A History of Economic Doctrines / from the time of the physiocrats to the present day

by Charles Gide; Charles Rist

CHAPTER II: SAINT-SIMON, THE SAINT-SIMONIANS, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF COLLECTIVISM

Sismondi, by supplementing the study of political economy by a study of social economics, had already much enlarged the area traced for the science by its founders. But while giving distribution the position of honour in his discussion, he never dared carry his criticism as far as an examination of that fundamental institution of modern society—private property. Property, at least, he thought legitimate and necessary. Every English and French economist had always treated it as a thing apart—a fact so indisputable and inevitable that it formed the very basis of all their speculations.

Suddenly, however, we come upon a number of writers who, while definitely rejecting all complicity with the earlier communists and admitting neither equality of needs nor of faculties, but tending to an agreement with the economists in claiming the maximum of production as the one aim of economic organisation, dare lay their hands upon the sacred ark and attack the institution of property with whole-hearted vigour. Venturing upon what had hitherto been holy ground, they displayed so much skill and courage that every idea and every formula which became a commonplace of the socialistic literature of the later nineteenth century already finds a place in their system. Having definite ideas as to the end which they had in view, they challenged the institution of private property because of its effects upon the distribution and production of wealth. They cast doubt upon the theories concerning its historical evolution, and concluded that its abolition would help the perfection of the scientific and industrial organisation of modern society. The problem of private property was at last faced, and a recurrence of the discussion was henceforth to become a feature of economic science.[435]

Not that it had hitherto been neglected. Utopian communists from Plato and More up to Mably, Morelly, Godwin, and Babeuf, the eighteenth-century equalitarians, all rest their case upon a criticism of property. But hitherto the question had been treated from the point of view of ethics rather than of economics.[436] The originality of the Saint-Simonian treatment is that it is the direct outcome of the economic and political revolution which shook France and the whole of Europe towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The socialism of Saint-Simon is not a vague aspiration for some pristine equality which was largely a creation of the imagination. It is rather the naïve expression of juvenile enthusiasm in the presence of the new industrial régime begotten of mechanical invention and scientific discovery. The modern spirit at its best is what it would fain reveal. It sought to interpret the generous aspirations of the new bourgeois class, freed through the instrumentality of the Revolution from the tutelage of baron and priest, and to show how the reactionary policy of the Restoration threatened its triumph. Not content, however, with confining itself to the intellectual orbit of the bourgeoisie, it sought also to define the sphere of the workers in future society and to lay down regulations for their benefit. But its appeal was chiefly to the more cultured classes—engineers, bankers, artists, and savants. It was to these men—all of them members of the better classes—that the Saint-Simonians preached collectivism and the suppression of inheritance as the easiest way of founding a new society upon the basis of science and industry. Hence the great stir which the new ideas caused.

Consequently Saint-Simonism appears to be a somewhat unexpected extension of economic Liberalism rather than a tardy renewal of ancient socialistic conceptions.

We must, in fact, distinguish between two currents in Saint-Simonism. The one represents the doctrine preached by Saint-Simon himself, the other is that of his disciples, the Saint-Simonians. Saint-Simon’s creed can best be described as “industrialism” plus a slight admixture of socialism, and it thus naturally links itself with economic Liberalism, of which it is simply an exaggerated development. The disciples’ doctrine, on the other hand, can only be described as collectivism. But it is a collectivism logically deduced from two of the master’s principles which have been extended and amplified. For a history of economic ideas it is the theories of the disciples that matter most, perhaps. But it would be impossible to understand these without knowing something of Saint-Simon’s theory. We shall give an explanation of his doctrine, first attempting to show the links which surely, though strangely enough, affiliate the socialism of Saint-Simon with economic Liberalism.

I: SAINT-SIMON AND INDUSTRIALISM

Saint-Simon was a nobleman who led a somewhat dissolute, adventurous life. At the early age of sixteen he took part in the American War of Independence. The Revolution witnessed the abandonment of his claim to nobility, but by successful speculation in national property he was enabled to retrieve his fortune to some extent. Imprisoned as a suspect at Sainte-Pélagie, set free on the 9th Thermidor, he attained a certain notoriety as a man of affairs interested chiefly in travels and amusements and as a dilettante student of the sciences. From the moment of his release he began to regard himself as a kind of Messiah.[437] He was profoundly impressed by what seemed to him to be the birth of a new society at which he had himself assisted, in which the moral and political and even physical conditions of life were suddenly torn up by the roots, when ancient beliefs disappeared and nothing seemed ready to take their place. He himself was to be the evangelist of the new gospel, and with this object in view on the 4th Messidor, An. VI, he called together the capitalists who were already associated with him and, pointing out the great necessity for restoring public confidence, proposed the establishment of a gigantic bank whose funds might be employed in setting up works of public utility—a proof of the curious way in which economic and philosophic considerations were already linked together in his thoughts.[438] An ill-considered marriage which was hastily broken off, however, was followed by a period of much extravagance and great misery. By the year 1805 so reduced were his circumstances that he was glad to avail himself of the generosity of one of his old servants. After her death he lived partly upon the modest pension provided him by his family and partly upon the contributions of a few tradesmen, but he was again so miserable that in 1823 he attempted suicide. A banker of the name of Olinde Rodrigues came to the rescue this time and supplied him with the necessary means of support. He died in 1825, surrounded by a number of his disciples who had watched over the last moments of his earthly life. During all these years, haunted as he was by the need for giving to the new century the doctrine it so much required, he was constantly engaged in publishing brochures, new works, or selections from his earlier publications, sometimes alone and sometimes in collaboration with others,[439] in which the same suggestions are always revived and the same ideas keep recurring, but in slightly different forms.

