František Ladislav Chleborad

F. L. Chleborad ranks among the top Czech economists and pioneers of the labour cooperative system. He, the first in Bohemia, tried to define a macroeconomic view of organizing economic conditions in the society. According to professor Vencovský, "Chleborad was a patriot whose aim was the economic prosperity of the nation, in particular the working classes, and he was also a pioneer, introducing economic knowledge to the general public. It can be said that in the field of economic education he was a national awakener, like many others in the cultural and linguistic fields."

F. L. Chleborad was born on 24 November 1839 in the little town of Habry by today's Havlíčkův Brod. After graduating from the Old Town grammar school, he studied law and economics in Prague; concurrently he worked as a tutor for  Count Desfour-Walderode. In 1967 he set out on a journey through Western Europe, where he was particularly interested in the living conditions of the working classes and the activities of its suppliers and production unions. There he saw a remedy for poverty. After he returned to Bohemia, he wrote several pamphlets about  workers' self-government based on his experience and opinions from abroad (Help to poor workers, etc) in which he encouraged the workers to unite, to improve themselves and to educate themselves. He developed and proposed the statutes  "Society of United Fighters for the Prosperity of the Working Classes". In its lines in 1868 he initiated the foundation of a workers self-help society under the name Oul (The Hive) and became its chairperson. Similar societies were set in other cities and towns as well. He took credit  also for the foundation of the Slavia bank that insured  workers for old age and sickness, and in which he was the general manager for some time. He promoted the cooperative system in many periodicals that he founded, such as Oul (The Hive), Dělník (The Worker), Včela (The Bee), etc. Nevertheless, the well-developing cooperative system suffered a severe blow by the collapse of exchange in 1873. Chleborad submitted an application for his second doctorate in economics at  Prague University, but after the intervention of German professors it was refused. Afterwards he suffered a round of public disputes and property failures that were, apart from other things, influenced by his explosive character. Chleborad surrendered his public activities, left Prague and worked as a lawyer in various places in Bohemia. Due to further disputes and property problems he finally moved to Russia, where he gradually achieved a position of an adviser at the ministry of finance. He was in fact the first Czech economist who emigrated, and the first one who emigrated to Russia. He died in St Petersburg in 1911.

Chleborad wrote many publications and minor monographs on various themes, e.g. On the influence of trade on the prosperity of the working classes, Struggle for property, etc. The System of National Political Economy was his principal work. He published it at his own expense in 1869. In it he clearly explains the history of the economic process from ancient times to the  present, views of individual economic schools, fundamental economic terms and interrelations. He flatly rejects both the Manchester school, that asserts free operating at the market, and any socialism. He prefers an economic system in which  individual ownership and freedom of individuals agree with the interest of the public. All his works contain his idea of solving  the worker's issue by converting into a cooperative system. The evaluation of professor Vencovský is worth noting: "Chleborad's self-confident attitude, and critical view of ideas of classics as well as socialists of all movements of that time arouses respect as does his effort to base everything on one's own criteria, analyses and one's own generalization of economic processes. In many of Chleborad's works the social and moral feeling for the economic prosperity of the Czech nation prevailed over the expert theoretical thoughts."

Mgr. Vladimír Seidl

On this CD-ROM there can be found the following from the works of F. L. Chleborad: