Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez

Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez (1797 in Geneva-1869 in Zürich) was a Swiss liberal thinker. My mission is to influence the world, he wrote in 1844. While his economic though stimulated some responses, that is hardly the case for his political ideas, in effect stillborn. Unlike his compatriots Benjamin Constant and Jean de Sismondi, Cherbuliez has had little attention from contemporary historians. His thoughts were spread thinly over various publicatio... more

Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez (1797 in Geneva-1869 in Zürich) was a Swiss liberal thinker. My mission is to influence the world, he wrote in 1844. While his economic though stimulated some responses, that is hardly the case for his political ideas, in effect stillborn. Unlike his compatriots Benjamin Constant and Jean de Sismondi, Cherbuliez has had little attention from contemporary historians. His thoughts were spread thinly over various publications, with no major work of synthesis. He was a retiring academic and somewhat isolated. He was though granted recognition: member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques of Institut de France, and holder of academic distincions. Further, Karl Marx wrote a chapter on his place in the history of economic doctrine. Born into a middle class family, he studied at the lycée Calvin de Genève, then the École Polytechnique in Paris, and the theological faculty in Geneva. In 1819 he travelled to German, trying unsuccessfully to live by writing... less