Saint-Simon’s earlier work was an attempt to establish a scientific synthesis which might furnish mankind with a system of positive morality to take the place of religious dogmas. It was to be a kind of “scientific breviary” where all phenomena could be deduced from one single idea, that of “universal gravitation.” He himself has treated us to a full account of this system, which is as deceptive as it is simple, and which shows us his serious limitations as a philosopher whose ambition far outran his knowledge. Auguste Comte, one of his disciples, attempted a similar task in his Cours de Philosophie positive and in the Politique positive, so that Saint-Simon, who is usually considered the father of socialism, finds himself also the father of positivism.

From 1814 up to his death in 1825 he partly relinquished his interest in philosophy and devoted himself almost exclusively to the exposition of his social and political ideas, which are the only ones that interest us here.

His economics might be summed up as an apotheosis of industry, using the latter word in the widest sense, much as Smith had employed the term as synonymous with labour of all kind.

His leading ideas, contained within the compass of a few striking pages, have since become known as “Saint-Simon’s Parable.”

“Let us suppose,” says he, “that France suddenly loses fifty of her first-class doctors, fifty first-class chemists, fifty first-class physiologists, fifty first-class bankers, two hundred of her best merchants, six hundred of her foremost agriculturists, five hundred of her most capable ironmasters, etc. [enumerating the principal industries]. Seeing that these men are its most indispensable producers, makers of its most important products, the minute that it loses these the nation will degenerate into a mere soulless body and fall into a state of despicable weakness in the eyes of rival nations, and will remain in this subordinate position so long as the loss remains and their places are vacant. Let us take another supposition. Imagine that France retains all her men of genius, whether in the arts and sciences or in the crafts and industries, but has the misfortune to lose on the same day the king’s brother, the Duke of Angoulême, and all the other members of the royal family; all the great officers of the Crown; all ministers of State, whether at the head of a department or not; all the Privy Councillors; all the masters of requests; all the marshals, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, grand vicars and canons; all prefects and sub-prefects; all Government employees; all the judges; and on top of that a hundred thousand proprietors—the cream of her nobility. Such an overwhelming catastrophe would certainly aggrieve the French, for they are a kindly-disposed nation. But the loss of a hundred and thirty thousand of the best-reputed individuals in the State would give rise to sorrow of a purely sentimental kind. It would not cause the community the least inconvenience.”[440]

In other words, the official Government is a mere façade. Its action is wholly superficial. Society might exist without it and life would be none the less happy. But the disappearance of the savants, industrial leaders, bankers, and merchants would leave the community crippled. The very sources of wealth would dry up, for their activities are really fruitful and necessary. They are the true governors who wield real power. Such was the parable.

According to Saint-Simon, little observation is needed to realise that the world we live in is based upon industry, and that anything besides industry is scarcely worth the attention of thinking people. A long process of historical evolution, which according to Saint-Simon commenced in the twelfth century with the enfranchisement of the communes and culminated in the French Revolution, had prepared the way for it.[441] At least industry is the one cardinal feature of the present day.

The political concerns of his contemporaries were regarded with some measure of despair. The majority of them were engaged either in defending or attacking the Charter of 1814. The Liberals were simply deceiving themselves, examining old and meaningless formulæ such as “the sovereignty of the people,” “liberty,” and “equality”—conceptions that never had any meaning,[442] but were simply metaphysical creations of the jurists,[443] and they ought to have realised that this kind of work was perfectly useless now that the feudal régime was overthrown. Men in future will have something better to do than to defend the Charter against the “ultras.” The parliamentary régime may be very necessary, but it is just a passing phase between the feudalism of yesterday and the new order of to-morrow.[444] That future order is Industrialism—a social organisation having only one end in view, the further development of industry, the source of all wealth and prosperity.

The new régime implies first of all the abolition of all class distinction. There will be no need for either nobles, bourgeois, or clergy. There will be only two categories, workers and idlers—or the bees and the drones, as Saint-Simon puts it. Sometimes he refers to them as the national and anti-national party. In the new society the second class[445] is bound to disappear, for there is only room for the first. This class includes, besides manual workers,[446] agriculturists, artisans, manufacturers, bankers, savants, and artists.[447] Between these persons there ought to be no difference except that which results from their different capacities, or what Saint-Simon calls their varying stakes in the national interest. “Industrial equality,” he writes, “consists in each drawing from society benefits exactly proportionate to his share in the State—that is, in proportion to his potential capacity and the use which he makes of the means at his disposal—including, of course, his capital.”[448] Saint-Simon evidently has no desire to rob the capitalists of their revenues; his hostility is reserved for the landed proprietors.

Not only must every social distinction other than that founded upon labour and ability disappear, but government in the ordinary sense of the term will largely become unnecessary. “National association” for Saint-Simon merely meant “industrial enterprise.” “France was to be turned into a factory and the nation organised on the model of a vast workshop”; but “the task of preventing thefts and of checking other disorders in a factory is a matter of quite secondary importance and can be discharged by subordinates.”[449] In a similar fashion, the function of government in industrial society must be limited to “defending workers from the unproductive sluggard and maintaining security and freedom for the producer.”[450]

So far Saint-Simon’s “industrialism” is scarcely distinguishable from the “Liberalism” of Smith and his followers, especially J. B. Say’s. Charles Comte and Dunoyer, writing in their review, Le Censeur, were advancing exactly similar doctrines,[451] sometimes even using identical terms. “Plenty of scope for talent” and laissez-faire were some of the favourite maxims of the Liberal bourgeois. Such also were the aspirations of Saint-Simon.

