[6]Schönberg’sHandbuch der pol. Oekonomie, art. ‘Socialism.’
[6]
Schönberg’sHandbuch der pol. Oekonomie, art. ‘Socialism.’
[7]Quintessenz des Socialismus, p. 12.
[7]
Quintessenz des Socialismus, p. 12.
[8]Lehrbuch der pol. Oekonomie, Grundlegung, p. 174.
[8]
Lehrbuch der pol. Oekonomie, Grundlegung, p. 174.
The founders of the early socialism grew up under the influence of the too-confident optimism which characterised the early stages of the French Revolution of 1789. They had an excessive faith in the possibilities of human progress and perfectibility; they knew little of the true laws of social evolution—in fact, did not sufficiently recognise those aspects of life which Darwinism has brought out so clearly. These faults the early socialists shared with many other thinkers of the time in which they lived.
Comte Henri de Saint-Simon, the founder of French socialism, was born at Paris in 1760. He belonged to a younger branch of the family of the celebrated duke of that name. His education, he tells us, was directed by d’Alembert. At the age of nineteen he went as volunteer to assist the American colonies in their revolt against Britain.
From his youth Saint-Simon felt the promptings of an eager ambition. His valet had orders to awake himevery morning with the words, ‘Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do’; and his ancestor Charlemagne appeared to him in a dream, foretelling a remarkable future for him. Among his early schemes was one to unite the Atlantic and the Pacific by a canal, and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea.
He took no part of any importance in the French Revolution, but amassed a little fortune by land speculation—not on his own account, however, as he said, but to facilitate his future projects. Accordingly, when he was nearly forty years of age he went through a varied course of study and experiment, in order to enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage, which after a year’s duration was dissolved by the mutual consent of the parties. Another result of his experiments was that he found himself completely impoverished, and lived in penury for the remainder of his life.
The first of his numerous writings,Lettres d’un Habitant de Genève, appeared in 1803; but his early works were mostly scientific and political. It was not till 1817 that he began, in a treatise entitledL’Industrie, to propound his socialistic views, which he further developed inL’Organisateur(1819),Du Système industrial(1821),Catéchisme des Industriels(1823). The last and most important expression of his views is theNouveau Christianisme(1825).
For many years before his death in 1825 Saint-Simon had been reduced to the greatest straits. He wasobliged to accept a laborious post for a salary of £40 a year, to live on the generosity of a former valet, and finally to solicit a small pension from his family. In 1823 he attempted suicide in despair. It was not till very late in his career that he attached to himself a few ardent disciples.
As a thinker Saint-Simon was entirely deficient in system, clearness, and consecutive strength. His writings are largely made up of a few ideas continually repeated. But his speculations are always ingenious and original; and he has unquestionably exercised great influence on modern thought, both as the historic founder of French socialism and as suggesting much of what was afterwards elaborated into Comtism.
Apart from the details of his socialistic teaching, with which we need not concern ourselves, we find that the ideas of Saint-Simon with regard to the reconstruction of society are very simple. His opinions were conditioned by the French Revolution and by the feudal and military system still prevalent in France. In opposition to the destructive liberalism of the Revolution he insisted on the necessity of a new and positive reorganisation of society. So far was he from advocating social revolt that he appealed to Louis XVIII. to inaugurate the new order of things. In opposition, however, to the feudal and military system, the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the Restoration, he advocated an arrangement by which the industrial chiefs should control society. In place of the Mediæval Church, the spiritual direction ofsociety should fall to the men of science. What Saint-Simon desired, therefore, was an industrialist State directed by modern science. The men who are best fitted to organise society for productive labour are entitled to bear rule in it.
The social aim is to produce things useful to life; the final end of social activity is ‘the exploitation of the globe by association.’ The contrast between labour and capital, so much emphasised by later socialism, is not present to Saint-Simon, but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control of production is to be committed, shall rule in the interest of society. Later on, the cause of the poor receives greater attention, till in his greatest work,The New Christianity, it becomes the central point of his teaching, and takes the form of a religion. It was this religious development of his teaching that occasioned his final quarrel with Comte.
Previous to the publication of theNouveau ChristianismeSaint-Simon had not concerned himself with theology. Here he starts from a belief in God, and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to its simple and essential elements. He does this by clearing it of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects that have gathered round both the Catholic and Protestant forms of it, which he subjects to a searching and ingenious criticism. The moral doctrine will by the new faith be considered the most important; the divine element in Christianity is contained in the precept that men should act towards one another as brethren. ‘Thenew Christian organisation will deduce the temporal institutions as well as the spiritual from the principle that all men should act towards one another as brethren.’ Expressing the same idea in modern language, Saint-Simon propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity this precept: ‘The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organise itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end.’ This principle became the watchword of the entire school of Saint-Simon; for them it was alike the essence of religion and the programme of social reform.
