One seems justified in saying that in England and even in France and

other Protective countries the land has lost both in revenue and value

during the last quarter of the nineteenth century almost all that it

had gained from the time of Ricardo up till then. But is the recoil

sufficient to justify Foville’s description of Ricardo’s vaunted law as

a pure myth? We think not. It has the experience of seventy-five years

behind it and of twenty-five years against it, that is all. Anyone who

would predict a further fall in rent would certainly be running the risk

of becoming a false prophet.

[346] “The condition of the labourer will generally decline, and that of

the landlord will always be improved.” (_Principles_, ed. Gonner, p. 79.)

[347] “It generally happens, indeed, that when a stimulus has been given

to population an effect is produced beyond what the case requires.…

The increased wages are not always immediately expended on food, but

are first made to contribute to the other enjoyments of the labourer.

His improved condition, however, induces and enables him to marry.”

(_Principles_, ed. Gonner, p. 95.)

[348] “Every suggestion which does not tend to the reduction in number of

the working people is useless, to say the least of it. All legislative

interference must be pernicious.” (Quoted by Graham Wallas, _Life of

Francis Place_. Place was the author of a book on population which

appeared in 1822.)

[349] This is a fundamental distinction upon which Ricardo is always

insisting. The greater or smaller quantity of labour employed in the

production of corn bears no necessary relation to the worker’s wages.

The one is merely a question of production, the other of distribution.

The one is the task, the other the reward. But some might ask if the

Ricardian theory of value does not state that the value of the product is

determined by the quantity of labour necessary for its production, that

this value will be subsequently divided between capitalist and worker,

and that the greater this quantity the greater will be the share of

each. Labour’s share may increase, but not the labourer’s, for we must

not forget that when the price of corn goes up from 10s. to 20s. it is

because the cultivation of poorer lands requires twice the number of

labourers demanded by the better kind of land. Besides, it would be a

strange thing to pay a man more as the work becomes less remunerative.

All that one could hope for would be that the workers under the new

conditions might be able to retain their old standard of life—that is,

might be able to purchase the same quantity of bread despite the rise in

price.

[350] “Thus, then, I have endeavoured to show that a rise of wages would

invariably lower profits.”

“Thus in every case … profits are lowered … by a rise of wages.”

On the inexactness of the term “high rate of profits” as a synonym for a

proportionally larger share of the produce see note, p. 162.

[351] Ricardo does not deny this. Indeed, he lays stress upon the fact

that he is arguing on the assumption that the value produced remains the

same. “I have therefore made no allowance for the increasing price of the

other necessaries, besides food of the labourer; an increase which would

be the consequence of the increased value of the raw materials from which

they are made, and which would of course further increase wages and lower

profits.”

[352] But this only means a rise in the nominal or money wage. It does

not mean that the worker gets more corn; he only gets the same amount as

before, because the price of corn has gone up and it makes no difference

whether the man is paid in money or in kind.

[353] “For as soon as wages should be equal to the whole receipts of the

farmer, there must be an end of accumulation: for no capital can then

yield any profit whatever, and no additional labour can be demanded,

and consequently population will have reached its highest point.”

(_Principles_, ed. Gonner, p. 67.)

[354] When speaking of a reduction of capital’s share Ricardo frequently

employs the phrase “a lowering of the rate of profits,” or “a fall in

the rate of profits.” A fall in the rate is not necessarily synonymous

with a reduction of capital’s share, however. The rate of profit simply

implies a certain proportion between revenue and capital—5 per cent.,

for example; there is no suggestion of comparison between the quantities

drawn by capitalist and workers respectively. Doubtless we must admit

that when the rate of profit is diminished, _ceteris paribus_, the part

drawn by capital relatively to labour’s share also diminishes, but it is

clear that if the quantity of capital employed in any industry were to be

doubled, or the product halved, capital, even at the rate of 3 instead

of 5 per cent., would be drawing a more considerable share and leaving

labour with less. Bastiat, as we shall have to note, made the same

mistake.

[355] In a letter to Malthus, December 18, 1814, he admits with a sigh of

regret that even if a belt of fertile land were added to this island of

ours profits would still keep up. Free Trade has added the illimitable

zone of fertile land which Ricardo dreamed of, with the result that both

profits and rents have fallen.

In his essay _On Protection to Agriculture_ (1822) he shows how

Protection, by forcing the cultivation of less fertile lands at home,

raises the price of corn and increases rents; and his demand was not for

free importation, but for a reduction of the duty to 10s. a quarter.

[356] See _An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent_.

[357] Cf. this unexpected remark to which H. Denis has recently drawn

attention: “It is evidently impossible for any Government to let

things just take their natural course.” (Malthus, introduction to the

_Principles_.)

[358] “Gold and silver having been chosen for the general medium of

circulation, they are by the competition of commerce distributed in such

proportions among the different countries of the world as to accommodate

themselves to the natural traffic which would take place if no such

metals existed and the trade between countries were purely a trade of

barter.”

[359] Ricardo also points out that “if, which is a much stronger case,

we agreed to pay a subsidy to a foreign Power, money would not be

exported whilst there were any goods which could more cheaply discharge

the payment.” (McCulloch’s edition, p. 269.) As a matter of fact, the

European Powers who were leagued against Napoleon were subsidised in

this fashion, the exports exceeding the imports by many millions. The

indemnity of 5 milliards of francs paid by France to Germany affords

another illustration of the same truth.

[360] Ricardo’s works, McCulloch’s edition, p. 287.

[361] Ricardo’s works, McCulloch’s edition, p. 404.

[362] _Ibid._, p. 349.

[363] S. and B. Webb, _History of Trade Unionism_, p. 54.

[364] In 1835 Andrew Ure (_Philosophy of Manufactures_, p. 481) reckoned

that in the manufacture of cotton, wool, linen, and silk in England there

were employed 4800 boys and 5308 girls below 11 years of age, 67,000

boys and 89,000 girls between 11 and 18 years of age, and 88,000 men and

102,000 women above 18 years; a total of 159,000 boys and men against

196,000 girls and women.

[365] J. B. Say, _De l’Angleterre et des Anglais_, in _Œuvres_, vol. iv,

p. 213.

[366] Villermé’s report in _Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences morales_,

vol. ii, p. 414, note. Villermé’s observations were made in 1835 and

1836, although his celebrated work, _Tableau de l’État physique et moral

des Ouvriers_, was not published till 1840. This book is a reproduction

of his report to the Academy.

[367] _Enquête sur l’Industrie du Coton_, 1829, p. 87. Evidence of

Messrs. Witz and Son, manufacturers.

[368] Vide _Bulletin de la Société_, etc., 1828, p. 326-329.

[369] _Cf._ Rist, _Durée du Travail dans l’Industrie française de 1820 à

1870_, in the _Revue d’Économie politique_, 1897, pp. 371 _et seq._

[370] Sismondi was a native of Geneva. His family was originally Italian,

but took refuge in France in the sixteenth century, and migrated to

Geneva after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Here Sismondi was

born in 1773. He is even better known for his two great works _L’Histoire

des Républiques italiennes_ and _L’Histoire des Français_ than for his

economic studies. He was a frequent guest of Mme. de Staël at the Château

Coppet, and among the other visitors whom he met there was Robert Owen.

He died in 1842.

[371] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. xxii. Our quotations are taken

from the second edition, published in 1827.

[372] _Ibid._, p. iv.

[373] Two volumes, Paris, 1837 and 1838.

