Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism

The most influential form of early socialism, as far as mainstream social and political thought is concerned, was Saint-Simonism. Its founder was Henri de Saint-Simon (1760– 1825), a French nobleman who fought in the American War of Independence, and renounced his title at the French Revolution. Thereafter he became involved in canal construction and land development, but was ruined financially in 1804. His main

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writings, published between 1803–17, are neither communitarian nor, strictly speaking, socialist; it was his chief followers who extended his ideas in this direction, or who, like his secretary, AUGUSTE COMTE, build upon his analysis of industrial society, which is influential on THOMAS CARLYLE, JOHN STUART MILL, Karl Marx and others. His endeavour to provide a new form of spiritual authority, or ‘new religion’, called ‘Physicism’ (or, sometimes, ‘Positive Philosophy’), which would be based upon science rather than theology, and take Newton as its founder, was also taken up by Comte in particular, and developed into the system called ‘Positivism’. (Prior to its public acceptance, however, Saint-Simon counselled deism as a popular religion.)

Saint-Simon’s chief contribution to socialism was his account of ‘industrialism’ (a term he coined) and its implications for the reshaping of the modern world, notably in L’Industrie (1816–18). Society is categorized in terms of three main classes, scientists, writers and artists; proprietors; and toilers. Spiritual power should reside with the former, temporal power, or control of the state, with the proprietors, and the right of election with all workers. All useful workers are ‘industrialists’, according to Saint-Simon, since work is the basis of all virtue, and all incomes not based on work were essentially robbery. The failure of the French Revolution lay in the assumption of power by the most ignorant, and an over-concentration on perfecting the mechanism of government, when the chief aim should have been the subordination of government to administration. Here we see that the analysis of politics is vastly more important to Saint-Simon than to Owen or Fourier, or for that matter most other nineteenth-century socialists. For Saint-Simon the present was an age of transition, in which the natural progress of society was from a governmental, or

a feudal, military or predatory regime, to an administrative or industrial regime, in which the functions of government will be minimized to the prevention of any disruption of useful work, while the class of industrialists would promote the greatest production of useful things. This is, for Saint-Simon, a meritocratic ideal, and one hostile to feudal privilege and economic interference; as such it is close in some particulars to the liberal economics of ‘the immortal’ Adam Smith. (Saint-Simon also believed that taxes would

be much reduced in the juster industrial system.) Much more important than political participation, thus, was economic participation, and Saint-Simon anticipated a growing interdependence in the productive process, which would promote a greater harmony of interests between the various types of industrialists, with decision-making being based less on command and obedience than persuasion and argument. National parliaments would formulate an economic ‘plan’, but this respected public works only; as a whole the economy itself was to remain independent of political control in order to maximize efficiency and minimize parasitism and interference. This was outlined at length in L’Organisateur (1819). Having subverted the idea of government from an economic viewpoint, Saint-Simon went on to propose, in Concerning the Reorganization of European Society (1814), the further diminution of the powers of the separate European states by the creation of a European parliament composed of two houses, one of nobility, the other of businessmen, scientists, administrators and magistrates. Saint-Simon’s Le Politique (1819) also advocated the abolition of standing armies. Only in his last works, notably the Système industrial (1821), does Saint-Simon move towards socialism, mainly by arguing that the government should guarantee the right of work.

Saint-Simon’s followers were interested not only in his philosophy of history and theory of industrial society, but also the practical application of his ideas. Positivism

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proposed an influential replacement for Christianity, echoing Saint-Simon’s view that the reinforcement of spiritual power was crucial to the transitional age, particularly during an intermediary stage when theology was still widely approved. Saint-Simon’s followers addressed this in the chief interpretation of his writings, The Doctrine of Saint-Simon (1828–9), which also argued for greater equality for women, the increased facility of divorce, an expansion in national education, and both greater freedom of trade and closer integration of the state and the system of production, especially through a remodelling of the banking system. Such views were popularized in the 1820s and 1830s by men like Olinde Rodrigue, BARTHÉLEMY-PROSPER ENFANTIN, Philippe Buchez, Saint- Amand Bazard, Gustave d’Eichtal and Michel Chevalier. By the late 1830s they had made a substantial impact on intellectual life in Britain, Germany and elsewhere. The movement began to split, however, in part over the issue of whether a female Messiah was needed to reveal the next stage of doctrine, upon which Enfantin insisted. By the 1840s its influence had dwindled, though its philosophy of history and account of industrial society were developed by various thinkers, including Marx.

Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism