SIMONDE DE SISMONDI, J(EAN-)C(HARLES-) L(ONARD)

born May 9, 1773, Geneva died June 25, 1842, Chne, near Geneva Swiss economist and historian who aroused men's consciences to what he saw as the perils and pitfalls of runaway industrialism. A pioneer theorist on the nature of economic crises and the risks of limitless competition, overproduction, and underconsumption, he was warmly regarded by such later economists as Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. Son of a Protestant clergyman and a woman of means, Sismondi became a clerk at the age of 16 in a Lyon bank and saw the French Revolution unfold. To escape the Revolution's spreading effects he and his family went in 1794 to Tuscany, where they engaged in farming. Sismondi's experiences and observations there resulted in Tableau de l'agriculture toscane (1801; Picture of Tuscan Agriculture). Living in his native Geneva from 1800 on, he became so successful as an author of books and essays that he could decline offers of professorships. Sismondi's monumental Histoire des rpubliques italiennes du moyen ge, 16 vol. (180918; History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages), which regarded the free cities of medieval Italy as the origin of modern Europe, inspired the leaders of that country's Risorgimento (unification movement). As an economist, Sismondi was at first a loyal follower of Adam Smith, the proponent of laissez-faire economics. His Nouveaux Principes d'economie politique (1819; New Principles of Political Economy), however, represents a break with Smith's ideas. Sismondi argued for governmental regulation of economic competition and for a balance between production and consumption. He foresaw a growing rift between the bourgeoisie and the working class and called for social reforms to ameliorate the living conditions of the latter, but he stopped short of condemning private property.