The socialism of Saint-Simon and Fourier was, as we have seen, largely imaginative and Utopian, and had only a very remote connection with the practical life of their time. With Louis Blanc the movement came into real contact with the national history of France. In Louis Blanc’s teaching the most conspicuous feature was that he demanded the democratic organisation of the State as preparatory to social reorganisation. His system, therefore, had a positive and practical basis, in so far as it allied itself to a dominant tendency in the existing State.
It is unnecessary here to recapitulate in detail the life of Louis Blanc. He was born in 1811 at Madrid, where his father was inspector-general of finance under Joseph during his uncertain tenure of the Spanish throne. At an early age he attained to eminence as a journalist in Paris, and in 1839 established the Revue du progrès, in which he first brought out his celebrated work on Socialism, the Organisation du travail. It was soon published in book form, and found a wide popularity among the workmen of France, who were captivated by the brilliancy of the style, the fervid eloquence with which it exposed existing abuses, and the simplicity and democratic fitness of the schemes for the regeneration of society which it advocated.
The greater part of the book is taken up with unsparing denunciations of the evils of competition, which, as common to Louis Blanc with other socialists, need not detain us. More interesting are the practical measures for their removal, proposed in his treatise.[[1]] Like the socialists that preceded him, L. Blanc cannot accept the views which teach a necessary antagonism between soul and body; we must aim at the harmonious development of both sides of our nature. The formula of progress is double in its unity: moral and material amelioration of the lot of all by the free co-operation of all, and their fraternal association.[[2]] He saw, however, that social reform could not be attained without political reform. The first is the end, the second is the means. It was not enough to discover the true methods for inaugurating the principle of association and for organising labour in accordance with the rules of reason, justice, and humanity. It was necessary to have political power on the side of social reform, political power resting on the Chambers, on the tribunals, and on the army: not to take it as an instrument was to meet it as an obstacle.
For these reasons he wished to see the State constituted on a thoroughly democratic basis, as the first condition of success. The emancipation of the proletarians was a question so difficult that it would require the whole force of the State for its solution. What is wanting to the working class are the instruments of labour; the function of Government is to furnish them. If we had to define what we consider the State to be, we should reply, ‘The State is the banker of the poor.’
Louis Blanc demanded that the democratic State should create industrial associations, which he called social workshops, and which were destined gradually and without shock to supersede individual workshops. The State would provide the means; it would draw up the rules for their constitution, and it would appoint the functionaries for the first year. But, once founded and set in movement, the social workshop would be self-supporting, self-acting, and self-governing. The workmen would choose their own directors and managers, they would themselves arrange the division of the profits, and would take measures to extend the enterprise commenced.
In such a system where would there be room for arbitrary rule or tyranny? The State would establish the social workshops, would pass laws for them, and supervise their execution for the good of all; but its rôle would end there. Is this, can this be tyranny? Thus the freedom of the industrial associations and of the individuals composing them would not only remain intact; it would have the solid support of the State. The intervention of a democratic Government on behalf of the people, whom it represented, would remove the misery, anarchy, and oppression necessarily attendant on the competitive system, and in place of the delusive liberty of laissez-faire, would establish a real and positive freedom.
With regard to the remuneration of talent and labour L. Blanc takes very high ground. ‘Genius,’ he said, ‘should assert its legitimate empire, not by the amount of the tribute which it will levy on society, but by the greatness of the services which it will render.’ This is no mere flourish of eloquence; it is to be the principle of remuneration in his association. Society could not, even if it would, repay the genius of a Newton; Newton had his just recompense in the joy of discovering the laws by which worlds are governed. Exceptional endowments must find development and a fitting reward in the exceptional services they render to society.
L. Blanc therefore believed in a hierarchy according to capacity; remuneration according to capacity he admitted in the earlier editions of his work, but only provisionally and as a concession to prevalent anti-social opinion. In the edition of 1848, the year when his theories attained for a time to historic importance, he had withdrawn this concession. ‘Though the false and anti-social education given to the present generation makes it difficult to find any other motive of emulation and encouragement than a higher salary, the wages will be equal, as the ideas and character of men will be changed by an absolutely new education.’[[3]] Private capitalists would be invited to join the associations, and would under fixed conditions receive interest for their advances; but as the collective capital increased, the opportunities for so placing individual capital would surely diminish. The tyranny of capital would, in fact, receive a mortal wound.
The revolution of 1848 was an important stage in the development of democracy. In ancient and also in mediæval times the democracy was associated with city life; the citizens personally appeared and spoke and voted in the Assemblies. The modern democracy has grown in large States, extending over wide territories, and the citizen can exercise political power only through elected representatives. Hence the importance of the franchise in modern politics. The evolution of the modern democracy has gone through a long succession of phases, beginning with the early growth of the English Parliament, and continued in the struggles of the Dutch against the Spaniards, in the English Revolutions of 1642 and 1688, in the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789. In the early struggles, however, the mass of the people had no very great share. It was hardly till 1848 that the working class made its entrance on the stage of history—in Europe at least.
The revolutionary disturbances of 1848 affected nearly the whole of western and central Europe. It was a rising of the peoples against antiquated political forms and institutions; against the arrangements of the Treaty of Vienna, whereby Europe was partitioned according to the convenience of ruling houses; against irresponsible Governments, which took no account of the wishes of their subjects.