But it is just here that the tone changes.[452]

Assuming that France has become a huge factory, the most important task that awaits the nation is to inaugurate the new manufacturing régime and to seek to combine the interests of the entrepreneurs with those of the workers on the one hand and of the consumers on the other. There is thus just enough room for government—of a kind. What is required is the organising of forces rather than the governing of men.[453] Politics need not disappear altogether, but “must be transformed into a positive science of productive organisation.”[454] “Under the old system the tendency was to increase the power of government by establishing the ascendancy of the higher classes over the lower. Under the new system the aim must be to combine all the forces of society in such a fashion as to secure the successful execution of all those works which tend to improve the lot of its members either morally or physically.”[455]

Such will be the task of the new government, where capacity will replace power and direction will take the place of command.[456] Applying itself to the execution of those tasks upon which there is complete unanimity, most of them requiring some degree of deliberation and yet promptness of action, it will gradually transform the character of politics by concentrating attention upon matters affecting life or well-being—the only things it need ever concern itself with.[457]

In order to make his meaning clearer, Saint-Simon proposes to confine the executive power to a Chamber of Deputies recruited from the representatives of commerce, industry, manufacture, and agriculture. These would be charged with the final acceptance or refusal of the legislative proposals submitted to them by the other two Chambers, composed exclusively of savants, artists, and engineers. The sole concern of all legislation would, of course, be the development of the country’s material wealth.[458]

An economic rather than a political form of government, administering things instead of governing men, with a society modelled on the workshop and a nation transformed into a productive association having as its one object “the increase of positive utility by means of peaceful industry”[459]—such are the ruling conceptions which distinguish Saint-Simon from the Liberals and serve to bring him into the ranks of the socialists. His central idea will be enthusiastically welcomed by the Marxian collectivists, and Engels speaks of it as the most important doctrine which its author ever propounded.[460] Proudhon accepts it, and as a practical ideal proposes the absorption of government and its total extinction in economic organisation. The same idea occurs in Menger’s Neue Staatslehre,[461] and in Sorel’s writings, where he speaks of “reorganising society on the model of a factory.”[462]

It is this novel conception of government that most clearly distinguishes Saint-Simon’s industrialism from economic Liberalism.[463]

But, despite the fact that he gave to socialism one of its most fruitful conceptions, we hardly know whether to class Saint-Simon as a socialist or not, especially if we consider that the essence of socialism consists in the abolition of private property. It is true that in one celebrated passage he speaks of the transformation of private property.[464] But it is quite an isolated exception. Capital as well as labour, he thought, were entitled to remuneration. The one as well as the other involved some social outlay. He would probably have been quite content with a purely governmental reform.

It would not be difficult, however, to take the ideal of industrialism as outlined by Saint-Simon as the basis of a demand for a much more radical reform and a much more violent attack upon society. Such was the task which the Saint-Simonians took upon themselves, and our task now is to show how collectivism was gradually evolved out of industrialism.

II: THE SAINT-SIMONIANS AND THEIR CRITICISM OF PRIVATE PROPERTY

Saint-Simon’s works were scarcely ever read. His influence was essentially personal, and the task of spreading a knowledge of his ideas devolved upon a number of talented disciples whom he had succeeded in gathering round him. Augustin Thierry, who was his secretary from 1814 to 1817, became his adopted son. Auguste Comte, who occupied a similar post, was a collaborator in all his publications between 1817 and 1824. Olinde Rodrigues and his brother Eugène were both among his earliest disciples. Enfantin, an old student of the Polytechnic, and Bazard, an old Carbonaro who had grown weary of political experiments, were also of the number. Soon after the death of Saint-Simon his following founded a journal called Le Producteur with a view to popularising his ideas. Most of the articles on economics were contributed by Enfantin. The paper lasted only for one year, although the number of converts to the new doctrine was rapidly increasing. All of them were persuaded that Saint-Simon’s ideas furnished the basis of a really modern faith which would at once supplant both decadent Catholicism and political Liberalism, the latter of which, in their opinion, was a purely negative doctrine.

In order to strengthen the intellectual ties which already united them, this band of enthusiasts set up among themselves a sort of hierarchy having at its summit a kind of college or institution composed of the more representative members of the group, upon whom the title “fathers” was bestowed. The next lower grade was composed of “sons,” who were to regard one another as “brothers.” It was in 1828, under the influence of Eugène Rodrigues, that the Saint-Simonians assumed this character of an organised sect. About the same time Bazard, one of their number, was giving an exposition of the creed in a series of popular lectures. These lectures, delivered during the years 1828-30, and listened to by many men who were afterwards to play an important part in the history of France, such as Ferdinand de Lesseps, A. Carrel, H. Carnot, the brothers Péreire, and Michel Chevalier, were published in two volumes under the title Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint-Simon. The second volume is more particularly concerned with philosophy and ethics. The first includes the social doctrine of the school, and according to Menger forms one of the most important expositions of modern socialism.[465]

Unfortunately, under the influence of Enfantin the philosophical and mystical element gained the upper hand and led to the downfall of the school.

The Saint-Simonians considered that it was not enough to take modern humanity into its confidence and reveal to it its social destiny. It must be taught to love and desire that destiny with all the ardour of romantic youth. For the accomplishment of this end there must exist a unity of action and thought such as a common religious conviction alone can confer. And so Saint-Simonism became a religion, a cult with a moral code of its own, with meetings organised and churches founded in different parts of the country, and with apostles ready to carry the good tidings to distant lands. A striking phenomenon surely, and worthy the fullest study. It was a genuine burst of religious enthusiasm among men opposed to established religion but possessed of fine scientific culture—the majority of whom, however, as it turned out, were better equipped for business than for the propagation of a new gospel.