[374] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, pp. 50-51. “Adam Smith’s doctrine is

also ours, but the practical conclusion which we draw from the doctrine

borrowed from him frequently appears to us to be diametrically opposed to

his.”

[375] _Ibid._, p. 56. “Adam Smith recognised the fact that the science

of government was largely experimental, that its real foundation lay

in the history of various peoples, and that it is only by a judicious

observation of facts that we can deduce the general principles. His

immortal work is, indeed, the outcome of a philosophic study of the

history of mankind.” _Cf._ also vol. i, pp. 47, 389.

[376] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 268. _Cf._ also pp. 388, 389.

[377] _Ibid._, p. 56. In several other passages he takes Ricardo to task

(vol. i, pp. 257, 300, 336, 366, 423; vol. ii, pp. 184, 190, 218, 329).

[378] _Ibid._, p. 86.

[379] _Études sur Économie politique_, preface, p. v. Already in his

first work, _La Richesse commerciale_, he had declared: “Political

economy is based upon the study of man or of men. We must know human

nature, the character and destiny of nations in different places and at

different times. We must consult historians, question travellers, etc.…

The philosophy of history … the study of travels, etc., are parallel

studies.”

[380] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 257.

[381] Sismondi’s awkwardness in the manipulation of abstract reasoning is

clearly visible in a host of other passages, especially in the vagueness

of his definitions. Labour in one place is defined as the source of all

revenues (_ibid._, vol. i, p. 85); elsewhere, as the workers’ revenue

as contrasted with interest and rent (vol. i, pp. 96, 101, 110, 113,

114; vol. ii, p. 257, etc.). He never distinguishes between national and

private capital, and wages are sometimes treated as capital, sometimes

as revenue (p. 379). He constantly uses such vague terms as “rich”

and “poor” to designate capitalist and worker (vol. ii, chap. 5). In

his explanation of how the rate of interest is fixed he says that the

strength of the lenders of capital just balances the strength of the

borrowers, and, as in all other markets, they hit upon a proportional

mean (vol. ii, p. 36). In a similar fashion he is constantly confusing

revenue in kind with money revenue.

[382] “Last year’s revenue pays for the production of this.” (_Ibid._,

vol. i, p. 120.) Farther on he adds: “After all, what we do is to

exchange the total product of this year against the total product of

the preceding one” (p. 121). Sismondi attached great importance to the

distinction between the national revenue and the annual product. “The

confusion of the annual revenue with the annual product casts a thick

veil over the whole science. On the other hand, all becomes clear and

facts fall in with the theory as soon as one is separated from the

other.” (_Ibid._, pp. 366-367.) It is he himself, on the contrary, who

creates the confusion.

[383] McCulloch criticised Sismondi in an article in the _Edinburgh

Review_ of October 1819. For J. B. Say see pp. 115-117.

With regard to Ricardo, Sismondi relates that in the very year of his

death he had two or three conversations with him on this subject at

Geneva. In the end he seems to have accepted Ricardo’s point of view,

but not without several reservations. “We arrive then at Ricardo’s

conclusion and find that when circulation is complete (and having nowhere

been arrested) production does give rise to consumption”; but he adds:

“This involves making an abstraction of time and place, and of all those

obstacles which might arrest this circulation.”

Sismondi defended his point of view against his three critics in two

articles reprinted at the end of the second edition of the _Nouveaux

Principes_.

[384] “The accumulation of wealth _in abstracto_ is not the aim of

government, but the participation by all its citizens in the pleasures of

life which the wealth represents. Wealth and population in the abstract

are no indication of a country’s prosperity: they must in some way be

related to one another before being employed as the basis of comparison.”

(_Nouveaux Principes_, vol i, p. 9.)

[385] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 250. Elsewhere he adds: “Should

the Government ever propose to further the interests of one class at the

expense of another that class should certainly be the workers.” (_Ibid._,

vol. i, p. 372.)

[386] _Cours complet_, vol. ii, p. 551.

[387] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 333.

[388] _Ibid._, p. 336.

[389] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, pp. 220-221.

[390] The unanimity is not quite absolute, however. Ricardo in the third

edition of his _Principles_ added a chapter on machinery in which he

admitted that he was mistaken in the belief that machines after a short

period always proved favourable to the interests of the workers. He

recognised that the worker might suffer, for though the machine increases

the net product of industry it frequently diminishes the total product.

He seemed to think that this might happen frequently, but in reality it

is quite exceptional.

[391] We may here recall the celebrated winch argument. Suppose, says

Sismondi, that England succeeded in tilling her fields and doing all the

work of her towns by means of steam power, so that her total products

and revenue remain the same as they are to-day, though her population is

only equal to that of the republic of Geneva. Is she to be regarded as

being richer and more prosperous? Ricardo would reply in the affirmative.

Wealth is everything, men nothing. Really, then, a single king, dwelling

alone on the island, by merely turning a winch might conceivably

automatically perform all the work done in England to-day. One can only

reply to this argument by saying that long before arriving at this state

the community itself would have devised some machinery for distributing

the product between all its members. To suppose that a portion of the

population dies of hunger through want of employment while the other

part continues to manufacture the same quantity of goods as before is

sufficiently contradictory. But at bottom, disregarding the paradoxical

form given it by Sismondi, the question set by him is insoluble. What

is the best equilibrium between production and population? Are we to

prefer a population rapidly increasing in numbers, but making no advance

in wealth, to a population which is stationary or even decreasing, but

rapidly advancing in wealth? Everyone is free to choose for himself.

Science gives us no criterion.

[392] “We have said elsewhere, but think it essential to repeat it, that

it is not the perfection of machinery that is the real calamity, but

the unjust distribution of the goods produced. The more we are able to

increase the quantity of goods produced with a given quantity of labour,

the more ought we to increase our comforts or our leisure. Were the

worker his own master, after accomplishing in two hours with a machine

a task which formerly took him twelve he would then desist from toil,

unless he had some new need or were able to make use of a larger amount

of products. It is our present organisation and the workman’s servitude

that has forced him to work not less but more hours, at the same wage,

and this despite the fact that machinery has increased his productive

powers.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 318.) In this passage we

have Sismondi’s real opinion on the subject of machinery most clearly

expressed.

[393] _Wealth of Nations_, Book II, chap. 2, in fine.

[394] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 92.

[395] _Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, p. 35.

[396] _Ibid._, pp. 274-275.

[397] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 103.

[398] On this point we must dissociate ourselves from the interpretation

placed upon the passage by M. Aftalion in his otherwise excellent

monograph, _L’Œuvre économique de Simonde de Sismondi_ (Paris, 1899),

as well as from the view expressed by M. Denis (_Histoire des Systèmes

économiques_, vol. ii, p. 306). But Sismondi’s text appears to us to

leave no room for doubt. “As against land we might combine the other

two sources of wealth, life which enables a man to work and capital

which employs him. These two powers when united possess an expansive

characteristic, so that the labour which a worker puts in his work one

year will be greater than that put in the preceding year—upon the product

of which the worker will have supported himself. It is because of this

surplus value [_mieux value_], which increases as the arts and sciences

are progressively applied to industry, that society obtains a constant

increment of wealth.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 103.)

[399] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, pp. 111-112. Cf. also p. 87: “Wealth,

however, co-operates with labour. And its possessor withholds from

the worker the part which the worker has produced beyond his cost of

maintenance—as compensation for the help which he has given him.” It is

true that this proportion is a considerable one. “The _entrepreneur_ is

bound to leave to the worker just enough to keep him alive, reserving for

himself all that the worker has produced over and above this.” (P. 103.)

