Henri de Saint-Simon

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Henri de Saint-Simon
Posthumous portrait (1848);
after Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Born
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon

(1760-10-17)17 October 1760
Paris, France
Died19 May 1825(1825-05-19) (aged 64)
Paris, France
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolSaint-Simonianism
Socialism
Utopian socialism
Main interests
Political philosophy
Notable ideas
The industrial class/idling class distinction
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Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), better known as Henri de Saint-Simon (French:

socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He was a younger relative of the famous memoirist the Duc de Saint-Simon
.

Saint-Simon created a political and economic ideology known as Saint-Simonianism that claimed that the needs of an industrial class, which he also referred to as the working class, needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy.[10] Unlike conceptions within industrializing societies of a working class being manual laborers alone, Saint-Simon's late-18th-century conception of this class included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, such as businesspeople, managers, scientists, bankers, and manual labourers, amongst others.[11]

Saint-Simon believed the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was the idling class: the tier of society that included able-bodied persons who, instead of using their labor to benefit the social and economic orders, preferred a parasitic life of work avoidance.[10] Saint-Simon stressed a three-pronged recognition of the merits of the individual, social hierarchy, and the wider economy, such as hierarchical, merit-based organizations of managers and scientists; those at the top of the hierarchies would be decision-makers in government.[11] Saint-Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring productive working conditions and reducing idleness in society; he regarded intervention beyond these as too intrusive.[10]

Saint-Simon's conceptual recognition of the merits of broad socioeconomic contribution and Enlightenment-era valorization of scientific knowledge inspired and influenced utopian socialism,[11] liberal political theorist John Stuart Mill,[6] anarchism (through its founder, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon),[7] and Marxism—Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identified Saint-Simon as an inspiration for their ideas and classified him among the utopian socialists.[11] Saint-Simon's views also influenced 20th-century sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, including Veblen's creation of institutional economics that has included prominent economists as adherents.[12]

Biography

Early years

Henri de Saint-Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat. His grandfather's cousin had been the Duke of Saint-Simon.[13]

From his youth, Saint-Simon was highly ambitious. He ordered his valet to wake him every morning with, "Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do."[14] Among his early schemes was one to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by a canal, and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea.[15]

During the American Revolution, Saint-Simon joined the Americans, and believed that their revolution signaled the beginning of a new era.[16] He fought alongside the Marquis de Lafayette between 1779 and 1783,[17] and took part in the siege of Yorktown under the command of General George Washington.[18] Saint-Simon was captured and imprisoned by British forces during the end of his service, and upon his release, returned to France to study engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mézières.[19]

At the beginning of the

Ecole Polytechnique in 1794, a school established to train young men in the arts of sciences and industry and funded by the state, Saint-Simon became involved with the new school.[20]

Life as a working adult

Henri de Saint-Simon, portrait from the first quarter of the 19th century by Godefroy Engelmann

When he was nearly 40 he went through a varied course of study and experiment to enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage in 1801 to

penury for the remainder of his life. The first of his numerous writings, mostly scientific and political, was Lettres d'un habitant de Genève, which appeared in 1802. In this first work, he called for the creation of a religion of science with Isaac Newton as a saint.[20]

Saint-Simon's earliest publications, such as his Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIXe siècle (Introduction to scientific discoveries of the 19th century (1803) and his Mémoire sur la science de l'homme (Notes on the study of man) (1813), (the latter of which is a eulogy to Napoleon), demonstrate his faith in science as a means to regenerate society. In his 1814 essay De la réorganisation de la société européenne (On the reorganisation of European society), written in collaboration with his then secretary Augustin Thierry, Saint-Simon seems to have foreseen the European Union, expecting however that England would take the lead in forming a continent sharing the same laws and institutions.[21]

A few years into in his writing career, Saint-Simon found himself ruined, and was forced to work for a living. After a few attempts to recover his money from his former partner, he received financial support from Diard, a former employee, and was able to publish in 1807 his second book, Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIX siècle. Diard died in 1810 and Saint-Simon found himself poor again, and this time also in poor health. He was sent to a sanatorium in 1813, but with financial help from relatives he had time to recover his health and gain some intellectual recognition in Europe. In February 1821 Du système industriel appeared, and in 1823–1824 Catéchisme des industriels.[22]

Around 1814 he wrote the essay "On Reconstruction of the European Community" and sent it to the Congress of Vienna. He proposed a European kingdom, building on France and the United Kingdom.[23]

For his last decade Saint-Simon concentrated on themes of

brotherly love. He died shortly after its publication.[24]

Suicide attempt

Saint-Simon's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

On March 9, 1823, disappointed by the lack of results of his writing (he had hoped they would guide society towards social improvement), he attempted suicide in despair.[25] Remarkably, he shot himself in the head six times without succeeding, losing his sight in one eye.[26]

Death

He died on 19 May 1825, and was buried in

Le Père Lachaise Cemetery
in Paris, France.