Enfantin and Bazard were to be the popes of this new Catholicism. But Bazard soon retired and Enfantin became “supreme Father.” He withdrew, with forty of the disciples, into a house at Ménilmontant, where they lived a kind of conventual life from April to December 1831. Meanwhile the other propagandists were as active as ever, the work being now carried on in the columns of Le Globe, which became the property of the school in July 1831. This strange experiment was cut short by judicial proceedings, which resulted in a year’s imprisonment for Enfantin, Duverger, and Michel Chevalier, all of whom were found guilty of forming an illegal association. This was the signal for dispersion.

The last phase was the most extravagant in the whole history of the school, and naturally it was the phase that attracted most attention. The simple social doctrine of Saint-Simon was overwhelmed by the new religion of the Saint-Simonians, much as the Positivist religion for a while succeeded in eclipsing the Positive philosophy. Our concern, of course, is chiefly with the social doctrine as expounded in the first volume of the Exposition. That doctrine is sufficiently new to be regarded as an original development and not merely as a résumé of Saint-Simon’s ideas. Both Bazard and Enfantin had some hand in it. But it is almost certain that it was the latter who supplied the economic ideas,[466] and that to the formation of those ideas Sismondi’s work contributed not a little. The work is quite as remarkable for the vigorous logical presentation of the doctrine as it is for the originality of its ideas. The oblivion into which it has fallen is not easily explicable, especially if we compare it with the many mediocre productions that have somehow managed to survive. There are not wanting signs of a revived interest in the doctrines, and for our own part we are inclined to give them a very high place among the economic writings of the century.

The Doctrine de Saint-Simon resolves itself into an elaborate criticism of private property.

The criticism is directed from two points of view—that of distribution and that of the production of wealth, that of justice and that of utility. The attack is carried on from both sides at once, and most of the arguments used during the course of the century are here hurled indiscriminately against the institution of private property. The doctrines of Saint-Simon contributed not a little to the success of the campaign.

(a) Saint-Simon had already emphasised the impossibility of workers and idlers coexisting in the new society. Industrialism could hold out no promise for the second class. Ability and labour only had any claim to remuneration. By some peculiar misconception, however, Saint-Simon had regarded capital as involving some degree of personal sacrifice which entitled it to special remuneration. It was here that the Saint-Simonians intervened. Was it not perfectly obvious that private property in capital was the worst of all privileges? The Revolution had swept away caste distinctions and suppressed the right of primogeniture, which tended to perpetuate inequality among members of the same family, but had failed to touch individual property and its privilege of “laying a toll upon the industry of others.” This right of levying a tax is the fundamental idea in all their definitions of private property.[467] Property, according to the generally accepted meaning of the term to-day, consists of wealth which is not destined to be immediately consumed, but which entitles its owner to a revenue. Within this category are included the two agents of production, land and capital. These are primarily instruments of production, whatever else they may be. Property-owners and capitalists—two classes that need not be distinguished for our present purpose—have the control of these instruments. Their function is to distribute them among the workers. The distribution takes place through a series of operations which give rise to the economic phenomena of interest and rent.[468] Consequently the worker, because of this concentration of property in the hands of a few individuals, is forced to share the fruits of his labour. Such an obligation is nothing short of the exploitation of one man by another,[469] an exploitation all the more odious because the privileges are carefully preserved for one section of the community. Thanks to the laws of inheritance, exploiter and exploited never seem to change places.

To the retort that proprietors and capitalists are not necessarily idle—that many of them, in fact, work hard in order to increase their incomes—the Saint-Simonians reply that all this is beside the point. A certain portion of the income may possibly result from personal effort, but whatever they receive either as capitalists or proprietors can obviously only come from the labour of others, and that clearly is exploitation.

It is not the first time we have encountered this word “exploitation.” We are reminded of the fact that Sismondi made use of it,[470] and the same term will again meet us in the writings of Marx and others. None of them, however, uses it in quite the same sense, and it might be useful to distinguish here between the various meanings of a term which plays such an important rôle in socialist literature and which leads to so much confusion.

Sismondi, we know, regarded interest as the legitimate income of capital, but at the same time admitted that the worker may be exploited.

Such exploitation, he thought, took place whenever the wages were barely sufficient to keep the wage-earner alive, although at the same time the master might be living in luxurious ease. In other words, there is exploitation whenever the worker gets less than a “just” wage. It is merely a temporary defect and not an ineradicable disease of the economic system. It certainly does occur occasionally, although there is no reason why it ever should, and it may be removed without bringing the whole system to ruin. Conceived of in this vague fashion, what is known as exploitation is as difficult to define as the “just price” itself. It appears under several aspects, and is by no means peculiar to the master-servant relation. An individual is exploited whenever advantage is taken of his ignorance or timidity, his weakness or isolation, to force him to part with his goods or his services at less than the “just price” or to pay more for the goods or services of others than they are really worth.

The Saint-Simonians, on the other hand, considered that exploitation was an organic defect of our social order. It is inherent in private property, of which it is an invariable concomitant. It is not simply an incidental abuse, but the most characteristic trait of the whole system, for the fundamental attribute of all property is just this right to enjoy the fruits of labour without having to undergo the irksome task of producing. Such exploitation is not confined to manual labourers; it applies to every one who has to pay a tribute to the proprietor. The entrepreneur, in his turn, becomes a victim because of the interest which he pays to the capitalist, who supplies him with the funds which he needs.[471]

The entrepreneur’s profit, on the other hand, is not the result of exploitation. It represents payment for the work of direction. The master may doubtless abuse his position and reduce the wages of the workers excessively. The Saint-Simonians would then agree with Sismondi in calling this exploitation. But this is not a necessity of the system. And the Saint-Simonians look forward to a future state of society in which exceptional capacity will always be able to enjoy exceptional reward.[472] This is one of the most interesting elements in their theory.