But this is not a matter of necessity—a deduction from the laws of value,

as it is with Marx.

[400] “The poor man, by his labour and his respect for the property of

others, acquires a right to his home, to warm, proper clothing, to ample

nourishment sufficiently varied to maintain health and strength.… Only

when all these things have been secured to the poor as the fruit of their

labour does the claim of the rich come in. What is superfluous, after

supplying the needs of everyone, that should constitute the revenue of

opulence.” (_Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, p. 273.) Here we

see quite clearly the sense in which Sismondi uses the term “spoliation.”

[401] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 407. Cf. also pp. 200, 201.

[402] “Everyone’s interest if checked by everybody else’s would in

reality represent the common interest. But when everyone is seeking his

own interest at the expense of others as well as developing his own

means, it does not always happen that he is opposed by equally powerful

forces. The strong thus find it their interest to seize and the weak to

acquiesce, for the least evil as well as the greatest good is a part of

the aim of human policy.” (_Ibid._, p. 407.) Cf. also _infra_, p. 188,

note 1.

[403] “There is one fundamental change which is still possible in

society, amid this universal struggle created by competition, and that is

the introduction of the proletariat into the ranks of human beings—the

proletariat, whose name, borrowed from the Romans, is so old, but who is

himself so new.” (_Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, p. 34.)

[404] _Revue mensuelle d’Économie politique_, 1834, vol. ii, p. 124.

[405] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 434.

[406] _Études sur l’Économic politique_, introd., pp. 39 _et seq._

[407] “That everyone understands his own interest better than any

Government ever can is a maxim that has been considerably emphasised by

economists. But they have too lightly affirmed that the interest of each

to avoid the greatest evil coincides with the general interest. It is to

the interest of the man who wishes to impoverish his neighbour to rob

him, and it may be the latter’s interest to let him do it provided he can

escape with his life.

“But it is not in the interest of society that the one should exercise

the force and that the other should yield. The interest of the day

labourer undoubtedly is that the wages for a day of ten hours should be

sufficient for his upkeep and the upbringing of his children. It is also

the interest of society. But the interest of the unemployed is to find

bread at any price. He will work fourteen hours a day, will send his

children to work in a factory at ten years of age, will jeopardise his

own health and life and the very existence of his own class in order to

escape the pressure of present need.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, pp.

200-201.)

[408] _Ibid._, p. 201.

[409] “Population will then regulate itself simply in accordance with

the revenue. Where it exceeds this proportion it is always just because

the fathers are deceived as to what they believe to be their revenue, or

rather because they are deceived by society.” (_Ibid._, p. 254.) “The

more the poor is deprived of all right of property the greater is the

danger of its mistaking its revenue and contributing to the growth of

a population which, because it does not correspond to the demand for

labour, will never find sufficient means of subsistence.” (_Ibid._, p.

264.)

[410] _Ibid._, p. 286.

[411] We note that Sismondi does not accept Malthus’s theory of

population. He never admits that population depends upon the means

of subsistence; he holds that it varies according to the will of the

proprietor, who stimulates or retards it according to his demand, but

who is interested in its limitation in order to secure for himself the

maximum net product. “Population has never reached the limits of possible

subsistence, and probably it never will. But all those who desire the

subsistence have neither the means nor the right to extract it from the

soil. Those, on the contrary, to whom the laws give the monopoly of the

land have no interest in obtaining from it all the subsistence it might

produce. In all countries proprietors are opposed, and must be opposed,

to any system of cultivation which would tend merely to multiply the

means of subsistence while not increasing the revenue. Long before being

arrested by the impossibility of finding a country which produced more

subsistence population would be checked by the impossibility of finding

the people to buy those means or to work and bring them into being.”

(_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, pp. 269-270.)

[412] _Ibid._, pp. 263, 264.

[413] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 153.

[414] _Ibid._, p. 235. This problem of the net and gross produce occupied

Sismondi’s attention for a long time. We find a suggestion of it in his

first work, _Le Tableau de l’Agriculture toscane_ (Geneva, 1801), and

though he does not definitely take the side of the gross produce, he

shows some leanings that way. “Why is the gain of a single rich farmer

considered more profitable for a State than the miserable earnings of

several thousand workers and peasants?” The book, however, is a treatise

on practical agriculture, and includes only a few economic dicta. It is

here that we have his beautiful description of his farm at Val Chiuso (p.

219).

[415] It is true that Sismondi wished to get rid of the practice of

producing corn for a market, so as to free the nation’s food from the

fluctuations of that market. Neither is he over-enthusiastic in his

praise of the gross produce. He recognises that the gradual growth of

the gross produce might, in its way, be the consequence of a state

of suffering if population were to progress too rapidly (_Nouveaux

Principes_, vol. i, p. 153). This shows what a hesitating mind we are

dealing with.

[416] _Ibid._, p. 368.

[417] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 361.

[418] Elsewhere he remarks: “The petty merchants, the small

manufacturers, disappear, and a great _entrepreneur_ replaces hundreds

of them whose total wealth was never equal to his. Taken altogether,

however, they consumed more than he does. His costly luxury gives much

less encouragement to industry than the honest ease of the hundred homes

which it has replaced.” (_Ibid._, p. 327). The theory is more than

doubtful. What we want to know is whether the demand will remain the

same in amount, not whether there will be no change in its character—a

contingency that need not result in a general crisis, but simply in a

passing inconvenience.

[419] Sismondi applies the same principles to a consideration of a fall

in the rate of interest as he does to the growth of production or the

increase of machinery. “An increase of capital is desirable only when its

employment can be increased at the same time. But whenever the rate of

interest is lowered it is a certain sign that the employment of capital

has proportionally diminished as compared with the amount available;

and this fall in the rate, which is always advantageous to some people,

is disadvantageous to others—some will have to be content with smaller

incomes and others with none at all.” (_Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p.

393.)

[420] Compare the Saint-Simonian review, _Le Producteur_, vol. iv, pp.

887-888.

[421] _Nouveaux Lundis_, vol. vi, p. 81.

[422] _Études sur l’Économie politique_, vol. i, pp. 60, 61.

[423] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. i, p. 341; vol. ii, p. 459.

[424] _Ibid._, vol. ii, pp. 415, 435. See also _Études_, vol. i, p. 25.

[425] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, pp. 365, 366.

[426] _Ibid._, p. 451.

[427] _Ibid._, p. 338.

[428] _Nouveaux Principes_, vol. ii, p. 661.

[429] _Ibid._, p. 364.

[430] See section I of present chapter.

[431] Knies, strangely enough, classes him with the socialists.

[432] A. Blanqui, in his _Histoire de l’Économie politique en Europe_

(1837), considers him a writer of the modern school, which he describes

as follows: “Writers of this school are no longer willing to treat

production as a pure abstraction apart from its influence upon the

workers. To produce wealth is not enough; it must be equitably

distributed.” (Introd., 3rd ed., p. xxi.)

[433] Droz (1773-1850) published in 1829 his _Économie politique, ou

Principes de la Science des Richesses_. It is in this work that we find

the famous phrase, “Certain economists seem to think that products are

not made for men, but that men are made for the products.”

[434] Paris, 1841, two volumes. Buret died in 1842, when thirty-two years

of age.

[435] It was not intended that any reference should be made in this

volume to the doctrine of socialism before the opening of the nineteenth

century, but the question whether the French Revolution of 1789 was

socialist in character or simply middle-class, as the socialists of

to-day would put it, has been so frequently discussed that we cannot

ignore it altogether.

