Charles DunoyerBarthélemy-Charles-Pierre-Joseph Dunoyer de Segonzac (20 May 1786 – 4 December 1862), better known asCharles Dunoyer (French pronunciation:[ʃaʁldynwaje]), was a French economist of theFrench Liberal School.
Dunoyer gave one of the earliest theories ofeconomic cycle, building on the theory of periodic crises ofJean Charles Léonard de Sismondi and introducing the notion of the economy periodically cycling between two phases.[1]
Dunoyer was born inCarennac,Quercy (now inLot). In 1814, he had founded together withCharles Comte the journalLe Censeur, a platform for liberal ideas. Dunoyer would also publish a variety of books on political economy, among themDe la Liberté du travail (On the Freedom of Labour, 1845).
Dunoyer was an early member of theSociété d'économie politique organized in 1842 byPellegrino Rossi.[2] He was a member of theAcadémie des Sciences morales et politiques of theInstitut de France. He was also a member of theConseil d'État of theSecond Republic. While many know of the less than amiable relationship betweenAuguste Comte andSaint-Simon, there is much less knowledge of the more amiable twenty-five-year-long relationship between Auguste Comte and Charles Dunoyer. The latter relationship is discussed most fully byLeonard Liggio in "Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism".
Auguste Comte's intellectual biographer Mary Pickering also cites a review of Liggio's article when she too mentions this relationship. Dunoyer is also mentioned in the opening sentences of the entry onslavery by the ComtistJohn Kells Ingram in both the ninth, or scholar's edition, of theEncyclopædia Britannica and the later eleventh edition as well. Although he is one of the over 550 worthies cited in Auguste Comte'sCalendar of Great Men (1849), Dunoyer is primarily cited as a substitute forAdam Smith.
Dunoyer died on 4 December 1862 inParis.
