Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi

Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, also known as Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi, (ʒɑ̃ ʃaʁl leɔnaʁ də sismɔ̃di; 9 May 1773 – 25 June 1842), whose real surname was Simonde, was a Swiss historian and political economist, who is best known for his works on French and Italian history, and his economic ideas. His Nouveaux principes d'économie politique, ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population (1819) represents the first liberal critique of laissez-faire economics. He was one of the pioneering advocates of unemployment insurance, sickness benefits, a progressive tax, regulation of working hours, and a pension scheme. He was also the first to coin the term proletariat to refer to the working class created under capitalism, and his discussion of mieux value anticipates the concept of surplus value. According to Gareth Stedman Jones, "much of what Sismondi wrote became part of the standard repertoire of socialist criticism of modern industry," earning him critical commentary in the Communist Manifesto. His paternal family seem to have borne the name Simonde, at least from the time when they migrated from Dauphiné to Geneva at the revocation of the edict of Nantes. It was not till after Sismondi had become an author that, observing the identity of his family arms with those of the once flourishing Pisan house of the Sismondi and finding that some members of that house had migrated to France, he assumed the connection without further proof and called himself Sismondi. The Simondes, however, were themselves citizens of Geneva of the upper class, and possessed both rank and property, though the father was also a village pastor. His uncle by marriage was the prominent pastor Jacob Vernes, a friend of Voltaire and Rousseau. The future historian was well educated, but his family wished him to devote himself to commerce rather than literature, and he became a banker's clerk in Lyon. Then the Revolution broke out, and as it affected Geneva, the Simonde family took refuge in England where they stayed for eighteen months (1793–1794).