The ‘science’ of French public finances in the First World War
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/21552851.2014.967931
ISSN2155-2851
Autores Tópico(s)French Historical and Cultural Studies
ResumoAbstractThis study examines the beliefs of the two main French schools of thought, mainly the ideas of Paul Leroy-Beaulieu and Gaston Jèze, which sought to influence the management of public finances, and their impact on the financing of the First World War by the French government. It highlights debates during the war on the best approach to deal with the extraordinary financial demands of the war and the experiences and influence of foreign governments on French financial management practices. The last part examines how the war affected qualitatively the French public finances, the financial dogmas, and the scientific approach to public finance.Keywords: science of public financeFirst World WarGaston JèzePaul Leroy-BeaulieuFrench Governmentpublic finances AcknowledgementsThe author gratefully acknowledges Ève Chiapello for her careful editing and comments offered by the anonymous reviewers.Notes1. Established in 1530, the Collège de France is a top higher education and research institution specialising in literature, science, and art.2. Re-established in 1832, the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques is a reputed institution for societal issues. It is one of the academies of the Institut de France, which includes the Académie Française founded in 1635.3. Jèze graduated as a doctor of law in 1892 and had not yet earned a full professorship when he published his first manual of financial science with Max Boucard in 1896 (CitationBoucard and Jèze 1896), in which they focused on government debt. In 1899, he was appointed Assistant Professor at the Aix-en-Provence Law Faculty. Awarded a full professorship in 1901, he taught in turn in Lille and then in Paris starting in 1909. He wrote a great deal in his mouthpiece journal, La Revue de Science et de Législation Financières (RSLF), and also regularly in 1915–1916 in La Revue du Droit Public et de la Science Politique en France et à l’Étranger, founded by Ferdinand Larnaude in 1894 and of which he took the helm in 1904. He published many compilations of his articles with Giard & Brière.4. From 1906 to 1939 at least, his wife Albertine and his son Albert Jèze translated many English law books into French, with and without Gaston.5. Two years earlier, in 1910, he wrote, Traité de Science des Finances. Le Budget: Théorie Générale, les Pouvoirs du Gouvernement et des Chambres Législatives en Matière de Dépenses et de Recettes Publiques (Paris, V. Giard & E. Brière, 1910, XVI-570 p.), thereby mimicking Leroy-Beaulieu and Stourm's flagship titles.6. Jèze also edited La Bibliothèque Internationale de Droit Public, again with Giard & Brière.7. Germans Wagner and Rau and Austrian von Stein of the social finance school were published in La Bibliothèque Internationale d’Économie Politique edited by Alfred Bonnet.8. See CitationLe Van-Lemesle (2006) on the liberals’ gradual acceptance of taxation and public services.9. Some of Jèze's positions changed during the course of the war. He was not initially opposed to raising the ceiling on issues and Banque de France advances. After 1915, however, he became aware of the consequences of inflation and that the Bank of England only intervened to defend the value of the pound. See CitationCoulbois (1954), for more on the influence of the English experience on Jèze.10. His son, Pierre, was killed in action on 17 January 1915. As a graduate of the École Polytechnique (1890), traveller, Assistant Director of L’Économiste Français and Deputy from 1906 to 1914, he took part in the financial debates and taught at the ESLP (CitationLeroy-Beaulieu 1915, 243–).11. Inspector of Finance, several times Minister of Finance and President of the Council in 1911–1912, Joseph Caillaux was the main advocate of the introduction of income tax.12. Payable as of 1 January 1916, but income tax returns could be filed and tax assessments estimated where returns were not filed until 31 December 1916.13. See his many articles on these countries in the RSLF from 1915 to 1918.14. This was still a possibility in 1918 when Jèze compared the allies’ finances (see CitationJèze 1918b). In this, he noted the American controversy between Patten, who wanted solely tax increases, and Seligman, who was looking at a mix of bonds and taxes.15. See also CitationSeligman (1918b) and (Citation1920).16. The United States had a much higher proportion of taxes to bonds than the United Kingdom or France.17. Following the tax on payments decided by the Act of 31 