There is no doubt that the leaders of the Revolution—including Marat

even, who is wrongly regarded as a supporter of that agrarian law which

he condemned as fatal and erroneous—always showed unfailing respect for

the institution of private property. The confiscation of the property

of the Church and of the _émigré_ nobles was a political and not an

economic measure, and in that respect is fairly comparable with the

historic confiscation of the property of Jews, Templars, Huguenots,

and Irish, which in no case was inspired by merely socialist motives.

The confiscation of endowments—of goods belonging to legal persons—was

regarded as a means of defending individual or real property against the

encroachments of merely fictitious persons and the tyranny of the dead

hand. When it came to the abolition of feudal rights great care was taken

to distinguish the tenant’s rights of sovereignty, which were about to

be abolished, from his proprietary rights, which deserved the respect of

everyone who recognised the legitimacy of compensation. In practice the

distinction proved of little importance. Scores of people were ruined

during those unfortunate months—some through mere misfortune, others

because of the muddle over the issue of assignats, and others, again,

because of the confiscation of rents; but the intention to respect the

rights of property remains indisputable still. It would seem that in this

matter the revolutionary leaders had come under the influence of the

Physiocrats, whose cult of property has already engaged our attention.

And how easy it would be to imagine a Physiocrat penning Article 17

of the Declaration of the Rights of Man when it speaks of property as

an inviolable, sacred right! But, on the other hand, it is true that

Rousseau in his article _Économie politique_ speaks of the rights of

property as the most sacred of the citizen’s rights.

It was not only on the question of property that the revolutionists of

1789 showed themselves anti-socialist. They were also anti-socialist

in the sense that they paid no attention to class war and ignored the

antagonism that exists between capitalists and workers. All were to be

treated as citizens and brothers, all were equal and alike.

However, those who claim the most intimate connection with the spirit of

the Revolution remain undismayed by such considerations. They endeavour

to show that the Revolution was not quite so conservative nor so

completely individualistic as is generally supposed, and after diligent

search they claim to have discovered certain decrees bearing unmistakable

traces of socialism. But a much more general practice is to plead

extenuating circumstances. “Are we to demand that the social problems

which appeared fifty years afterwards, when industry had revolutionised

the relations of capital and labour, should have been solved at the end

of the eighteenth century? It would have been worse than useless for the

men of 1789 and 1793 to try to regulate such things in advance.” (Aulard,

Address to Students, April 21, 1893. Cf. his _Histoire politique de la

Révolution_, chap. 8, paragraph entitled “_Le Socialisme_.”)

We must not lose sight of the communist plot hatched by François Babeuf

during the period of the Revolution. But in this case, at any rate, the

exception proves the rule, for, despite the fact that Babeuf had assumed

the suggestive name of Gaius Gracchus, he found little sympathy among

the men of the Convention, even in La Montagne, and he was condemned and

executed by order of the Directory. Babeuf’s plot is interesting, if only

as an anticipatory protest of revolutionary socialism against _bourgeois_

revolution. Cf. Aulard, _loc. cit._, p. 627.

[436] Not to speak of celebrated Utopians like Plato, More, and

Campanella, a number of writers who have been minutely studied by

Lichtenberger undertook to supply such criticism in the eighteenth

century. Morelly, Mably, Brissot, and Meslier the _curé_ in France,

and Godwin in England, attacked the institution of property with

becoming vigour. Babeuf, who in 1797 suffered death for his attempt

to establish a community of equals, has left us a summary of their

theories. But the Saint-Simonians owe them nothing in the way of

inspiration. Eighteenth-century socialism was essentially equalitarian.

What aroused the anger of the eighteenth-century writers most of all was

the inequality of pleasure and of well-being, for which they held the

institution of private property responsible. “If men have the same needs

and the same faculties they ought to be given the same material and the

same intellectual opportunities,” says the _Manifeste des Égaux_. But the

Saint-Simonians recognise neither equality of needs nor of faculties,

and they are particularly anxious not to be classed along with the

Babeuvistes—the champions of the agrarian law. Their socialism, which is

founded upon the right to the whole produce of labour and would apportion

wages according to capacity, aims neither at equality nor uniformity.

The Saint-Simonians seem to have remained in ignorance of the socialist

theories of their contemporaries, the French Fourier and the English

Thompson and Owen. Fourier’s work only became known to Enfantin after his

own economic doctrine had been formulated. Saint-Simon and Bazard appear

never to have read him. It is probable that Enfantin only became aware

of Fourier’s writings after 1829, and when he did he interested himself

merely in those that dealt with free love and the theory of passions. As

Bourgin put it: “If Fourier did anything at all, he has rather hastened

the decomposition of Saint-Simonism.” (Henry Bourgin, _Fourier_, p. 419;

Paris, 1905.)

The English socialists are never as much as mentioned. The Ricardian

doctrine of labour-value, which is the basis of Thompson’s theory and

of Owen’s, and later still of that of Marx, seems never to have become

known to them. “Questions of value, price, and production, which demand

no fundamental knowledge either of the composition or the organisation

of society,” are treated as so many details (_Le Producteur_, vol. iv,

p. 388). Their doctrine is primarily social, containing only occasional

allusions to political economy. Enfantin is careful to distinguish

between Quesnay and his school and Smith or Say. The Physiocrats gave

a social character to their doctrine, which the economists wrongfully

neglected to develop. Aug. Comte, in the fourth volume of the _Cours de

Philosophie_, has criticised political economy in almost identical terms,

which affords an additional proof of his indebtedness to Saint-Simonism.

[437] Cf. especially Dumas, _Psychologie de deux Messies positivistes,

Saint-Simon et A. Comte_ (Paris, 1905), and for biographical details

Weill, _Saint-Simon et son Œuvre_ (1894).

[438] Weill, _Saint-Simon et son Œuvre_, p. 15.

[439] In 1814 _De la Réorganisation de la Société européenne_, by

Saint-Simon and A. Thierry, his pupil; 1817-18, _Industrie_, in 4 vols.

(the 3rd vol. and the first book of the 4th vol. are the work of A.

Comte); 1819, _La Politique_; 1821, _Le Système industriel_; 1823-24, _Le

Catéchisme des Industriels_ (the third book, by A. Comte, bears the title

_Système de Politique positive_); 1825, _Le Nouveau Christianisme_. Our

quotations from Saint-Simon are taken from the _Œuvres de Saint-Simon et

d’Enfantin_, published by members of the committee instituted by Enfantin

for carrying out the master’s last wishes (Paris, Dentu, 1865), and from

the _Œuvres choisies de Saint-Simon_, published in 3 vols. by Lemonnier

of Brussels (1859).

[440] _L’Organisateur_, Part I, 1819, pp. 10-20. This passage was

republished by Olinde Rodrigues in 1832 under the title of _Une Parabole

politique_ in a volume of miscellaneous writings by Saint-Simon, with the

result that Saint-Simon was prosecuted before the Cour d’Assises. He was

acquitted, however.

[441] “With the enfranchisement of the communes we shall witness the

middle classes at last in enjoyment of their liberty, setting up as a

political power. The essence of that power will consist in freedom from

being imposed upon by others without consent. Gradually it will become

richer and stronger, at the same time growing in political importance and

improving its social position in every respect, with the result that the

other classes, which may be called the theological or feudal classes,

will dwindle in estimation as well as in their real importance. Whence I

conclude that the industrial classes must continue to gain ground, and

finally to include the whole of society. Such seems to be the trend of

things—the direction in which we are moving.” (_Lettres à un Américain,

Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 166.)

