Michel Chevalier

Chevalier, Michel (mēshĕl' shəvälyā'), 1806-79, French economist. An ardent Saint-Simonian as a youth, he later favored a form of welfare capitalism. He advocated industrial development as the key to social progress. Also a proponent of free trade, he negotiated with Richard Cobden the Anglo-French trade treaty of 1860. His Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord (1836) extols the United States.