French and German Socialism in Modern Times

by Richard T. Ely

But let us devote a few moments to a description of the economic and social organization proposed by the Saint-Simonians, before discussing the religious society they founded to do honor to the memory of Saint-Simon, to assist in carrying our their socialistic schemes, and to satisfy the yearnings of hearts which refused to find satisfaction and contentment in the Christian Church.

Saint-Simonism is the first example of pure socialism, by which I understand an economic system in which production is entirely carried on in common, and the fruits of labor distributed according to some ideal standard, which appears to the promoters of the scheme just. This standard will, of course, vary according to the subjective ideas of different socialists. Any plan, to be practicable, must necessarily be a compromise between various views and historical antecedents.

Another writer defines “Socialism Proper”—by which he means about what I understand by Pure Socialism—as follows: “It is that system which recognizes inequality both in the capacity and requirements of individuals, and accordingly allows wages to be proportionate to work done, and admits of private income along with collective property.”[48]

The Saint-Simonians were led to socialism by observing the ill-regulated distribution of economic goods under our present social régime. They found the idle surfeited in luxuries and the diligent without the comforts and often without even the necessaries of life, the former enjoying the right to live as parasites on the fruits of the toil of the busy, the latter enjoying the right to choose between hard and ill-paid labor and death by starvation. They were able to perceive no sufficient connection between merit and recompense. Consequently the world appeared in a state of disharmony and they proposed to restore harmony by a new economic system.

It may be as well to state here that political economists are generally inclined to admit a certain justice in such complaints and only object to socialistic schemes as impracticable or as involving still worse evils. To show how far a man who holds a high rank as an orthodox political economist can go in his objection to the present method of distributing economic goods, it may be well to cite a celebrated passage from John Stuart Mill’s “Political Economy:” “If the bulk of the human race are always to remain as at present, slaves to toil in which they have no interest and therefore feel no interest—drudging from early morning till late at night for bare necessaries and with all the intellectual and moral deficiencies which that implies—without resources either in mind or feeling—untaught, for they cannot be better taught than fed; selfish, for all their thoughts are required for themselves; without interests or sentiments as citizens and members of society, and with a sense of injustice rankling in their minds, equally for what they have not and what others have; I know not what there is which should make a person of any capacity of reason concern himself about the destinies of the human race.”[49] In another place Mill says that if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it all the sufferings and injustices of the present state of society, and a choice had to be made between private property and communism, “all the difficulties, great or small, of communism would be but as dust in the balance.”[50]

Now, the Saint-Simonians believed it possible to remedy these evils of distribution only by the substitution of state property for private property. At the same time, they rejected any equal distribution of labor’s products, which would give the active and energetic no more than the slow and indolent, which would treat alike the stupid clown, who was only a burden and a nuisance, and a great genius whose talents increased the wealth and prosperity of the nation. The Saint-Simonians held that men were by nature unequal, and that it was right to reward superior power, when exerted for the general good. Their idea was that each one should labor according to his capacity and be rewarded according to the services rendered. They wished to organize civil society on the plan of an army. This thought is distinctly expressed by one of their leaders in these words: “In the army gradations in rank and authority are already established, while in civil life that is precisely what is wanting; and in an enterprise conducted upon the principle of association, a central administration is imperiously required.”[51] The officers are the directing authority in this scheme, and they decide on the value of the services rendered to society and reward the citizens accordingly. As society consists of priests, savants, and industrials—the industrials comprising those engaged in manufactures, agriculture, and commerce[52]—so the government consists of the chiefs of the priests, the chiefs of the savants, and the chiefs of the industrials. All property belongs to the church, i.e., to the state, and every profession or trade is a religious exercise and has its rank in the social hierarchy.[53]

It is not clearly stated how the ruling body was to be selected, whether by popular vote or otherwise. The idea of the Saint-Simonians seems to have been, however, that the good and wise, the best, would be voluntarily and without dissension selected as leaders—an idea scarcely warranted by the world’s experience with universal suffrage.

The Saint-Simonians necessarily rejected inheritance from their scheme, as they regarded idlers as thieves, and wished each one to be rewarded only in accordance with his own individual merits. All should start with equal advantages and only avail themselves of nature’s inequalities, i.e., superior talents. Christ’s command was “Away with slavery!” Saint-Simon’s, “Away with inheritance!” Property now inherited would naturally become common property in the new society.

The Saint-Simonians were accused in the Chamber of Deputies of advocating community of goods and community of wives. They defended themselves in a brochure dated October 1, 1830, which it is worth while to quote, as it gives their ideas on these two important subjects:[54]