[442] “Industry is the basis of liberty. Industry can only expand and

grow strong with the growth of liberty. Were this doctrine, so old in

fact but so new to many people, once fully grasped instead of those

fictitious dreams of antiquity, we should have heard the last of such

sanguinary phrases as ‘equality or death.’” (_Œuvres_, vol. ii, pp.

210-211.)

[443] “Lawyers and metaphysicians are wont to take appearance for

reality, the name for the thing.” (_Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. v., p.

12.)

[444] “Parliamentary government must be regarded as an indispensable step

in the direction of industrialism.” (_Œuvres_, vol. iii, p. 22.) “It is

absolutely necessary if the transition from the essentially arbitrary

_régime_ which has existed hitherto is to be replaced by the ideal

liberal _régime_ which is bound to come into being by and by.” (_Ibid._

p. 21.)

[445] Writing in 1803 in his _Lettres d’un Habitant de Genève_, he uses

the following words: “Everyone will be obliged to do some work. The

duty of employing one’s personal ability in furthering the interests of

humanity is an obligation that rests upon the shoulders of everyone.”

(_Œuvres_, vol. i, p. 55.)

[446] “I find it essential to give to the term ‘labour’ the widest

latitude possible. The civil servant, the scientist, the artist, the

manufacturer, and the agriculturist are all working as certainly as the

labourer who tills the ground or the porter who shoulders his burden.”

(Introduction to _Travaux scientifiques, Œuvres choisies_, vol. i, p.

221.)

[447] The national or industrial party includes the following classes:

1. All who till the land, as well as any who direct their operations.

2. All artisans, manufacturers, and merchants, all carriers by land or

by sea, as well as everyone whose labour serves directly or indirectly

for the production or the utilisation of commodities; all savants who

have consecrated their talents to the study of the positive sciences, all

artists and liberal advocates; “the small number of priests who preach

a healthy morality; and, finally, all citizens who willingly employ

either their talents or their means in freeing producers from the unjust

supremacy exercised over them by idle consumers.”

“In the anti-national party figure the nobles who labour for the

restoration of the old _régime_, all priests who make morality consist of

blind obedience to the decrees of Pope or clergy, owners of real estates,

noblemen who do nothing, judges who exercise arbitrary jurisdiction, as

well as soldiers who support them—in a word, everyone who is opposed to

the establishment of the system that is most favourable to economy or

liberty.” (_Le Parti national_, in _Le Politique, Œuvres_, vol. iii, pp.

202-204.)

[448] _Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. vi, p. 17, note.

[449] _Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. vi, pp. 91-92.

[450] _Œuvres_, vol. iii, pp. 35-36.

[451] On this point see Halévy’s article in the _Revue du Mois_ for

December 1907, _Les Idées économiques de Saint-Simon_, and Allix, article

mentioned _supra_, p. 117.

[452] In the following passage the opposition is very marked: “One must

recognise that nearly all Government measures which have presumed to

influence social prosperity have simply proved harmful. Hence people

have come to the conclusion that the best way in which a Government can

further the well-being of society is by letting it alone. But this method

of looking at the question, however just it may seem when we consider

it in relation to the present political system, is evidently false

when it is adopted as a general principle. The impression will remain,

however, until we succeed in establishing another political order.”

(_L’Organisateur, Œuvres_, vol. iv, p. 201.)

Later on the Saint-Simonians abandoned this idea and demanded

Governmental control of all social relations. “Far from admitting that

the directive control of Government in social matters ought to be

restricted, we believe that it ought to be extended until it includes

every kind of social activity. Moreover, we believe that it should always

be exercised, for society to us seems a veritable hierarchy.” (_Doctrine

de Saint-Simon, Exposition, Deuxième Année_, p. 108; Paris, 1830.)

[453] “Under the old _régime_ men were considered inferior to things,”

according to a brochure entitled _Des Bourbons et des Stuarts_ (1822;

_Œuvres choisies_, vol. ii, p. 447). “The object of the new system

will be to extend man’s hold over things.” (_Œuvres_, vol. iv, p. 81.)

“In the present state of education what the nation wants is not more

government, but more cheap administration.” (_Syst. indust., Œuvres_,

vol. v, p. 181.) Engels, in his book written in reply to Eugen Dühring,

makes use of identical terms in speaking of the socialist _régime_.

“When the administration of things and the direction of the processes of

production take the place of the governing of persons the State will not

merely be abolished: it will be dead.” (_Philosophie, Économie politique,

Socialisme_, French translation by Laskine, p. 361; Paris, 1911.)

[454] _Lettres à un Américain, Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 189.

[455] _Des Bourbons et des Stuarts, Œuvres choisies_, vol. ii, pp.

437-438.

[456] _L’Organisateur, Œuvres choisies_, vol. iv, pp. 86 and 150-151.

[457] _Lettres à un Américain, Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 188.

[458] This is not the only plan of government proposed by Saint-Simon,

although it is the one most characteristic of him. It is to be found in

_L’Organisateur_ immediately after the Parable. We have to remember that

Saint-Simon was very hostile to a Government of savants. Power was to be

placed in the hands of the industrial leaders—the savants were simply

to advise. “Should we ever have the misfortune to establish a political

order in which administration was entrusted to savants we should soon

witness the corruption of the scientists, who would readily adopt the

vices of the clergy and become astute, despotic quibblers.” (_Syst.

indust., Œuvres_, vol. v, p. 161.)

[459] _Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol. vi, p. 96.

[460] F. Engels, _Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft_, 4th

ed., p. 277. French translation, Paris, 1911, p. 334. The whole of this

chapter in Engels’ book is from the pen of Karl Marx.

[461] French translation under the title _L’État socialiste_, Paris, 1906.

[462] This is the full text: “The object of socialism is to set up a

new system of society based upon the workshop as a model. The rights

of the society will be the customary rights of the factory. Not only

will socialism stand to benefit by the existence of the industrial

system which has been built up by capital and science upon the basis

of technical development, but it will gain even more from that spirit

of co-operation which has long been a feature of factory life, drawing

out the best energy and the best skill of the workman.” Earlier in

the same volume he writes: “Everything will proceed in an orderly,

economical fashion, just like a factory.” (G. Sorel, _Le Syndicalisme

révolutionnaire_, in _Le Mouvement socialiste_, November 1 and 15, 1905.)

[463] Saint-Simon often quotes Say and Smith with distinct approval. But

he charges Say with the separation of politics from economics instead of

merging the former in the latter, and with inability to realise to the

full extent what he “dimly saw, as it were, in spite of himself, namely,

that political economy is the one true foundation of politics.” (_Lettres

à un Américain, Œuvres_, vol. ii, p. 185.)

[464] Saint-Simon is classed among the socialists for two reasons: (1)

the interest he takes in the condition of the poor; (2) his opinions

concerning the necessity for reforming the institution of private

property. But none of the texts that are generally quoted seem to have

the significance that is occasionally given them. With regard to the

first point, a celebrated passage from the _Nouveau Christianisme_ is

the one usually quoted: “Society should be organised in such a fashion

as to secure the greatest advantage for the greatest number. The object

of all its labours and activities should be the promptest, completest

amelioration possible of the moral and physical condition of the most

numerous class.” (_Œuvres_, vol. vii, pp. 108-109.) Already in his

_Système industriel_ Saint-Simon had said that the direct object which he

had in view was to better the lot of that class that had no other means

of existence than the labour of its own right arm. (_Ibid._, vol. vi, p.