Ideas

Industrialism

In 1817 Saint-Simon published a manifesto called the "Declaration of Principles" in his work titled L'Industrie ("Industry").[10] The Declaration was about the principles of an ideology called industrialism that called for the creation of an industrial society led by people within what he defined as the industrial class.[10] The industrial class, also referred to as the working class, was defined as including all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, emphasizing scientists and industrialists, but including engineers, businesspeople, managers, bankers, manual workers, and others.[11]

Saint-Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class, that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work.[10] He saw the origins of this parasitic activity by idlers in what he regarded as the natural laziness of humanity.[10] He believed the principal economic roles of government were to ensure that productive activity in the economy is unhindered and to reduce idleness in society.[10]

In the Declaration Saint-Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond these two principal economic roles, saying that when the government goes beyond these roles, it becomes a "tyrannical enemy of industry" and that the industrial economy will decline as a consequence of such excessive government intervention.[10] Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy, such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government.[11] His views were radical for his time. He built on Enlightenment ideas which challenged church doctrine and the older regime with the idea of progress from industry and science[20]

Heavily influenced by the absence of

feudal society in France and elsewhere needed to be dissolved and transformed into an industrial society.[28] As such, he invented the conception of the industrial society.[28]

Saint-Simon's economic views and ideas were influenced by Adam Smith whom Saint-Simon deeply admired, and referred to him in praise as "the immortal Adam Smith".[2] He shared with Smith the belief that taxes needed to be much reduced from what they were then in order to have a more just industrial system.[2] Saint-Simon desired the minimization of government intervention into the economy to prevent disruption of productive work.[2] He emphasized more emphatically than Smith that state administration of the economy was generally parasitic and hostile to the needs of production.[28] Like Adam Smith, Saint-Simon's model of society emulated the scientific methods of astronomy, and said "The astronomers only accepted those facts which were verified by observation; they chose the system which linked them best, and since that time, they have never led science astray.".[29]

Saint-Simon reviewed the French Revolution and regarded it as an upheaval driven by economic change and class conflict. In his analysis, he believed that the solution to the problems that led to the French Revolution would be the creation of an industrial society, where hierarchy of merit and respect for productive work would be the basis of society, while ranks of hereditary and military hierarchy would lessen in importance in society because they were not capable to lead a productive society.[11]

Religious views

Prior to the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon had not concerned himself with

Catholic and Protestant forms of Christianity. Saint-Simon posited a comprehensive formula for a "new Christianity": "The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end."[30]

Influence

Saint-Simon's thought exerted significant influence upon French and European technocratic thought, the development of technocratic internationalism, as well as major industrial and financial projects including the Suez Canal, the Channel Tunnel, the Crédit Mobilier, and the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée.[31] Following Saint-Simon's death in 1825, his followers began to differ as to how to promulgate his ideas.[citation needed] The most acclaimed disciple of Saint-Simon was Auguste Comte.[32]

In 1831

Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin and Amand Bazard purchased the newspaper Le Globe as the official organ for their revolutionary fraternity Friends of the Truth.[33] Initially both men were supposed to be co-leaders naming themselves Supreme Fathers. However Bazard left the group as it became increasingly ritualistic and religiously minded with Enfantin founding a community at Ménilmontant where he decried marriage as tyranny, promoted free love, declared himself "chosen by God", and began predicting that a "female Messiah" would soon save humanity.[33] Enfantin would go on to organize an expedition of the disciples to Constantinople, and then to Egypt, where he influenced the creation of the Suez Canal.[34]

Occultism since the 1850s.[36] Karl Marx considered the Saint-Simonians to be the "patriarchs of socialism."[37]

French feminist and socialist writer Flora Tristan (1803–1844) claimed that Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, anticipated Saint-Simon's ideas by a generation.[38][dubious – discuss]