During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had little influence, and he left only a very few devoted disciples, who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they revered as a prophet. An important departure was made in 1828 by Bazard, who gave a ‘complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith’ in a long course of lectures in the Rue Taranne at Paris. In 1830 Bazard and Enfantin were acknowledged as the heads of the school; and the fermentation caused by the revolution of July of the same year brought the whole movement prominently before the attention of France. Early next year the school obtained possession of theGlobethrough Pierre Leroux, who had joined the party, which now numbered some of the ablest and most promising young men of France, many of the pupils of the École Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm. The members formed themselvesinto an association arranged in three grades, and constituting a society or family, which lived out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny.
Before long, however, dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man of logical and more solid temperament, could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism, with lax notions as to marriage and the relations of the sexes. After a time Bazard seceded, and many of the strongest supporters followed his example. A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character. They finally removed to Menilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a communistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Shortly afterwards the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings prejudicial to the social order; and the sect was entirely broken up in 1832. Many of its members became famous as engineers, economists, and men of business. The idea of constructing the Suez Canal, as carried out by Lesseps, proceeded from the school.
In the school of Saint-Simon we find a great advance both in the breadth and firmness with which the vague and confused views of the master are developed; and this progress is due chiefly to Bazard. In the philosophy of history they recognise epochs of two kinds, the critical or negative, and the organic or constructive. The former, in which philosophy is the dominatingforce, is characterised by war, egotism, and anarchy; the latter, which is controlled by religion, is marked by the spirit of obedience, devotion, association. The two spirits of antagonism and association are the two great social principles, and on the degree of prevalence of the two depends the character of an epoch. The spirit of association, however, tends more and more to prevail over its opponent, extending from the family to the city, from the city to the nation, and from the nation to the federation. This principle of association is to be the keynote of the social development of the future. Hitherto the law of humanity has been the ‘exploitation of man by man’ in its three stages—slavery, serfdom, the proletariat; in the future the aim must be ‘the exploitation of the globe by man associated to man.’
Under the present system the industrial chief still exploits the proletariat, the members of which, though nominally free, must accept his terms under pain of starvation. This state of things is consolidated by the law of inheritance, whereby the instruments of production, which are private property, and all the attendant social advantages, are transmitted without regard to personal merit. The social disadvantages being also transmitted, misery becomes hereditary. The only remedy for this is the abolition of the law of inheritance, and the union of all the instruments of labour in a social fund, which shall be exploited by association. Society thus becomes sole proprietor, entrusting to social groups or social functionaries the management ofthe various properties. The right of succession is transferred from the family to the State.
The school of Saint-Simon insists strongly on the claims of merit; they advocate a social hierarchy in which each man shall be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his works. This is, indeed, a most special and pronounced feature of the Saint-Simon Socialism, whose theory of government is a kind of spiritual or scientific autocracy, culminating in the fantastic sacerdotalism of Enfantin.
With regard to the family and the relation of the sexes, the school of Saint-Simon advocated the complete emancipation of woman and her entire equality with man. The ‘social individual’ is man and woman, who are associated in the triple function of religion, the State, and the family. In its official declarations the school maintained the sanctity of the Christian law of marriage. On this point Enfantin fell into a prurient and fantastic latitudinarianism, which made the school a scandal to France, but many of the most prominent members besides Bazard refused to follow him.
Connected with the last-mentioned doctrines was their famous theory of the ‘rehabilitation of the flesh,’ deduced from the philosophic theory of the school, which was a species of pantheism, though they repudiated the name. On this theory they rejected the dualism so much emphasised by Catholic Christianity in its penances and mortifications, and held that the body should be restored to its due place of honour. It is a vague principle, of which the ethical character dependson the interpretation; and it was variously interpreted in the school of Saint-Simon. It was certainly immoral as held by Enfantin, by whom it was developed into a kind of sensual mysticism, a system of free love with a religious sanction.[1]
The good and bad aspects of the Saint-Simon socialism are too obvious to require elucidation. The antagonism between the old economic order and the new had only begun to declare itself. The extent and violence of the disease were not yet apparent: both diagnosis and remedy were superficial and premature. Such deep-seated organic disorder was not to be conjured away by the waving of a magic wand. The movement was all too utopian and extravagant in much of its activity. The most prominent portion of the school attacked social order in its essential point—the family morality—adopting the worst features of a fantastic, arrogant, and prurient sacerdotalism, and parading them in the face of Europe. Thus it happened that a school which attracted so many of the most brilliant and promising young men of France, which was so striking and original in its criticism of the existing condition of things, which was so strong in the spirit of initiative, and was in many ways so noble, unselfish, and aspiring, sank amidst the laughter and indignation of a scandalised society.