81.) But is this not just the old Benthamite formula—the greatest good

of the greatest number? Besides, how does Saint-Simon propose to secure

all this? By giving the workers more power? Not at all. “The problem of

social organisation must be solved for the people. The people themselves

are passive and listless and must be discounted in any consideration of

the question. The best way is to entrust public administration to the

care of the industrial chiefs, who will always directly attempt to give

the widest possible scope to their undertakings, with the result that

their efforts in this direction will lead to the maximum expansion of the

amount of work executed by the mass of the people.” (_Ibid._, vol. vi,

pp. 82-83.) A Liberal economist would hardly have expressed it otherwise.

As to the question of private property, Saint-Simon certainly regarded

its transformation as at least possible. This is seen in a number of

passages. “Property should be reconstituted and established upon a

foundation that might prove more favourable for production,” says he

in _L’Organisateur_. (_Ibid._, vol. iv, p. 59.) Elsewhere, in a letter

written to the editor of the _Journal général de la France_, he mentions

the fact that he is occupied with the development of the following

ideas: (1) That the law establishing the right of private property is

the most important of all, seeing that it is the basis of our social

edifice; (2) the institution of private property ought to be constituted

in such a fashion that the possessors may be stimulated to make the best

possible use of it. (_Ibid._, vol. iii, pp. 43-44.) In his _Lettres à

un Américain_ he gives the following résumé of the principles which

underlie the work of J. B. Say (an incidental proof of his attachment

to the Liberal economists): “The production of useful objects is the

only positive, reasonable aim which political societies can propose for

themselves, and consequently the principle of respect for production

and producers is a much more fruitful one than the other principle of

respect for property and proprietors.” (_Œuvres_, vol. ii, pp. 186-187.)

But all that this seems to us to imply is that the utility of property

constitutes its legality and that it should be organised with a view

to social utility. Admitting that he did conceive of the necessity of

a reform of property, it does not appear that he intended this to mean

anything beyond a reform of landed property. We have already seen how he

regarded capital as a kind of social outlay which demanded remuneration.

The following passage bears eloquent testimony to his respect for

movable property: “Wealth, generally speaking, affords a proof of the

manufacturers’ ability even where that wealth is derived from inherited

fortune, whereas in the other classes of society it is apparently true to

say that the richer are inferior in capacity to those who have received

less education but have a smaller fortune. This is a truth that must play

an important part in positive politics.” (_Syst. indust., Œuvres_, vol.

v, p. 49, note.)

[465] The exact title is _Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition, Première

Année_, 1829. Our quotations are taken from the second edition (Paris,

1830). One ought to mention, in addition to these, the articles

contributed by Enfantin to _Le Globe_ and republished under the title of

_Économie politique et Politique_, in one volume (2nd ed., 1832). But

none of these articles is as interesting as the _Doctrine_, and they only

reproduce the ideas already discussed by Enfantin in his articles in _Le

Producteur_.

[466] Despite the fact that the oral exposition of the doctrine was the

work of Bazard and was prepared for the press by his disciples—Hippolyte

Carnot among others—most of the economic ideas contained in it must be

attributed to Enfantin. Enfantin also was responsible for the majority of

the economic articles that appeared in _Le Producteur_. But the doctrine

set forth in _Le Producteur_ differs considerably from that expounded in

the _Exposition_. Interest and rent are subjected to severe criticism

as tributes paid to idleness by industry. Inheritance, on the other

hand, though treated with scant sympathy, is not condemned. A lowering

of the rate of interest would, Enfantin thinks, help to enfranchise the

workers, and a sound credit system would solve the greatest of modern

problems—that is, it would reconcile workers and idlers, “whose interests

will never again be confused with the general interest, inasmuch as the

possession of the fruits of past labour will no longer constitute a claim

to the enjoyment of the benefits of labour in the present or future.”

(_Le Producteur_, vol. ii, p. 124.) These ideas are more fully developed

in the _Exposition_.

[467] _Doctrine de Saint-Simon_, p. 182.

[468] _Ibid._, p. 190.

[469] _Ibid._, p. 93.

[470] Sismondi’s term was rather “spoliation.” See _supra_, p. 185.

[471] “The mass of workers are to-day exploited by those people

whose property they use. Captains of industry in their dealings with

proprietors have to submit to a similar kind of treatment, only to a

much less degree. But they occasionally share in the privilege of the

exploiters, for the full burden of exploitation falls upon the working

classes—that is, upon the vast majority of mankind.” (_Doctrine de

Saint-Simon_, p. 176.)

[472] “It is our belief that profits diminish while wages increase; but

the term ‘wages’ as we use it includes the profits that accrue to the

_entrepreneur_, whose earnings we regard as the price of his labour.”

(_Le Producteur_, vol. i, p. 245. The article is by Enfantin.)

[473] We might sum up the different senses of the word “exploitation” as

used by Sismondi, the Saint-Simonians, and Marx respectively as follows:

(1) Sismondi thinks that the worker is exploited whenever he is not paid

a wage sufficient to enable him to lead a decent existence. Unearned

income seems quite legitimate, however.

(2) Exploitation exists, in the opinion of the Saint-Simonians, whenever

a part of the material produce raised by labour is devoted to the

remuneration of proprietors through the operation of ordinary social

factors.

(3) Marx speaks of exploitation whenever a portion of the produce of

labour is devoted to the remuneration of capital either through the

existence of social institutions or the operation of the laws of exchange.

[474] See p. 25.

[475] _Doctrine_, p. 191.

[476] See p. 79, note.

[477] _Doctrine_, pp. 191-192.

[478] The Saint-Simonians never make use of the term, but they describe

the doctrine admirably.

[479] “We may provisionally speak of this system as a general system of

banking, ignoring for the time being the somewhat narrow interpretation

usually placed upon that word. In the first place, the system would

comprise a central bank, which would directly represent the Government.

This bank would be the depository for every kind of wealth, of all

funds for productive purposes and all instruments of labour—in a word,

it would include everything that is to-day comprised within the term

‘private property.’ Depending upon this central bank would be other banks

of a secondary character, which would be, as it were, a prolongation

of the former and would supply it with the means of coming into touch

with the principal localities, informing the central institution as to

their particular needs and their productive ability. Within the area

circumscribed for these banks would be other banks of a more specialised

character still, covering a less extensive field and including within

their ambit the tenderer branches of the industrial tree. All wants would

be finally focused in the central bank and all effort would radiate from

it.” (_Doctrine_, pp. 206-207.) The idea is probably Enfantin’s, for

there is an exposition of the same idea in _Le Producteur_, vol. iii, p.

385.

[480] _Doctrine_, p. 210, note. Elsewhere (p. 330): “We are weary of

every political principle that does not aim directly at putting the

destiny of the people in the hands of the most able and devoted among

them.”

[481] “We come back with real joy to this great virtue, so frequently

misconceived, not to say misrepresented, at the present time—that virtue

which is so easy and so delightful in persons who have a common aim which

they want to attain, but which is so painful and revolting when combined

with egoism. This virtue of obedience is one to which our thoughts return

ever with love,” (_Ibid._, p. 330.)

[482] The formula in the third edition of the _Doctrine_ is a little

different. “Each one,” it runs there, “ought to be endowed according to

his merits and rewarded according to his work.” We know that the first

part of the formula refers to the distribution of capital, _i.e._ to the

instruments of labour, while the second refers to individual incomes. The

word “classed” was substituted for “endowed” in the second edition.

[483] Published as an appendix to the second edition of the _Doctrine de

Saint-Simon, Exposition, Première Année_, 1829.

[484] In his small volume _Le Collectivisme_ (Paris, 1900).

