Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon
Note: This article is almost entirely based on, and includes large transcripts from, Thomas Kirkup, 'History of Socialism', London, 1892.
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825) was a French early socialist theorist whose thought influenced the foundations of various 19th century philosophies; perhaps most notably Marxism and the discipline of sociology. He was born an aristocrat; the political ideologies he adopted in later life do not fall into the aristocratic category.
In opposition to the feudal and military system he advocated a form of state capitalist-technocratic socialism, an arrangement where industrial chiefs should control society. In place of the church, he felt the direction of society should fall to the men of science. Men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it.
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Early years
Saint-Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat. Although he was born an aristocrat, the political ideologies he adopted in his later life do not fall into the category that people today consider aristocratic. He belonged to a younger branch of the family of the duc de Saint-Simon. At the age of 17 he received his first military commission and set sail to fight in the war of independence in America, not as a dashing volunteer, but as a line officer obeying royal orders.
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."[1] 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.[2] He was imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace in Paris during the Terror. He took no part of any importance in the Revolution, although he profited from it by amassing a sizable fortune through land speculation; he said that this was motivated not by self-interest but by the desire to facilitate his future projects.
Career
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, undertaken so that he might have a salon. After a year's duration the marriage was dissolved by mutual consent. The 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 1802; but his early writings were mostly scientific and political. In 1817 he began in a treatise entitled L'Industrie to propound his socialistic views, which he further developed in L'Organisateur (1819), a periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte collaborated.
The first publication caused a sensation, though one that brought few converts. In 1821 appeared Du système industriel, and in 1823–1824 Catéchisme des industriels. The last and most important expression of his views is the Nouveau Christianisme (1825), which he left unfinished. For many years before his death, Saint-Simon had been reduced to the direst straits. He was obliged to accept a laborious post working nine hours a day for £40 a year, 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 by remarkably shooting himself in the head six times, losing his sight in one eye. Only very late in his career did he link up with a few ardent disciples.
He was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Political Views
see also article Saint-Simonianism
Early Socialism
Heavily influenced by the absence of social privilege he saw in the early United States, Simon renounced his aristocratic title and came to favor a form of meritocracy, becoming convinced that science was the key to progress and that it would be possible to develop a society based on objective principles.[3] As a thinker Saint-Simon was not particularly systematic, but his great influence on modern thought is undeniable, both as the historic founder of French socialism, which influenced the thought of Karl Marx, and as suggesting much of Auguste Comte's theory of industrial progress, which in turn influenced Émile Durkheim. Apart from the details of his socialist teaching, which are vague and unsystematic, the ideas of Saint-Simon as to the reconstruction of society are very simple.
One of these ideas is "the Hand of Greed", the image Saint-Simon uses to describe the basic avarice of human beings. In the simplest forms of society, human beings try to survive. All people therefore have the motivation to try to gain a higher place in society, no matter how insignificant the higher statuses at which their aim may be. To create his form of utopian socialism, society must eradicate this way of thinking and behaving over time through education. His opinions were conditioned by the French Revolution, and by the feudal and military system still prevalent in France. The key focus of Simon's socialism was on administrative efficiency and industrialism, and a belief that science was the key to progress.[3] In opposition to the destructive liberalism of the Revolution, he insisted on the necessity of a new and positive reorganization of society. So far was he from advocating fresh social revolt that he appealed to Louis XVIII to begin building the new order.[4]
Feudalism and Aristocracy
In opposition to the feudal and military system–the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the restoration–he advocated a form of state capitalist-technocratic socialism, an arrangement whereby industrial chiefs should control society. In place of the medieval church, spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science. Men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it. The conflict between labour and capital emphasized by later socialism is not present in Saint-Simon's work, but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control of production is to fall, shall rule in the interest of society. Later on the cause of the poor receives greater attention, until in his greatest work, The New Christianity, it takes on the form of a religion. This development of his ideas occasioned his final quarrel with Comte.
Religious Views
Prior to the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon had not concerned himself with theology. In this work 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 he says gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it. He 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 organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end." This principle became the watchword of the entire Saint-Simon school of thought.
Influence
During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had very little influence; he left only a few devoted disciples who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they revered as a prophet. The most important were Olinde Rodrigues, the favoured disciple of Saint-Simon, and Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin who together had received Saint-Simon's last instructions. Their first step was to establish a journal, Le Producteur, but it was discontinued in 1826. The sect had begun to grow, and before the end of 1828 had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns.
An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard, who gave a "complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith" in a long course of lectures in Paris, which was well attended. His Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon (2 vols., 1828–1830), which is by far the best account of it, won more adherents. The second volume was chiefly by Enfantin, who along with Bazard stood at the head of the society, but who was superior in philosophical acumen and was prone to push his deductions to extremities. The revolution of July (1830) brought a new freedom to the socialist reformers. A proclamation was issued demanding the community of goods, the abolition of the right of inheritance and the enfranchisement of women.
Early next year the school obtained possession of the Globe through Pierre Leroux, who had joined the school. The school now numbered some of the ablest and most promising young men in France, many of the pupils of the École Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm. The members formed themselves into 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 dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man of stolid 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 between the sexes.
End of the sect
After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school 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 moved to Ménilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a communistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Shortly after, 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.
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. [5]
In Dostoyevsky's novel The Possessed, 'Saint-Simonist' and 'Fourierist' are used as derogatory insults of others by many of the politically active characters.
Theory
In the school of Saint-Simon we find a great advance on the vague and confused views of the master. In the philosophy of history they recognize epochs of two kinds, the critical or negative and the organic or constructive. The former, in which philosophy is the dominating force, is characterized by war, egotism and anarchy; the latter, which is controlled by religion, is marked by the spirit of obedience, devotion and 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 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.
Under the present system the industrial chief exploits the proletariat, the members of which, though nominally free, must accept his terms under pain of starvation. 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 and social functionaries the management of the 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 is 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.
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 exercise of 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. Connected with these 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. In this theory they rejected the dualism so much emphasized by Catholic Christianity in its penances and mortifications, and held that the body should be restored to its due place of honour. It was a vague principle open to varying interpretations by Saint-Simon's followers. Enfantin's interpretation would have been considered highly immoral at the time: it was a kind of sensual mysticism, a system of free love with a religious sanction.
Works
An edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was published by the survivors of the sect (47 vols., Paris, 1865–1878).
Popular References
The Shins song "Saint Simon" on the band's second album Chutes Too Narrow is written in tribute to Saint-Simon.
External links
- Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism Catholic Encyclopedia article
- Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism: A Chapter in the History of Socialism in France By Arthur John Booth
- 'Henri de Saint-Simon: The Great Synthesist by Caspar Hewett
See Also
- Utopian socialism
- Meritocracy
- French Revolution
- Scientism
- Positivism
- Society of the Friends of Truth
References
- ↑ Busky, Donald F.: "Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union"
- ↑ Manuel, Frank E.: "The Prophets of Paris", Harper & Row 1962
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Newman, Michael. (2005) Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280431-6
- ↑ Kirkup, T., A History of Socialism (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1892), p. 21.
- ↑ Promenades dans Londres, first published 1840. Page 276, Broché edition (2003) from La Découverte.
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