Karl Marx identified Saint-Simon as being among whom he called the "utopian socialists", though historian Alan Ryan regards certain followers of Saint-Simon, rather than Saint-Simon himself, as being responsible for the rise of utopian socialism that based itself upon Saint-Simon's ideas.[11] Ryan also distinguishes between Saint-Simon's conceptions and Marxism's, as Saint-Simon did not promote independent working-class organization and leadership as a solution to capitalist societal problems, nor did he adhere to the Marxist definition of the working class as excluded by fundamental private property law from control over the means of production.[11] Unlike Marx, Saint-Simon did not regard class relations, with respect to the means of production, to be an engine of socio-economic dynamics but rather the form of management.[11] Furthermore, Saint-Simon was not critical of capitalists as exclusive owners, collaborators, controllers, and decision-makers. Rather, he regarded capitalists as an important component of the "industrial class."[39] Ryan further suggests that by the 1950s it was clear that Saint-Simon had presaged the "modern" understanding of industrial society.[11]

According to

Ancien régime, arose before him and he listened to Mr. Rolfe's suggestion that he should write a book on Antichrist."[40]

Works

Saint-Simon wrote various accounts of his views:

See also

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d Jeremy Jennings. Revolution and the Republic: A History of Political Thought in France Since the Eighteenth Century. Oxford University Press, 2011. p. 347.
  2. ^ a b c d Gregory Claeys. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Thought. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2005. p. 136.
  3. ^ a b c Pilbeam, Pamela M. (2014). Saint-Simonians in Nineteenth-Century France: From Free Love to Algeria. Springer. p. 5.
  4. ^ John Powell, Derek W. Blakeley, Tessa Powell. Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences: The Nineteenth Century, 1800–1914. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. p. 267.
  5. ^ Jean-René Suratteau, "Restif (de la Bretonne) Nicolas Edme", in: Albert Soboul (ed.), Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, Paris, PUF, 1989, 2nd ed. Quadrige, 2005, pp. 897–898.
  6. ^ a b Nicholas Capaldi. John Stuart Mill: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2004. pp. 77–80.
  7. ^ a b Rob Knowles. Political Economy from Below: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism 1840–1914: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism, 1840–1914. Routledge, 2013. p. 342.
  8. ^ Koslowski, Stefan (2017). "Lorenz von Stein as a disciple of Saint-Simon and the French Utopians". Revista europea de historia de las ideas políticas y de las instituciones públicas. 11.
  9. ^ Horowitz, Irving Louis, Veblen's Century: A Collective Portrait (2002), p. 142
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Keith Taylor (ed, tr.). Henri de Saint Simon, 1760–1825: Selected writings on science, industry and social organization. New York, US: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc, 1975. pp. 158–161.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Alan Ryan. On Politics. Book II. 2012. pp. 647–651.
  12. ^ Vincent Mosco. The Political Economy of Communication. SAGE, 2009. p. 53.
  13. ^ "Britannica". 15 May 2023.
  14. ^ Busky, Donald F.: "Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union"
  15. ^ Manuel, Frank E.: "The Prophets of Paris", Harper & Row 1962
  16. ^
    ISBN 0-375-40883-5
    .
  17. ISBN 9780387939940
  18. ^ Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal, Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 109
  19. ISBN 9780387939940
  20. ^
    ISBN 0-375-40883-5
    .
  21. ^ a b Goyau (1912)
  22. ISBN 978-2-13-062090-7
    .
  23. ISBN 87-7783-959-5
    .
  24. ^ Hewett, 2008
  25. ISBN 978-0-521-02574-4
    .
  26. ISBN 978-1-78239-038-1
    .
  27. ISBN 0-19-280431-6
  28. ^ a b c Murray E. G. Smith. Early Modern Social Theory: Selected Interpretive Readings. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press, Inc, 1998. p. 80.
  29. ^ Murray E. G. Smith. Early Modern Social Theory: Selected Interpretive Readings. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press, Inc, 1998. pp. 80–81.
  30. ^ Saint-Simon (1825). Nouveau christianisme (New Christianity). Paris, France.
  31. doi:10.1093/isq/sqab089
    . Retrieved 10 June 2023.
  32. ISBN 0-375-40883-5
    .
  33. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4343-9061-5
    .
  34. ISBN 0-375-40883-5
    .
  35. ^ Leopold, 1998
  36. ^ Strube, 2016
  37. ISBN 978-1-137-31396-6
    .
  38. ^ Promenades dans Londres, first published 1840. Page 276, Broché edition (2003) from La Découverte.
  39. ^ Arthur Bernie. An Economic History of Europe 1760–1930. Routledge, 1930 (original), 2010. p. 113.
  40. ^ Martindale, C.C. (1916). The Life of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, Vol. 2. page 65. London: Longmans, Green & Co.

General references

Attribution

External links

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