[485] Littré has disputed Comte’s indebtedness to Saint-Simon in his

_Auguste Comte et le Positivisme_. Saint-Simon, however, in his preface

to _Système industriel_ remarks that in political matters the jurists

form a connecting link between feudal government on the one hand and

industrial government on the other, just as the metaphysicians are

intermediate between the theological and the scientific _régimes_. In a

note which he adds he states his position still more clearly (_Œuvres_,

vol. v, p. 9). It is true that the _Système industriel_ dates from 1821,

and is consequently subsequent to the beginning of the friendly relations

between Comte and Saint-Simon. But textual evidence, however precise,

cannot decide the question of the reciprocal influence which these two

Messiahs exercised upon one another. A similar idea had already found

expression in Turgot’s work.

[486] P. 179.

[487] “Another mistake that is also very general is to speak of property

as if it were an institution with a fixed, unchangeable form, while as

a matter of fact it has assumed various aspects and is still capable of

further modification as yet undreamt of.” (Laveleye, _De la Propriété

et de ses Formes primitives_, 1st ed., 1874, p. 381.) Stuart Mill, in a

letter addressed to Laveleye on November 17, 1872, congratulated him on

the demonstration he had given of this. (_Ibid._, preface, p. xiii.)

[488] Note this argument, which has so frequently been employed by

Liberal economists, and which we shall come across in Bastiat’s work. The

Saint-Simonians are constantly running with the hare as well as hunting

with the hounds.

[489] _Doctrine_, p. 182. The historical argument of which we have just

given a short summary is developed in the _Doctrine_, pp. 179-193. It is

open to a still more fundamental criticism, inasmuch as it does not seem

to be historically accurate.

[490] Saint-Simon, _Mémoire introductif sur sa Contestation avec M. de

Redern_ (1812) (_Œuvres_, vol. i, p. 122).

[491] _Doctrine_, p. 144.

[492] The philosophy of history might be said to consist of attempts to

show that history is made up of alternating periods of organic growth and

destructive criticism. The former periods are marked by unity of thought

and aim, of feeling and action in society; the latter by a conflict of

ideas and sentiments, by political and social instability. The former

periods are essentially religious, the latter selfish. Reform and

revolution are the modern manifestations of the critical nature of the

period in which we live. Saint-Simonism would lead us into a definitely

organic epoch. Historical evolution seems to point to a religious and

universal association.

[493] _Doctrine_, p. 119.

[494] _Ibid._, p. 121. “Man is not without some intuitive knowledge of

his destiny, but when science has proved the correctness of his surmises

and demonstrated the accuracy of his forecasts, when it has assured him

of the legitimacy of his desires, he will move on with all the greater

assurance and calmness towards a future that is no longer unknown to

him. Thus will he become a free, intelligent agent working out his own

destiny, which he himself cannot change, but which he may considerably

expedite by his own efforts.”

[495] This is developed at great length in the seventh lecture,

_Doctrine_, pp. 211 _et seq._

[496] “Politics,” says Saint-Simon, “have their roots in morality, and

a people’s institutions are just the expression of their thoughts.”

(_Œuvres_, vol. iii, p. 31.) “Philosophy,” he remarks elsewhere, “is

responsible for the creation of all the more important political

institutions. No other power would have the strength necessary to check

the action of those that have already become antiquated or to set up

others more in conformity with a new doctrine.” (_Syst. indust._,

_Œuvres_, vol. v, p. 167.) He further insists upon the part which

philanthropists may play in the creation of a new society. “One truth,”

he writes, “that has been established in the course of human progress is

this: a disinterested desire for the general well-being of the community

is a more effective instrument of political improvement than the

conscious self-regarding action of the classes for which these changes

will prove most beneficial. In a word, experience seems to show that

those who should naturally be most interested in the establishment of a

new order of things are not those who show the greatest desire to bring

it about.” (_Œuvres_, vol. vi, p. 120.) It would be difficult to imagine

a neater refutation of Marxian ideas, especially the contention that the

emancipation of the workers can only come from the workers themselves.

[497] Cf. on these points Weill, _L’École Saint-Simonienne_ (1896), and

Charléty, _Histoire du Saint-Simonisme_ (1896).

[498] “The object of credit,” says Enfantin (_Économie politique et

Politique_, p. 53), “in a society where one set of people possess the

instruments of production but lack capacity or desire to employ them, and

where another have the desire to work but are without the means, is to

help the passage of these instruments from the former’s possession into

the hands of the latter.” No better definition was ever given.

[499] _Doctrine_, p. 226. Cf. p. 223 for an eloquent passage denouncing

Ricardo and Malthus, who, as the result of their “profound researches

into the question of rent,” undertake to defend the institution of

private property.

[500] The article is entitled _De la Classe ouvrière_, and may be found

in vol. iv of _Le Producteur_. See particularly pp. 308 _et seq._

[501] Engels, _Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft_, p. 277.

[502] “The majority of economists, and especially Say, whose work we

have just reviewed, regard property as a fixed factor whose origin

and progress is no concern of theirs, but whose social utility alone

concerns them. The conception of a distinctively social order is more

foreign still to the English writers.” (_Doctrine_, pp. 221 and 223.) No

exception is made in favour of Sismondi or Turgot.

[503] _Le Producteur_, vol. iii, p. 385.

[504] In the preface to _Économie politique et Politique_, Enfantin again

writes: “All questions of political economy should be linked together

by a common principle, and in order to judge of the social utility of

a measure or idea in economics it is absolutely necessary to consider

whether this idea or measure is directly advantageous to the workers or

whether it indirectly contributes to the amelioration of their lot by

discrediting idleness.” It is a pleasure to be able to concur in the

opinion expressed by M. Halévy in his article on Saint-Simon (_Revue du

Mois_ for December 1907), in which he maintains that this idea is the

distinctive trait of Saint-Simon’s socialism. We have already called

attention to another feature that seems to us equally important, namely,

the suggested substitution of industrial administration for political

government.

[505] It is impossible not to make a special mention of Anton Menger’s

excellent little book. _Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_ (1886)

(the English translation, with an excellent introduction by Professor

Foxwell, is unfortunately out of print). It is indispensable in any

history of socialism. We must also mention, with deep acknowledgments,

Pareto’s _Les Systèmes socialistes_ (Paris, 1902, 2 vols.)—the most

originally critical work yet published on this subject, though not

always the most impartial—and Bourguin’s _Les Systèmes socialistes et

l’Évolution économique_ (Paris, 1906), as containing the most scientific

criticism of the economic theories of socialism.

[506] “Association, which is destined to put an end to antagonism, has

not yet found its true form. Hitherto it has consisted of separate

groups which have been at war with one another. Accordingly antagonism

has not yet become extinct, but it certainly will as soon as association

has become universal.” (_Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition, Première

Année_, p. 177.)

[507] In Owen’s paper, the _Economist_, for August 11, 1821, we meet

with the following words: “The secret is out!… The object sought to be

obtained is not _equality_ in rank or possessions, is not _community of

goods_, but full, complete, unrestrained co-operation on the part of

all the members for every purpose of social life.” Fourier writes in a

similar strain: “Association holds the secret of the union of interests.”

(_Assoc. domestique_, vol. i, p. 133.) Elsewhere he writes: “To-day, Good

Friday, I discovered the secret of association.”

[508] On the relations of socialism to the French Revolution see the

preceding chapter on Saint-Simon (p. 199, note).