[1]An excellent edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was begun by survivors of the sect in (Paris) 1865, and now numbers forty vols. See Reybaud,Études sur les réformateurs modernes(7th edition, Paris 1864); Janet,Saint-Simon et le Saint-Simonisme(Paris, 1878); A. J. Booth,Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism(London, 1871).
[1]
An excellent edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was begun by survivors of the sect in (Paris) 1865, and now numbers forty vols. See Reybaud,Études sur les réformateurs modernes(7th edition, Paris 1864); Janet,Saint-Simon et le Saint-Simonisme(Paris, 1878); A. J. Booth,Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism(London, 1871).
Considered as a purely literary and speculative product, the socialism of Fourier was prior to those both of Owen and Saint-Simon. Fourier’s first work,Théorie des Quatre Movements, was published as early as 1808. His system, however, scarcely attracted any attention and exercised no influence till the movements originated by Owen and Saint-Simon had begun to decline.
The socialism of Fourier is in many respects fundamentally different from that of Saint-Simon; in the two schools, in fact, we find the two opposing types of socialism which have continued to prevail ever since. Saint-Simonism represented the principle of authority, of centralisation; while Fourier made all possible provision for local and individual freedom. With Saint-Simonism the State is the starting-point, the normal and dominant power; in Fourier the like position is held by a local body, corresponding to the commune, which he called thePhalange. In the system of Fourier thephalangeholds the supreme and central place, other organisation in comparison with it being secondary and subordinate.
The deviser of thephalange, François Marie Charles Fourier[1]was a very remarkable man. He was born at Besançon in 1772, and received from his father, a prosperousdraper, an excellent education at the academy of his native town. The boy excelled in the studies of the school, and regretfully abandoned them for a business career, which he followed in various towns of France. As a commercial traveller in Holland and Germany he enlarged his experience of men and things. From his father Fourier inherited a sum of about £3000, with which he started business at Lyons, but he lost all he had in the siege of that city by the Jacobins during the Reign of Terror, was thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped the guillotine. On his release he joined the army for two years, and then returned to his old way of life.
At a very early age Fourier had his attention called to the defects of the prevalent commercial system. When only five years old he had been punished for speaking the truth about certain goods in his father’s shop; and at the age of twenty-seven he had at Marseilles to superintend the destruction of an immense quantity of rice held for higher prices during a scarcity of food till it had become unfit for use. The conviction grew within him that a system which involved such abuses and immoralities must be radically evil. Feeling that it was his mission to find a remedy for it, he spent his life in the discovery, elucidation, and propagation of a better order; and he brought to his task a self-denial and singleness of purpose which have seldom been surpassed. For the last ten years of his life he waited in his apartments at noon every day for the wealthy capitalist who should supply the means for the realisationof his schemes. The tangible success obtained by his system was very slight. His works found few readers and still fewer disciples.
It was chiefly after the decline of the Saint-Simon movement that he gained a hearing and a little, success. A small group of enthusiastic adherents gathered round him; a journal was started for the propagation of his views; and in 1832 an attempt was made on lands near Versailles to establish aphalange, which, however, proved a total failure. In 1837 Fourier passed away from a world that showed little inclination to listen to his teaching. A singular altruism was in his character blended with the most sanguine confidence in the possibilities of human progress. Perhaps the weakest point in his teaching was that he so greatly underestimated the strength of the unregenerate residuum in human nature. His own life was a model of simplicity, integrity, kindliness, and disinterested devotion to what he deemed the highest aims.
