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Alfred Sauvy (31 October 1898 – 30 October 1990) was a demographer, anthropologist and
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
of the French economy. Sauvy coined the term Third World ("Tiers Monde") in reference to countries that were unaligned with either the Communist Soviet bloc or the Capitalist NATO bloc during the Cold War.


Biography

Sauvy was born in
Villeneuve-de-la-Raho Villeneuve-de-la-Raho (; ca, Vilanova de Raó) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department, southern France. Geography Villeneuve-de-la-Raho is located in the canton of La Plaine d'Illibéris and in the arrondissement of Perpignan ...
( Pyrénées-Orientales) in 1898 to a family of
Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
wine-growers, and educated at the École Polytechnique. After graduating, he worked at Statistique Générale de France until 1937. He took part in the X-Crise Group. From 1938, he was economic advisor to Minister of Finance Paul Reynaud until the second world war broke out in 1939. Under the
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
occupation, Sauvy contributed to the ''Bulletins rouge-brique'', a government-sanctioned periodical. After the war,
Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...
offered to appoint him to the position of General Secretary for Family and Population, but Sauvy preferred to devote himself to demographics. From 1940-1959, he taught at the Institut d’études politiques (IEP) and was Professor of Social Demography at the Collège de France. He became director of INED (National Institute of Demographic Studies) and simultaneously represented France at the commission of Statistics and Population of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
. He was a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
(1973) and the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
(1974). He wrote for ''
Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' until his death in October 1990.


Key ideas

Writing in 1949, Sauvy described potential overpopulation as a 'false problem' and argued against attempts at global population control. He suggested examining countries on a case-by-case basis to determine whether they lack the raw materials and natural resources that can support a larger population. Otherwise, he thought that we run the risk of underpopulating a country that could support a much larger population Sauvy coined the term 'Third World' in an article published in the French magazine, '' L'Observateur'' on August 14, 1952. He wrote: :"...car enfin, ce Tiers Monde ignoré, exploité, méprisé comme le Tiers Etat, veut lui aussi, être quelque chose" :"...because at the end, this ignored, exploited, scorned Third World, like the Third Estate, wants also, to become something". Sauvy coined Third World by analogy with the Third Estate and the above quote is a paraphrase of Sieyès's famous sentence about the Third Estate during the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
.


Works

*1958 ''De Malthus à Mao-Tsé-Toung'' (Collection Thémis -Sciences sociales) *1977 ''Coût et valeur de la vie humaine''—Paris : Hermann, 210 p. *1980 ''La machine et le chômage : les progrès techniques et l'emploi''—Paris : Dunod/Bordas, 320 p. *1984 ''Le travail noir et l'économie de demain''—Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 304 p. *1985 ''De la rumeur à l'histoire''—Paris : Dunod, 304 p. *1990 ''La terre et les hommes : le monde où il va, le monde d'où il vient''—Paris : Economica, 187 p.


Legacy

The Prix Alfred Sauvy (Alfred Sauvy Prize) is awarded annually to startup projects and social enterprises in the Pyrénées-Orientales region. There are streets named after Sauvy in Pollestres, Rivesaltes, and Villemolaque in France.


References

*Martínez Coll, Juan Carlos (2001): Grandes Economistas
Economistas - Enciclopedia EMVI , eumed.net
February 22, 2004 *Tepperman, Lorne (2007): Social Problems: A Canadian Perspective

December 11, 2010 *The ttp://www.homme-moderne.org/societe/demo/sauvy/3mondes.html original articlepublished '' L'Observateur'' on August 14, 1952. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sauvy, Alfred 1898 births 1990 deaths People from Pyrénées-Orientales École Polytechnique alumni Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur 20th-century French historians French male non-fiction writers 20th-century French male writers French demographers Members of the American Philosophical Society