Walras, Léon Marie Esprit

Walras, Léon Marie Esprit 

Born Dec. 16, 1834, in Evreux; died Jan. 5, 1910, in Montreux. Swiss bourgeois economist, the virtual founder and a major representative of the mathematical school of bourgeois political economy. Professor at Lausanne University from 1870 to 1892.

Walras developed a general statistical mathematical economics model of a national economy that is known as the system of general economic equilibrium. In the 1950’s and 1960’s this system was modified through the application of linear programming. The rational elements of Walras’ model are the posing of an extreme task for the national economy as a whole (the attainment of maximum effect with a minimum of expenditures) and the approach to prices as a component element of finding a general optimum. But Walras did not study the inner logic of capitalist production taken in its development and did not analyze its basic contradictions; he therefore made serious mistakes in solving individual problems. G. Cassel, A. Aftalion, and J. Schumpeter were followers of Walras.

WORKS

Eléments d’économie politique pure, ou Théorie de la richesse sociale, parts 1-2. Lausanne, 1883.
Théorie mathématique de la richesse sociale. Lausanne, 1883.
Théorie de la monnaie. Paris, 1886.
Etudes d’économie sociale, ou Théorie de la réparation de la richesse sociale. Lausanne-Paris, 18%.
Etudes d’économie politique appliquée. Lausanne, 1896.

REFERENCES

Bliumin, I. G. Kritika burzhuaznoi polincheskoi ekonomii, vol. 1. Moscow, 1962. Chapter 6.
Novozhilov, V. V. “Matematicheskie modeli narodnogo khozia- istva v burzhuaznoi politicheskoi ekonomii i ikh kritika.” In the collection Matematicheskii analiz rasshirennogo vosproizvodstva, vol. 2. Moscow, 1962.

IU. A. VASIL’CHUK