The social system of Fourier was, we need not say, the central point in his speculations. But as his social system was moulded and coloured by his peculiar views on theology, cosmogony, and psychology, we must give some account of those aspects of his teaching. In theology Fourier inclined, though not decidedly, to what is called pantheism; the pantheistic conception of the world which underlay the Saint-Simon theory of the ‘rehabilitation of the flesh’ may be said to form the basis also of the social ethics and arrangements of Fourier. Along with this he held a natural optimismof the most radical and comprehensive character. God has done all things well, only man has misunderstood and thwarted His benevolent purposes. God pervades everything as a universal attraction. Whereas Newton discovered that the law of attraction governs one movement of the world, Fourier shows that it is universal, ruling the world in all its movements, which are four—material, organic, intellectual, and social. It is the same law of attraction which pervades all things, from the cosmic harmony of the stars down to the puny life of the minutest insect, and which would reign also in the human soul and in human society, if the intentions of the Creator were understood. In the elucidation of his system Fourier’s aim simply is to interpret the intentions of the Creator. He regards his philosophy, not as ingenious guesses or speculations, but as discoveries plainly traceable from a few first principles; discoveries in no way doubtful, but the fruit of clear insight into the divine law.
The cosmogony of Fourier is the most fantastic part of a fantastic system. But as he did not consider his views in this department an essential part of his system, we need not dwell upon them. He believed that the world is to exist for eighty thousand years, forty thousand years of progress being followed by forty thousand years of decline. As yet it has not reached the adult stage, having lasted only seven thousand years. The present stage of the world is civilisation, which Fourier uses as a comprehensive term for everything artificial and corrupt, the result of pervertedhuman institutions, themselves due to the fact that we have for five thousand years misunderstood the intentions of the Creator. The head and front of this misunderstanding consists in our pronouncing passions to be bad that are simply natural; and there is but one way of redressing it—to give a free and healthy and complete development to our passions.
This leads us to the psychology of Fourier. He recognised twelve radical passions connected with three points of attraction. Five are sensitive (tending to enjoyment)—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Four are affective (tending to groups)—love, friendship, ambition, andfamilismor paternity. The meaning and function of these are obvious enough. The remaining three, thealternating,emulative, andcomposite(which he callspassions rectrices, and which tend to series or to unity), are more special to Fourier. Of the three the first is connected with the need of variety; the second leads to intrigue and jealousy; the third, full of intoxication and abandonment, is born of the combination of several pleasures of the senses and of the soul enjoyed simultaneously. The passions of the first two classes are so far controlled by thepassions rectrices, and especially by the composite passion; but even thepassions rectricesobviously contain elements of discord and war. All, however, are ultimately harmonised by a great social passion, which Fourier callsUnitéisme. Out of the free play of all the passions harmony is evolved, like white out of the combination of the colours.
The speedy passage from social chaos to universalharmony contemplated by Fourier can, as we have seen, be accomplished only by one method, by giving to the human passions their natural development. For this end, a complete break with civilisation must be made. We must have new social arrangements suitable to human nature and in harmony with the intentions of the Creator. These Fourier provides in thephalange. In its normal form thephalangewas to consist of four hundred families or eighteen hundred persons, living on a square league of land, self-contained and self-sufficing for the most part, and combining within itself the means for the free development of the most varied likings and capacities. It was an institution in which agriculture, industry, the appliances and opportunities of enjoyment, and generally of the widest and freest human development, are combined, the interests of individual freedom and of common union being reconciled in a way hitherto unknown and unimagined.
While thephalangeis the social unit, the individuals composing it will arrange themselves in groups of seven or nine persons; from twenty-four to thirty-two groups form a series, and these unite to form aphalange—all according to principles of attraction, of free elective affinity. The dwelling of thephalangewas thephalanstère, a vast, beautiful, and commodious structure, where life could be arranged to suit every one, common or solitary, according to preference; but under such conditions there would be neither excuse nor motive for the selfish seclusion, isolation, and suspicion so prevalent in civilisation.
In such an institution it is obvious that government under the form of compulsion and restraint would be reduced to a minimum. The officials of thephalangewould be elected. Thephalange, itself was an experiment on a local scale, which could easily be made, and once successfully made would lead to world-wide imitation. They would freely group themselves into wider combinations with elected chiefs, and thephalangesof the whole world would form a great federation with a single elected chief, resident at Constantinople, which would be the universal capital.
In all the arrangements of thephalangethe principle of free attraction would be observed. Love would be free. Free unions should be formed, which could be dissolved, or which might grow into permanent marriage.
The labour of thephalangewould be conducted on scientific methods; but it would, above all things, be madeattractive, by consulting the likings and capacities of the members, by frequent change of occupation, by recourse to the principle of emulation in individuals, groups, and series. On the principle that men and women are eager for the greatest exertion, if only they like it, Fourier bases his theory that all labour can be made attractive by appealing to appropriate motives in human nature. Obviously, also, what is now the most disgusting labour could be more effectually performed by machinery.
