Perroux’s 1949 Note sur la Politique Économique du Fédéralisme

L’Europe sans rivages, published in 1954 mostly as a reaction against Monnet’s idea of functional Europe, is considered Perroux’s most relevant (critical) contribution to European integration. Its final section contains critiques to unionism, functionalism, and federalism. His skepticism towards a functional strategy towards a federal Europe, though, was dependent upon the specific attitude of the most renown (especially French) federalist intellectuals to build a supranational actor that might become, in Perroux’s eyes, protectionist and inward-looking, thus jeopardizing the perspectives for a genuine world integration. Perroux’s book was allegedly targeting the Coal and Steel Community established in 1951 and the process towards a European Defense Community that, although unanimously agreed upon, would soon be failing the ratification process. An unpublished typewritten Note on the Economic Policy of Federalism dated February 9th, 1949, addressed to Alexander Marc (Secretary General of the Union of European Federalists) challenges this interpretation, and helps understanding that Perroux had been working on these arguments much earlier. Together with a letter that Perroux sent at the end of 1949 to Ambassador Eirik Labonne and Jacques Racine (both reproduced at the end), such archival material further highlights the role that federalism played in Perroux’s reflection on the economics of dominance.

Keywords:François Perroux, European economic integration, federalism, asymmetry of power in economics

Jel codes:B19, F15, F42, F53, H77

Fabio Masini, Perroux’s 1949 Note sur la Politique Économique du Fédéralisme in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 1/2024, pp 99-122, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2024-001004