December 1917, the first tax on turnover (‘taxe sur le chiffre d'affaires’) was created by the Act of 25 June 1920.18. Clarification of the accounts was impossible prior to 1919 (despite much-needed adjustments made by Klotz in 1917) and the creation of the Budget and Financial Audit Directorate. The Budget Review Act for 1914 was presented in September 1919; the Budget Review Act for 1915 was passed in 1931. Financial order was slowly restored with the Act of 29 December 1923 (which closed the war accounts), Etienne Clémentel's inventory of France's financial situation in 1924, and the introduction of the Poincaré franc in 1928.19. Unable to present a reliable, annual budget plan, Government asked Parliament to authorise expenditure from provisional appropriations until it could settle the war-years accounts. Even before the war, when a budget was not voted before the deadline of December 31, there were authorisations to spend for the next few months, until the budget was voted. So they are called provisional-twelfths arrangements.20. The Chamber of Deputies, today called the National Assembly, had the last word over the upper house, the Senate.21. Socialist Deputy expert in financial matters to the Chamber.22. In CitationJèze (1917a, 38), the author explains how, ‘the government believed or strove to believe that fiat money inflation was a phenomenon unknown to the government,’ and that, ‘inflation had no effect on the increase in prices.’ He lamented the fact that the Banque de France, less independent than the Bank of England, had given in to the government's demands and had, despite valid excuses, ‘allowed fiat money to grow constantly and excessively,’ which had raised public expenditure. Although he condemned inflation for actually being a form of forced loan, all the more unfair, in that it weighed more on people with fixed incomes, Jèze did not mention that it also reduced the burden of debt.23. See, on this subject, the general report drafted by Jèze in 1913 on behalf of the committee on measures to hold the budget vote on its normal date (9 March 1914) (French Journal Officiel, 27 November 1917, Appendix: 279–290) and the report by Jèze in the RSLF, Citation1917, 652.24. Louis Trotabas (1898–1985) graduated with a PhD in 1921. He specialised in public and administrative law, fiscal and tax law, and public accounting.25. Much like the German historical school of economics and the German school of financial sociology which went down with the Great War. Despite the creation of the Public Finance Sector at the Comparative Law Institute of the Paris Law Faculty (set up by Dean Allix) in 1935 and the International Institute of Public Finance in 1937, there has never been a ‘French school of financial sociology’, but merely a handful of heirs to Sismondi, Esquirou de Parieu, Jèze, Wagner, Goldscheid, Pareto, Einaudi, Nitti, Flora, Borgatta, Lolini, and Sensini, embodied in France by Gabriel Ardant, Gérard Dehove, Jean Dubergé, Jean-Claude Ducros, and Marc Leroy.26. Political science has had an altogether different fate: without any real founding father, it gradually developed on the basis of a wide range of, sometimes mediocre, publications without any canonical dogmatism being established. It only really took off after 1918. See CitationFavre (1989).27. In this paper, meaning a writer-journalist rather than an expert in public law.28. After the war, Allix was appointed French expert on the Dawes Committee, member of the Committee for the Implementation of the Report of the Experts Committee (with Jèze) and member of the London Conference Preparatory Commission. Advisor to Paul Doumer (1921–1929), Dean of the Paris Law Faculty (1933), President of the International Institute of Public Finance and member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (1936), Allix published the Annales de Finances Publiques Comparées in 1936–1939 and 1945–1951 in which he studied comparative military expenditure in Europe.29. On Truchy, see CitationLe Van-Lemesle (2004), 531–537.30. On Gide, see CitationLe Van-Lemesle (2004), 547–551.31. At the Collège de France from 1921 to 1930, he published his first thoughts on the general cost of the war to the economy in 1923 (and then, in French, in 1931) (CitationGide 1923; CitationGide and Oualid 1931).32. On Liesse, see CitationLe Van-Lemesle (2004), 413–418.33. On Rist, see CitationLe Van-Lemesle (2004), 551–555.34. After the war (1920), Rist was appointed Professor of Social Economy and History of Economic Doctrines at the Paris Law Faculty. He was elected to the ASMP in 1928 and served as Deputy Governor of the Banque de France.
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