Marx conceives of exploitation as an organic vice inherent in capitalism. But with him the term has quite a different connotation from that given it by the Saint-Simonians. Following the lead of certain English socialists, Marx comes to the conclusion that the origin of exploitation must be sought in the present method of exchanging wealth. Labour, in his opinion, is the source of all value, and consequently interest and profit must be of the nature of theft. The entrepreneur’s revenue is quite as unjust as the capitalist’s or landlord’s.[473]

This last theory, with its wholesale condemnation of income of every kind save the worker’s wage, seems much more logical than any of the others. But as a matter of fact it is much more open to criticism. If it can be demonstrated that the value of products is not the mere result of manual labour, then Marx’s idea falls to the ground. The Saint-Simonians were never embarrassed by any theory of value. Their whole contention rests upon the distinction between the income which is got from labour and the revenue which is derived from capital, which every one can appreciate. It was a distinction which had already been emphasised by Sismondi, and no conclusion other than the illegitimacy of all revenue not derived from labour can be drawn from the premises thus stated. Some basis other than labour must be discovered if this revenue is ever to be justified, and a new defence of private property must somehow be attempted.

The exigencies of production itself may supply such justification. Private property and the special kind of revenue which is derived from its possession justifies itself, in the opinion of a growing number of economists, on account of the stimulus it affords to production and the accumulation of wealth. This seems the most advantageous method of defence, and it is one of the grounds chosen by the Physiocrats.[474]

But the Saint-Simonians from the very first set this argument aside and attacked the institution of private property in the interests of social utility no less than in the interest of justice. Production as well as distribution, in their opinion, demanded its extinction.

(b) This brings us to the second point, which Saint-Simon did little more than suggest, namely, whether the institution of private property as at present existing is in the best interests of producers. The Saint-Simonians hold that it clearly is not, so long as the present method of distributing the instruments of production continues. At the present moment capital is transmitted in accordance with the laws of inheritance. Individuals chosen by the accident of birth are its depositors, and they are charged with the most difficult of all tasks, namely, the best utilisation of the agents of production. Social interest demands that they should be placed in more capable hands and distributed in those places and among those industries in which the need for those particular instruments is most keenly felt, without any fear of a scarcity in one place or a glut in another.[475] To-day it is a blind chance that picks out the men destined to carry out this infinitely difficult task. And all the efforts of the Saint-Simonians are concentrated just on this one point—inheritance.

Their indignation is easily explained. There is certainly something paradoxical in the fact to which they draw attention. If we accept Smith’s view, that government “is in reality instituted for the defence of those who have some property against those who have none at all”—a very narrow conception of the function of government[476]—inheritance is simply inevitable. On the other hand, if we put ourselves at the point of view of the Saint-Simonians, who lived in an industrial society where wealth was regarded, not as an end, but as a means, not merely as the source of individual income, but as the instrument of social production, it seems utterly wrong that it should be left at the disposal of the first comer. The practice of inheritance can only be justified on the ground that it provides a stimulus to the further accumulation of wealth, or that in default of a truly rational system the chances of birth are not much more open to criticism than any other.

Such scepticism was little to the taste of the Saint-Simonians. But they were firmly convinced that all the disorders of production, whether apparent or real, were due to the dispersion of property according to the chances of life and death.

“Each individual devotes all his attention to his own immediate dependents. No general view of production is ever taken. There is no discernment and no exercise of foresight. Capital is wanting here and excessive there. This want of a broad view of the needs of consumers and of the resources of production is the cause of those industrial crises whose origin has given rise to so much fruitless speculation and so many errors which are still circulating in our midst. In this important branch of social activity, where so much disturbance and such frequent disorder manifests itself, we see the evil result of allowing the distribution of the instruments of production to be in the hands of isolated individuals who are at once ignorant of the demands of industry, of other men’s needs, and of the means that would satisfy them. This and nothing else is the cause of the evil.”[477]

Escape from such economic anarchy, which has been so frequently described, can only become possible through collectivism—at least so the Saint-Simonians thought.[478] The State is to become the sole inheritor of all forms of wealth. Once in possession of the instruments of production, it can distribute them in the way it thinks best for the general interest. Government is conceived on the model of a great central bank where all the wealth of the country will be deposited and again distributed through its numerous branches. The uttermost ends of the kingdom will be made fertile, and the necessaries of life will be supplied to all who dwell therein. The best of the citizens will be put to work at tasks that will call forth their utmost efforts, and their pay will be as their toil. This social institution would be invested with all the powers which are so blindly wielded by individuals at the present moment.[479]

We need not insist too much on this project or press for further details, which the Saint-Simonians would have some difficulty in supplying.

Who, for example, is to undertake the formidable task of judging of the capacity of the workmen or of paying for their work? They are to be the “generals”—the superiors who are to be set free from the trammels of specialisation and whose instinctive feelings will naturally urge them to think only of the general interest. The chief will be he who shows the greatest concern about the social destiny of the community.[480] It is not very reassuring, especially when we remember that even with the greatest men there is occasionally a regrettable confusion of general and private interests.

But admitting the incomparable superiority of the “generals,” what of obeying them? Will the inferiors take kindly to submission or will they have to be forced to it? The first alternative was the one which they seemed to favour, for the new religion, “Saint-Simonism,” would always be at hand to inspire devotion and to deepen the respect of the inferiors for their betters.[481] One is tempted to ask what would become of the heretics if ever there happened to be any.

