme-Adolphe (1798–1854)

Abstract

French labour economist, economic historian and first major historian of economic thought, Blanqui was born in Nice and educated both there and in Paris, subsequently teaching humanities at the Institution Massin. His teaching brought him into contact with J.B. Say, who ‘wished him for a disciple’ (Blanqui 1880, p. ix) and to whose chair of political and industrial economy at the Conservatoire des Arts and des Métiers he succeeded in 1833. In addition, he was head of the Ecole Speciale du Commerce from 1830 to 1854, first editor of the Journal des économistes and from 1846 to 1848 served as member for Bordeaux in the Chamber of Deputies. In 1838 he was elected to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He died in 1854 in Paris, more than a quarter of a century before his notorious younger brother, Louis Auguste, the revolutionary and member of the Paris Commune, with whom he is often confused.