Doctrinal History of hte Teaching Staff of Political Economy in French Faculties from 1945 to 1958[Histoire doctrinale du corps professoral d’économie politique dans les facultés françaises de 1945 à 1958]

This article studies the history of economic sciences in France during the period 1945 – 1958. It places the doctrinal history of the body of full professors in the very rich history of scientific policies which characterize these years of reconstruction. In 1942 the body of professors of political economy in the Faculties was made up of 16% liberal, 13% socialist and 69% interventionist. In 1958 the distribution was as follows: 9% liberal, 26% socialist and 65% interventionist. The civil servant exams under the Fourth Republic consolidated, on the one hand, the new interventionist orthodoxy of the faculties which was implemented during the years 1877-1942 and the decline of the liberals and established, on the other hand, a socialist school and in particular a group of Marxist professors, thought until these years absent from law faculties. These developments confirm that the demand for expertise from administrations and governments and public funding of research in economic sciences are not without consequences on the nature of the accumulated knowledge and the questions that economists ask of reality. There is, in fact, a concomitance of two events, the installation of a government of science and by science on one side and on the other a recruitment of professors who by their specialty, the tools of planning and economic policy, develop government techniques for political power.