Further criticism of this kind can serve no useful purpose, and it applies to every collective system, differing only in matters of detail. Whenever it is proposed to set up an elaborate plan of economic activity, directed and controlled by some central authority, with a view to supplanting the present system of individual initiative and social spontaneity, we are met at the threshold with the difficulty of setting up a new code of morality. Instead of the human heart with its many mixed motives, its insubordination and weaknesses, in place of the human mind with all its failings, ignorance, and error, is to be substituted a heart and mind altogether ideal, which only serve to remind us how far removed they are from anything we have ever known. The Saint-Simonians recognised that a change so fundamental could only be accomplished through the instrumentality of religion. In doing this they have shown an amount of foresight which is rare among the critics who treat their ideas with such disdain.

It is more important that we should insist upon another fact, namely, that the Saint-Simonian system is the prototype of all the collectivist schemes that were proposed in the course of the century.

The whole scheme is very carefully thought out, and rests upon that penetrative criticism of private property which differentiates it from other social Utopias. The only equality which the Saint-Simonians demanded was what we call equality of opportunity—an equal chance and the same starting-point for every one. Beyond that there is to be inequality in the interests of social production itself. To each according to his capacity, and to every capacity according to the work which it has accomplished—such is the rule of the new society.[482]

An interesting résumé of the Saint-Simonians’ programme, given in a series of striking formulæ which they addressed to the President of the Chamber of Deputies,[483] is worth quoting:

“The Saint-Simonians do not advocate community of goods, for such community would be a manifest violation of the first moral law, which they have always been anxious to uphold, and which demands that in future every one shall occupy a situation becoming his capacity and be paid according to his labour.

“In view of this law they demand the abolition of all privileges of birth without a single exception, together with the complete extinction of the right of inheritance, which is to-day the greatest of all privileges and includes every other. The sole effect of this system is to leave the distribution of social advantages to a chance few who are able to lay some pretence to it, and to condemn the numerically superior class to deprivation, ignorance, and misery.

“They ask that all the instruments of production, all lands and capital, the funds now divided among individual proprietors, should be pooled so as to form one central social fund, which shall be employed by associations of persons hierarchically arranged so that each one’s task shall be an expression of his capacity and his wealth a measure of his labour.

“The Saint-Simonians are opposed to the institution of private property simply because it inculcates habits of idleness and fosters a practice of living upon the labour of others.”

(c) Critics of private property, generally speaking, are not content with its condemnation merely from the point of view either of distribution or production. They almost invariably employ a third method of attack, which might be called the historical argument. The argument generally takes the form of a demonstration of the path which the gradual evolution of the institution of private property has hitherto followed, coupled with an attempt to show that its further transformation along the lines which they advocate is simply the logical outcome of that process. The argument has not been neglected by the Saint-Simonians.

The history of this kind of demonstration is exceedingly interesting, and the rôle it has played in literature other than that of a socialist complexion is of considerable importance. Reformers of every type, whether the immediate objective be a transformation of private property or not, always base their appeals upon a philosophy of history.

Marx’s system is really a philosophy of history in which communism is set forth as the necessary consummation of all industrial evolution. Many modern socialists, although rejecting the Marxian socialism, still appeal to history. M. Vandervelde builds his faith upon it.[484] The authors of that quite recent work Socialisme en Action rely upon it, and so do Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb and all the Fabian Socialists. Dupont-White’s State Socialism is inspired by similar ideas, and so is the socialism of M. Wagner. Friedrich List has a way of his own with history; and the earliest ambition of the Historical school was to transform political economy into a kind of philosophy of history. If we turn to the realm of philosophy itself we find somewhat similar conceptions—the best known, perhaps, being Comte’s theory of the three estates, which was borrowed directly from Saint-Simon.[485]

This is not the place to discuss historical parallels. The point will come up in a later chapter in connection with the Historical school. What we would remark here is the good use which the Saint-Simonians made of the argument. All the past history of property was patiently ransacked, and the arguments of other writers who have extolled the merits of collectivism were thus effectually forestalled.

“The general opinion seems to be,” says the Doctrine de Saint-Simon,[486] “that whatever revolutions may take place in society, this institution of private property must for ever remain sacred and inviolable; it alone is from eternity unto eternity. In reality nothing could be less correct. Property is a social fact which, along with other social facts, must submit to the laws of progress. Accordingly it may be extended, curtailed, or regulated in various ways at different times.” This principle, once it was formulated, has never failed in winning the allegiance of every reformer. Forty years later the Belgian economist Laveleye, who has probably made the most thoroughly scientific study of the question, used almost identical words in summing up his inquiry into the principal forms of property.[487]

The Saint-Simonians feel confident that a glance at the progress of this evolution is enough to convince anyone that it must have followed the lines which they have indicated. The conception of property was at first broad enough to include men within its connotation. But the right of a master over his slaves gradually underwent a transformation which restricted its exercise, and finally caused its disappearance altogether. Reduced to the right of owning things, this right of possession was at first transmissible simply according to the proprietor’s will. But the legislature intervened long ago, and the eldest son is now the sole inheritor. The French Revolution enforced equal distribution of property between all children, and so spread out the benefits which the possession of the instruments of production confers. To-day the downward trend of the rate of interest is slowly reducing the advantages possessed by the owners of property, and goes a long way towards securing to each worker a growing share of his product.[488] There remains one last step which the Saint-Simonians advocate, which would secure to all workers an equal right to the employment of the instruments of production. This reform would consist in making everybody a proprietor, but the State the sole inheritor. “The law of progress as we have outlined it would tend to establish an order of things in which the State, and not the family, would inherit all accumulated wealth and every other form of what economists call the funds of production.”[489]

These facts might be employed to support a conclusion of an entirely different character. That equality of inheritance which was preserved rather than created by the French Revolution might be taken as a proof that modern societies are tending to multiply the number of individual proprietors by dividing the land between an increasing number of its citizens. But such discussion does not belong to a work of this kind. We are entitled to say, however, that the Saint-Simonian theory is a kind of prologue to all those doctrines that ransack the pages of history for arguments in favour of the transformation, or even the suppression, of private property.

