Constantin Pecqueur

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Charles Constantin Pecqueur (26 October 1801 – 17 December 1887) was a French economist, socialist theoretician and politician. He participated in the Revolution of 1848 and influenced Karl Marx.

Life and Thought

Charles Constantin Pecqueur was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in the Department du Nord; his town of birth is variously given as

In contrast to these theorists, Pecqueur was one of the earliest French socialists to advocate collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. He is sometimes called the 'father of French collectivist socialism.' In the 1830s Pecqueur made his name as a highly respected socialist economist. His writings included Intérêt du commerce et de l'industrie (1836), Améliorations matérielles (1839), La réforme électorale (1840), Théories nouvelles d'économie sociale et politique (1842), De la paix, de son principe et de sa réalisation (1842), Des armées dans leurs rapports avec l'industrie (1842) and La République de Dieu (1844).

Among other works, particular notice accrued to his two-volume opus Economie sociale des intérêts du commerce, de l'industrie, de l'agriculture et de la civilisation en général, sous l'influence de l'application de la vapeur (1839). In this work, Pecqueur tried to show that changes in material conditions, such as the introduction of steam power, produce changes in intellectual development. The French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences awarded him a prize. Karl Marx also praised Pecqueur's materialist method. Marx later frequently cited Pecqueur as an authority in Capital and other economic writings. In contrast to many of his utopian socialist contemporaries, and again anticipating Marx' view, Pecqueur did not see the development of industrial production as predominantly negative. He welcomed the greater productive capacity of industry but thought that capitalist relations of ownership prevented the full productive potential of industrial technology from being realised. Industry should therefore be nationalised and organised for the common benefit. (However, Pecqueur's materialism was confined to economics, sociology and historical analysis. Metaphysically he was not a materialist but shared the deistic religiosity of many French republicans.)

In 1839, Pecqueur was commissioned by the French government to make a study of the Belgian railway system, which was more advanced than that of France. He recommended government investment in railway construction.

In 1844, Pecqueur became a regular contributor to the leading democratic newspaper, La Réforme, edited by the left-wing republican

In 1848–1849, Pecqueur edited the journal Le Salut du People he had founded, devoted to social science and socialist politics. In its pages he carried on a polemic against Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the famous anarchist social theorist and economist. Proudhon had sharply criticised the work of the Luxembourg Commission and Louis Blanc's role in the bourgeois Provisional Government. In turn, Pecqueur accused Proudhon of plagiarising Fourier's ideas; in particular, he charged that Proudhon's project of a 'People's Bank' of mutual exchange was an idea taken from Fourier.

Pecqueur was also notable for his efforts on behalf of international understanding. At a time when French socialism and republicanism were commonly associated with nationalism, Pecqueur was a professed internationalist who believed that the workers of different countries had common interests, and that conflicts between nations should be solved not by war but by means of international organs of mediation. He proposed an international federation of all nations, anticipating the idea of a United Nations. He also championed the idea of a European Parliament. He was involved in various pacifist associations in the 1870s and '80s. Other notable proposals of his included the idea of public transit.

Pecqueur remained a member of the National Assembly until 1852, but after the coup d'état of

Quote on Pecqueur

"Pecqueur's originality as a theorist rests on his understanding of the consequences inherent in the industrial revolution. In his writings he developed a rudimentary sociology of class and a general theory of historical development which formed a link between

• Pecqueur, Constantin. "Constantin Pecqueur Papers". search.iisg.amsterdam (in French). Retrieved 2022-06-14.
• "Pecqueur, Constantin". www.ohio.edu. Retrieved 2022-06-14.
• "Arleux, Capitale de l'Ail". 2014-04-04. Archived from the original on 2014-04-04. Retrieved 2022-06-14.