The product of labour was to be distributed in the following manner:—Out of the common gain of thephalangea very comfortable minimum was assured to every member. Of the remainder, five-twelfths went to labour, four-twelfths to capital, and three-twelfths to talent. In thephalange, individual capital existed, and inequality of talent was not only admitted, but insisted upon and utilised. In the actual distribution thephalangetreated with individuals. With regard to the remuneration of individuals under the head of capital no difficulty could be felt, as a normal rate of interest would be given on the advances made. Individual talent would be rewarded in accordance with the services rendered in the management of thephalange, the place of each being determined by election. Labour would be remunerated on a principle entirely different from the present. Hard and common or necessary work should be best paid; useful work should come next, and pleasant work last of all. In any case the reward of labour would be so great that every one would have the opportunity of becoming a capitalist.
One of the most notable results of thephalangetreating with each member individually is, that the economic independence of women would be assured. Even the child of five would have its own share in the produce.
The system of Fourier may fairly be described as one of the most ingenious and elaborate Utopias ever devised by the human brain. But in many cardinal points it has been constructed in complete contradiction to all that experience and science have taught us ofhuman nature and the laws of social evolution. He particularly underestimates the force of human egotism. From the beginning progress has consisted essentially in the hard and strenuous repression of the beast within the man, whereas Fourier would give it free rein. This applies to his system as a whole, and especially to his theories on marriage. Instead of supplying a sudden passage from social chaos to universal harmony, his system would, after entirely subverting such order as we have, only bring us back to social chaos.
Yet his works are full of suggestion and instruction, and will long repay the study of the social economist. His criticisms of the existing system, of its waste, anarchy, and immorality, are ingenious, searching, and often most convincing. In his positive proposals, too, are to be found some of the most sagacious and far-reaching forecasts of the future landmarks of human progress. Most noteworthy are the guarantees he devised for individual and local freedom. Thephalangewas on the one hand large enough to secure all the benefits of a scientific industry and of a varied common life; on the other it provides against the evils of centralisation, of State despotism, of false patriotism and national jealousy. Fourier has forecast the part to be played in the social and political development of the future by the local body, whether we call it commune, parish, or municipality. The fact that he has given it a fantastic name, and surrounded it with many fantastic conditions, should not hinder us from recognising his great sagacity and originality.
The freedom of the individual and of the minority is, moreover, protected against the possible tyranny of thephalangeby the existence, under reasonable limits and under social control, of individual capital. This individual capital, further, is perfectlymobile; that is, the possessor of it, if he thinks fit to migrate or go on travel, may remove his capital, and find a welcome for his labour, talent, and investments in any part of the world. Such arrangements of Fourier may suggest a much-needed lesson to many of the contemporary adherents of ‘scientific socialism.’
While, therefore, we believe that Fourier’s system was as a whole entirely utopian, he has with great sagacity drawn the outlines of much of our political and social progress; and while we believe that the full development of human passions as recommended by him would soon reduce us to social chaos, a time may come in our ethical and rational growth when a widening freedom may be permitted and exercised, not by casting off moral law, but by the perfect assimilation of it.
[1]Fourier’s complete works (6 vols., Paris, 1840-46; new ed. 1870). The most eminent expounder of Fourierism was Victor Considérant,Destinée sociale; Gatti de Gammont’sFourier et son systèmeis an excellent summary.
[1]
Fourier’s complete works (6 vols., Paris, 1840-46; new ed. 1870). The most eminent expounder of Fourierism was Victor Considérant,Destinée sociale; Gatti de Gammont’sFourier et son systèmeis an excellent summary.
The year 1830 was an important era in the history of socialism. During the fermentation of that time the activity of the Saint-Simon school came to a crisis, and the theories of Fourier had an opportunity of taking practical shape. But by far the greatest result for socialism of the revolutionary period of 1830 was the definite establishment of the contrast between thebourgeoisieand proletariat in France and England, the two countries that held the foremost place in the modern industrial, social, and political movement. Hitherto the men who were afterwards destined consciously to constitute those two classes had fought side by side against feudalism and the reaction. Through the restricted franchise introduced at this period in the two countries just mentioned the middle class had become the ruling power.
Excluded from political privileges and pressed by the weight of adverse economic, conditions, the proletariat now appeared as the revolutionary party. The first symptom in France of the altered state of things was the outbreak at Lyons in 1831, when the starvingworkmen rose to arms with the device, ‘Live working, or die fighting.’ Chartism was a larger phase of the same movement in England. The theories of Saint-Simon and Fourier had met with acceptance chiefly or entirely among the educated classes. Socialism now directly appealed to the working men.