Here again the Saint-Simonians have merely elaborated a view which their master had only casually outlined. Saint-Simon, also believed that in history we have an instrument of scientific precision equal to the best that has yet been devised.

Saint-Simon, who owes something in this matter to Condorcet, regarded mankind as a living being having its periods of infancy and youth, of middle and old age, just like the individuals who compose it. Epochs of intellectual ferment in the history of the race are exactly paralleled by the dawning of intellectual interests in the individual, and the one may be foretold as well as the other. “The future,” says Saint-Simon, “is just the last term of a series the first term of which lies somewhere in the past. When we have carefully studied the first terms of the series it ought not to be difficult to tell what follows. Careful observation of the past should supply the clue to the future.”[490] It was while in pursuit of this object that Saint-Simon stumbled across the term “industrialism” as one that seemed to him to express the end towards which the secular march of mankind appeared to lead. From family to city, from city to nation, from nation to international federation—such is the sequence which helps us to visualise the final term of the series, which will be some kind of “a universal association in which all men, whatever other relations they may possess, will be united.”[491] In a similar fashion the Saint-Simonians interpret the history of individual property and predict its total abolition through a process of its gradual extension to all individuals combined with the extinction of private inheritance.

The doctrine of the Saint-Simonians may well be regarded as a kind of philosophy of history.[492] Contemplation of the system fills them with an extraordinary confidence in the realisation of their dreams, to which they look forward not merely with confidence, but with feelings of absolute certainty. “Our predictions have the same origins and are based upon the same kind of foundations as are common to all scientific discoveries.”[493] They look upon themselves as the conscious, voluntary agents of that inevitable evolution which has been foretold and defined by Saint-Simon.[494] This is one trait which their system has in common with that of Marx. But there are two important differences. The Marxians relied upon revolution consummating what evolution had begun, while the Saint-Simonians relied upon moral persuasion.[495] The Saint-Simonians, true children of the eighteenth century that they were, believed that ideas and doctrines were sufficiently powerful agents of social transformation, while the Marxians preferred to put their hope in the material forces of production, ideas, in their opinion, being nothing better than a pale reflection of such forces.[496]

III: THE IMPORTANCE OF SAINT-SIMONISM IN THE HISTORY OF DOCTRINES

The doctrine of the Saint-Simonians consists of a curious mixture of realism and Utopianism. Their socialism, which makes its appeal to the cultured classes rather than to the masses, is inspired, not by a knowledge of working-class life, but by close observation and remarkable intuition concerning the great economic currents of their time.

The dispersion of the school gave the leaders an opportunity of taking an active part in the economic administration of their own country, and we find them throwing themselves whole-heartedly into various schemes of a financial or industrial character. In 1863 the brothers Péreire founded a credit association which became the prototype of the financial institutions of to-day. Enfantin took a part in the founding of the P.L.M. Railway, which involved an amalgamation of the Paris-Lyons, Lyons-Avignon, and Avignon-Marseilles lines. Enfantin was also the first to float a company for the purpose of making a canal across the isthmus of Suez. At the Collège de France Michel Chevalier defended the action of the State in undertaking certain works of a public character. It was he also who negotiated the treaty of 1860 with England, which was the means of inaugurating the era of commercial liberty for France. Other examples might be cited to show the important part which the Saint-Simonians played in nineteenth-century economic history.[497]

More especially did they realise the enormous place which banks and institutions of a similar nature were bound to have in modern industrial organisation. And whatever views we may hold as to the rights of property, we are bound to recognise how these deposit banks have already become great reservoirs of capital from which credit is distributed in a thousand ways throughout the whole realm of industry. Some writers, all of them by no means of the socialist way of thinking, would reproach the banks, especially in France, with their lack of courage in regulating and stimulating industry, which, as the Saint-Simonians foresaw, is a legitimate part of their duty.[498] The important part which they saw international financiers playing in the domestic affairs of almost every European nation during the Restoration period, coupled with their personal knowledge of bankers, helped the Saint-Simonians in anticipating the all-important rôle which credit was to play in modern industry.

Equally remarkable was the foresight they displayed in demanding a more rigorous control of production, and in emphasising the need for some better method of adapting that production to meet the exigencies of demand than is possible under a competitive system. The State obviously has neither the ability nor the inclination to discharge such functions, but so great are the inconveniences of competition that manufacturers are forced to enter into agreements with one another in order to exercise some such control. This is nothing less than a partial application of the doctrine of Saint-Simon.

In addition to the considerable personal influence which they were able to exercise over economic development, we have to recognise that in their writings we have the beginnings both of the critical and of the constructive contribution made by socialists to nineteenth-century economics. Their doctrine is, as it were, little more than an index to later socialist literature.

