8. From Criticism to the Reform Plan for the Teaching of Political Economy in France in the xixth Century

This chapter delves into Léon Walras's critique of the teaching of political economy in 19th-century France, highlighting the negative impact of the bourgeois class's control over the educational system. Walras identifies two phases in the attitude of the dominant class: first, the suppression and then the manipulation of economic education. The chapter explores the difficult development of political economy in France, from the Restoration to the early Third Republic, and Walras's attempts to reform the system. It also examines Walras's critique of academic institutions and promotion systems, which he saw as flawed and nepotistic. The reform proposals include the creation of independent faculties of moral and political sciences, modeled after German institutions, to combat the monopolization of economic education by the bourgeois class. The text concludes with Walras's vision for a comprehensive education in political economy, spanning pure, applied, and social economics, and his hopes for the future of the discipline in France.