In this chapter our concern is with the development of the new form of socialism in France. Paris, which had so long been the centre of revolutionary activity, was now, and particularly during the latter half of the reign of thebourgeoisKing, Louis Philippe, the seat of socialistic fermentation. In 1839 Louis Blanc published hisOrganisation du travail, and Cabet hisVoyage en Icarie. In 1840 Proudhon brought out his book on property. Paris was the school to which youthful innovators went to learn the lesson of revolution. At this period she counted among her visitors Lassalle, the founder of the Social Democracy of Germany; Karl Marx, the chief of scientific international socialism; and Bakunin, the apostle of anarchism.
The socialistic speculation associated with the three men last mentioned was to have a far-reaching influence; but it did not attain to full development till a later period. The socialistic activity of Louis Blanc and Proudhon culminated during the revolution of 1848, and exercised considerable influence on the course of events in Paris at that time.
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 theRevue du progrès, in which he first brought out his celebrated work on Socialism, theOrganisation 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 calledsocial 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 itsrôlewould 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 oflaissez-faire, would establish a real and positive freedom.
With regard to the remuneration of talent and labourL. 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.
In France, the country with which we are now specially concerned, the revolution was a revolt of the people against a representative monarchy with a veryrestricted franchise. It was not a deeply-planned rising, and, indeed, was a surprise to those who wished it and accomplished it. Yet it marked a most important stage in the progress of the world, for, as a result of it, men for the first time saw the legislature of a great country established on principles of universal suffrage, and the cause of the working men recognised as a supreme duty of government.
Louis Blanc was the most prominent actor in what may be called the social-democratic side of the French Revolution of 1848. Through his influence with the working classes, and as representing their feelings and aspirations, he obtained a place in the Provisional Government. He was supported there by others like-minded with himself, including one working man, whose appearance in such a capacity was also a notable event in modern history. But though circumstances were so far favourable, he did not accomplish much. It cannot be said that his plans obtained a fair hearing or a fair trial. He was present in the Provisional Government as the pioneer of a new cause whose time had not yet come.
The schemes for social reconstruction which he contemplated were certainly not carried out in thenational workshopsof that year. From the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the subject, subsequently instituted by the French Government, and from theHistory of the National Workshops, written by their director, Emile Thomas, it is perfectly clear that thenational workshopswere simply a travesty of the proposalsof Louis Blanc, established expressly to discredit them. They were a means of finding work for the motley proletariat thrown out of employment during the period of revolutionary disturbance, and those men were put to unproductive labour; whereas, of course, Louis Blanc contemplated nothing but productive work, and the men he proposed inviting to join his associations were to give guarantees of character. It was intended, too, by his opponents that the mob of workmen whom they employed in the so-callednational workshopswould be ready to assist their masters in the event of a struggle with the socialist party.
A number of private associations of a kind similar to those proposed by Louis Blanc were indeed subsidised by the Government. But of the whole sum voted for this end, which amounted to only £120,000, the greater part was applied to purposes quite foreign from the grant. It was not the intention of the moving spirits of the Government that they should succeed. Moreover, the months following the revolution of February were a period of industrial stagnation and insecurity, when any project of trade, either on the old or on the new lines, had little prospect of success. Under these circumstances, the fact that a few of the associations did prosper very fairly may be accepted as proof that the scheme of Louis Blanc had in it the elements of vitality. The history of the whole matter fully justifies the exclamation of Lassalle that ‘lying is a European power.’[4]It has been the subject of endlessmisrepresentation by writers who have taken no pains to verify the facts.
As one of the leaders during this difficult crisis, Louis Blanc had neither personal force nor enduring political influence sufficient to secure any solid success for his cause. He was an amiable, genial, and eloquent enthusiast, but without weight enough to be a controller of men on a wide scale. The Labour Conferences at the Luxembourg, over which he presided, ended also, as his opponents desired, without any tangible result.
The Assembly, elected on the principle of universal suffrage, which met in May, showed that the peasantry and the mass of the French people were not in accord with the working classes of Paris and of the industrial centres. It did not approve of the social-democratic activity urged by a section of the Provisional Government. The national workshops also were closed, and the proletariat of Paris rose in armed insurrection, which was overthrown by Cavaignac in the sanguinary days of June. Louis Blanc was in no way responsible for the revolt, which can be called socialistic only in the sense that the proletariat was engaged in it, the class of which socialism claims to be the special champion.