In the first place one must be struck by the number of formulæ to be met with in their work which have since become the commonplaces of socialism. “The exploitation of man by man” was a phrase that was exceedingly popular up to 1848. The term “class war,” which has taken its place since the time of Marx, expresses the same idea. They spoke of “the organisation of labour” even before Louis Blanc, and employed the term “instrument of labour” as a synonym for land and movable capital long before it was so used by Marx. Although we have not considered it necessary to group them with the Associationists, they have been as assiduous as any in proclaiming the superior merits of producers’ associations. Moreover, they anticipated the use which the socialists would make of the theory of rent. In a curious passage written long before the time of Henry George they refer to the possibility of applying the doctrines of Ricardo and Malthus to justify the devotion of the surplus produce of good land to the general needs of society, thus anticipating the theory of another prominent socialist thinker.[499] Other ideas might be mentioned, though not of a specifically socialist character. Thus the theory of profit-sharing, as far as our knowledge goes, was first developed in an article in Le Producteur.[500]

The more one examines the doctrines of the Saint-Simonians the more conscious does one become of the remarkable character of these anticipations and of the injustice of the oblivion which has since befallen them. Marx’s friend Engels called attention to the “genial perspicacity of Saint-Simon, which enabled him to anticipate all the doctrines of subsequent socialists other than those of a specifically economic character.”[501] The specifically economic idea of which Engels speaks and which Saint-Simon, in his opinion, did wrong to neglect was the Marxian theory of surplus value. We are inclined to the opinion that it was more of a merit than a fault to place socialism on its real foundation, which must necessarily be a social one, rather than to found it upon an erroneous theory of value.

But new formulæ are not their only contribution. Due note was taken of that fundamental opposition which exists between economists and socialists and which has caused all the conflicts and misunderstandings that disfigure the history of the century and resulted in their speaking an entirely different language. We shall try to define the nature of the conflict, in order, if possible, to help the reader over the difficulties that arise just where the bifurcation of economic thought takes place.

No attempt was made either by Adam Smith, Ricardo, or J. B. Say to make clear the distinction between the science of political economy and the fact of social organisation.[502] Property, as we have already had occasion to remark, was a social fact that was accepted by them without the slightest demur. The methods of dividing property and of inheriting it, the causes that determined its rise and the consequences that resulted from its existence, were questions that remained outside the scope of their discussions. By division or distribution of wealth they meant simply the distribution of the annual revenue between the various factors of production. Their interest centres round problems concerning the rate of interest or the rate of wages or the amount of rent. Their theory of distribution is simply a theory concerning the price of services. No attention was paid to individuals, the social product being supposed to be divided between impersonal factors—land, capital, and labour—according to certain necessary laws. For convenience of discussion the impersonal occasionally becomes personal, as when they speak of proprietors, capitalists, and workers, but that is not allowed to affect the general trend of the argument.

For the Saint-Simonians, on the other hand, and for socialists in general the problem of distribution consists especially in knowing how property is distributed. The question is to determine why some people have property while others have none; why the instruments of production, land, and capital should be so unevenly distributed, and why the revenues resulting from this distribution should be unequal. For a consideration of the abstract factors of production the socialists are anxious to substitute the study of actual living individuals or social classes and the legal ties which bind them together. These differing conceptions of distribution have given rise to two different problems, the one primarily economic, the other social, and sufficient care has not always been taken to distinguish between these two currents, which have managed to coexist, much to the confusion of social thinking in the nineteenth century.

Another essential difference between their respective points of view consists of the different manner in which economists and socialists conceive of the opposition that exists between the general interest and the interests of individuals.

Classical writers envisaged it as a conflict between the interests of consumers, i.e. everybody, and the interests of producers, which are more or less the interests of a particular class.

The Saint-Simonians, on the other hand—and in this matter their distinction has met with the hearty approval of every socialist—think it better to regard it as between workers on the one hand and idlers on the other, or between workers and capitalists, to adopt the cramped formula of a later period. The worker’s is the general interest; the particular interest is that of the idler who lives at the former’s expense. “We have on several occasions,” writes Enfantin, “pointed out some of the errors in the classification adopted by most present-day economists. The antithesis between producer and consumer gives a very inadequate idea of the magnitude of the gap that lies between the various members of society, and a better differentiation would be that which would treat them as workers and idlers.”[503] The difference in the point of view naturally results in an entirely different conception of social organisation. Economists think that society ought to be organised from the point of view of the consumer and that the general interest is fully realised when the consumer is satisfied. Socialists, on the contrary, believe that society should be organised from the standpoint of the worker, and that the general interest is only fully achieved when the workers draw their full share of the social product, which is as great as it possibly can be.[504]

There is one last element of difference which is very important. Classical writers made an attempt to reduce the apparent disorder of individual action within the compass of a few scientific laws. By the time the task was completed so struck were they with the profound harmony which they thought they had discovered that they renounced all attempts at amelioration. They were so satisfied with the demonstration which they had given of the way in which a spontaneous social force, such as competition, for example, tended to limit individual egoism and to complete the triumph of the general interest that they never thought of inquiring whether the action of these forces might not be rendered a little less harmful or whether the mechanism might not with advantage be lubricated and made to run somewhat more smoothly.

The Saint-Simonians, on the other hand—and in this matter it is necessary to couple with theirs the name of Sismondi—are convinced of the slowness, the awkwardness, and the cruelty with which spontaneous economic forces often go to work. Consequently they are concerned with the possibility of substituting a more conscious, carefully thought-out effort on the part of society. Instead of a spontaneous reconciliation of conflicting interests they suggest an artificial reconciliation, which they strive with all their might to realise. Hence the innumerable attempts to set up a new mechanism which might take the place of the spontaneous mechanism, and the childish efforts to co-ordinate or combine economic forces. These attempts, most of them of necessity unsuccessful, furnished the adversaries of socialism with their best weapons of attack. All of them, however, did not prove quite fruitless, and some of them were destined to exercise a notable influence upon social development.

It is in the Saint-Simonian doctrine that we find these contrasts between political economy and socialism definitely marked and in full detail. It matters little to us to-day that the school was ridiculed or that the eccentricities of Enfantin destroyed his propaganda work just when Fourier was pursuing his campaign with great success. Ideas are the things that stand out in a history of doctrines. To us, at any rate, Saint-Simonism appears as the first and most eloquent as well as the most penetrating expression of the sentiments and ideals that inspire nineteenth-century socialism.[505]