Editing Léon Walras (section)

==Biography==
Walras was the son of a French school administrator [[Auguste Walras]]. His father was not a professional economist, yet his economic thinking had a profound effect on his son. He found the value of goods by setting their scarcity relative to human wants.

Walras enrolled in the [[Mines ParisTech|École des Mines de Paris]], but grew tired of engineering. He worked as a bank manager, journalist, romantic novelist and railway clerk before turning to economics.<ref name="Economyths">''[[Economyths]]'' (2010) by [[David Orrell]], p. 54</ref> Walras received an appointment as the professor of political economy at the University of Lausanne.

Walras also inherited his father's interest in [[social reform]]. Much like the [[Fabians]], Walras called for the [[nationalization]] of land, believing that land's productivity would always increase and that rents from that land would be sufficient to support the nation without taxes. He also asserted that all other taxes (i.e. on goods, labor, capital) eventually realize effects exactly identical to a [[consumption tax]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Walras|first=Léon|title=Elements of Pure Economics; or, The Theory of Social Wealth. Translated by William Jaffé.|year=1969|publisher=A. M. Kelly|location=New York|page=457,458}}</ref> so they can hurt the economy (unlike a land tax).

Another of Walras's influences was [[Augustin Cournot]], a former schoolmate of his father. Through Cournot, Walras came under the influence of [[rationalism]] and was introduced to the use of mathematics in economics. He later motivated his use of mathematics with the analogy that the pure theory of economics is “a physico-mathematical science like mechanics”<ref>{{cite book |last=Walras |first=Léon |date=1874 |title=Eléments d’économie politique pure ou théorie de la richesse sociale |location=Lausanne/Paris |publisher=Corbaz & Cie |page=71}}</ref> and argued that the way economics proceeds is rigorously identical to the one of [[Classical mechanics|rational]] and [[celestial mechanics]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Walras |first1=Léon |date=1960 |title= Économique et méchanique |journal= Metroeconomica|volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=3–11 |doi= 10.1111/j.1467-999X.1960.tb00510.x |quote-page=5 |quote = sa manière de procéder est rigoureusement identique à celle de deux sciences physico-mathématiques des plus avancées et des plus incontestées: la ''mécanique rationelle'' et la ''mécanique céleste''. }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Glötzl |first1=Erhard |last2=Richters |first2=Oliver |title=From constrained optimization to constrained dynamics: extending analogies between economics and mechanics |journal=Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination |volume=14 |pages=623–642 |date=2019 |doi=10.1007/s11403-019-00252-7|hdl=10419/171974 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Mirowski |first1=P. |last2=Cook |first2=P |date=1990 |chapter= Walras’ “Economics and Mechanics”: Translation, Commentary, Context | title=Economics As Discourse |editor-last1=Samuels |editor-first1=W.J. |publisher=Springer |location=Dordrecht |doi=10.1007/978-94-017-1377-1_7}}</ref>

As Professor of [[Political Economy]] at the [[University of Lausanne]], Walras is credited with founding the [[Lausanne school]] of economics, along with his successor [[Vilfredo Pareto]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Marie-Ésprit Léon Walras, 1834–1910 |publisher=The New School, The History of Economic Thought Website |url=http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//profiles/walras.htm |access-date=2010-12-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106050650/http://homepage.newschool.edu/het/profiles/walras.htm |archive-date=January 6, 2011 }}</ref>

Because most of Walras's publications were only available in French, many economists were unfamiliar with his work. This changed in 1954 with the publication of William Jaffé's English translation of Walras's ''Éléments d'économie politique pure''.<ref name="William Jaffé, Historian of Economic Thought, 1898-1980">{{cite journal | jstor= 1803482 | title= William Jaffé, Historian of Economic Thought, 1898–1980 |author= Walker, Donald A. |journal= The American Economic Review |date= December 1981 |volume=71 |issue=5 | pages= 1012–19}}</ref> Walras's work was also too mathematically complex for many contemporary readers of his time. On the other hand, it has a great insight into the market process under idealized conditions so it has been far more read in the modern era.

Although Walras came to be regarded as one of the three leaders of the [[Marginalism|marginalist]] revolution,<ref>Sandmo, Agnar (2011). ''Economics Evolving: A History of Economic Thought'', Princeton University Press: Princeton, p. 190</ref>
he was not familiar with the two other leading figures of marginalism, [[William Stanley Jevons]] and [[Carl Menger]], and developed his theories independently. ''Elements'' has Walras disagreeing with Jevons on the applicability, while the findings adopted by Carl Menger, he says, are completely in alignment with the ideas present in the book (even though expressed non-mathematically).<ref>{{cite book|last=Walras|first=Léon|title=Elements of Pure Economics; or, The Theory of Social Wealth. Translated by William Jaffé.|year=1969|publisher=A. M. Kelly|location=New York|page=204}}</ref>