[509] The Declaration of the Rights of Man speaks of liberty, property,

resistance to oppression, but there is not a word about the right of

association. Trade association, one of the oldest and most democratic

forms of association, was proscribed by the famous decree of Le Chapelier

(1791), and severe penalties were imposed upon associations of more

than twenty persons by the Penal Code of 1810. These prohibitions were

gradually removed in the course of the nineteenth century. Friendly

societies were the first to be set free, then followed trade unions, but

these laws were not definitely repealed until July 1, 1901.

[510] “It is obvious that the present _régime_ of free competition which

is supposed to be necessary in the interests of our stupid political

economy, and which is further intended to keep monopoly in check, must

result in the growth of monopoly in almost every branch of industry.”

(Victor Considérant, _Principes de Socialisme_.)

[511] Fourier’s first book, _Les Quatre Mouvements_, was published in

1808, and his last, _La Fausse Industrie_, in 1836. Owen’s earliest work,

_A New View of Society; or Essays on the Formation of Human Character_,

was published in 1813, and his last work, _The Human Race governed

without Punishment_, in 1858.

[512] “According to details supplied by journalists, Owen’s

establishments seem to have at least three serious drawbacks which must

inevitably destroy the whole enterprise—the numbers are excessive,

equality is one of his ideals, and there is no reference to agriculture.”

(_Unité universelle_, vol ii, p. 35)

[513] Despite the fact that Chartism was essentially a working-class

movement, controlled by the Working Men’s Association, its demands were

exclusively political, the chief of them being universal suffrage.

[514] It is quite possible that Owen regarded the term as his own

invention, but we now know that it had been previously employed by

Pierre Leroux, the French socialist. The publication of Owen’s _What is

Socialism?_ in 1841, however, is the earliest instance of the term being

employed as the title of a book.

Owen lived an extremely active life, and died in 1857 at the advanced age

of eighty-seven. Of Welsh artisan descent, he began life as an apprentice

in a cotton factory, setting up as a master spinner on his own account

with a capital of £100, which he had borrowed from his father. His rise

was very rapid, and at the age of thirty he found himself co-proprietor

and director of the New Lanark Mills. It was then that he first made a

name for himself by his technical improvements and his model dwellings

for his workmen. It was at this period that his ideas on education

also took shape. By and by it became the fashion to make a pilgrimage

to view the factory at New Lanark, and among the visitors were several

very distinguished people. His correspondents also included more than

one royal personage. Among these we may specially mention the King of

Prussia, who sought his advice on the question of education, and the King

of Holland, who consulted him on the question of charity.

The crisis of 1815 revealed to Owen the serious defects in the economic

order, and this marks the beginning of the second period of his life,

when he dabbled in communal experiments. In 1825 he founded the colony of

New Harmony in Indiana, and the same year witnessed the establishment of

another colony at Orbiston, in Scotland. But these lasted only for a few

years. In 1832 we have the National Equitable Labour Exchange, which was

not much more successful.

Owen, sixty-three years of age, and thoroughly disappointed with his

experiments, but as convinced as ever of the truth of his doctrines,

entered now upon the third period of his life, which, as it happened,

was to be a fairly long one. This period was to be devoted wholly to

propagating the gospel of the New Moral World—_The New Moral World_

being the title of his chief work and of the newspaper which he first

published towards the end of 1834. He took an active part in the Trade

Union movement, but does not seem to have been much interested in the

co-operative experiments which were started by the Rochdale Pioneers in

1844, although curiously enough this is his chief claim to fame.

Owen was in no sense a _littérateur_, being essentially a man of affairs,

and we are not surprised to find that the number of books which he has

left behind him is small. But he was an indefatigable lecturer, and wrote

a good deal for the press. We must confess, however, that it is not

easy, as we read his addresses and articles to-day, to account for the

wonderful contemporary success which they had.

There is an excellent French work by Dolléans dealing with his life

and doctrines (1907). The best English life, that of Podmore, is

unfortunately out of print.

[515] To his fellow-employers who complained of his almost revolutionary

proposals Owen made reply as follows—and his words are quite as true

now as they were then: “Experience must have taught you the difference

between an efficiently equipped factory with its machinery always clean

and in good working order and one in which the machinery is filthy and

out of repair and working only with the greatest amount of friction.

Now if the care which you bestow upon machinery can give you such

excellent results, may you not expect equally good results from care

spent upon human beings, with their infinitely superior structure? Is

it not quite natural to conclude that these infinitely more delicate

and complex mechanisms will also increase in force and efficiency and

will be really much more economical if they are kept in good working

condition and treated with a certain measure of kindness? Such kindness

would do much to remove the mental friction and irritation which always

results whenever the nourishment is insufficient to keep the body in full

productive efficiency, as well as to arrest deterioration and to prevent

premature death.”

[516] Education is given a very prominent place in Owen’s system, and

once we accept his philosophy we realise what an important place it was

really bound to have. Education was to make men, just as boots and caps

are made. Were it not altogether foreign to our purpose it would be

interesting to compare his educational ideals with those of Rousseau as

outlined in _Émile_.

[517] “The idea of responsibility is one of the absurdest, and has done a

great deal of harm.” (_Catechism of the New Moral World_, 1838.)

[518] On the other hand, Owen had great influence with the working

classes, and this he attributed to the fact that, “freed from all

religious prejudice, he was able to look upon men and human nature in

general with infinite charity, and in that light men no longer seemed

responsible for their actions.” (Quoted by Dolléans.)

[519] Like most of the economists and socialists of that time, Owen was

very much impressed with the crisis of 1815.

[520] On the other hand, there is this objection:

Whenever profit forms a part of cost of production it is impossible to

distinguish it from interest. In that case it is true that even perfect

competition would not do away with profit, since it will only reduce the

price to the level of cost of production. In that case profit cannot be

said to be either unjust or parasitic, for the product is sold exactly

for what it cost.

When profit does not enter into cost of production there is no

possibility of confusing it with interest. It is simply the difference

between the sale price and the cost of replacing the article. In this it

is certainly parasitic, and would disappear under a _régime_ of perfect

competition, which must to some extent destroy the monopoly upon which

such profit rests.

But the distinction between profit and interest was not known in Owen’s

time, and Owen would have said that they are both one, and that if

profit occasionally claims a share in the cost of production with a view

to defying competition it has no right to any such refuge, for cost of

production should consist of nothing but the value of labour and the wear

and tear of capital. Accordingly it ought to be got rid of altogether.

[521] “Metallic money is the cause of a great deal of crime, injustice,

and want, and it is one of the contributory causes which tend to destroy

character and to make life into a pandemonium.

“The secret of profit is to buy cheap and to sell dear in the name of an

artificial conception of wealth which neither expands as wealth grows nor

contracts as it diminishes.”

[522] This contradiction did not escape Owen. But we must not forget that

he regarded this merely as a compromise, and that he looked forward to

a time when the establishment of a communistic association with a new

environment would lead to a complete solution of the problem. He began in

the New Harmony colony by making _pro rata_ payment for the work done,

but the object was to arrive gradually at a state of complete equality

where no distinction was to be made between the service rendered or the

labour given—with the result that the colony was extinct in six months.

[523] The Labour Exchange, which was opened in September 1832, at first

enjoyed a slight measure of success. There were 840 members, and they

even went the length of establishing a few branches. Among the chief

causes of the failure of the scheme the following may be enumerated:

(_a_) The associates, being themselves allowed to state the value of

their products, naturally exaggerated, and it became necessary to relieve

them of a task which depended entirely upon their honour, and to place

the valuation in the hands of experts. But these experts, who were not

at all versed in Owen’s philosophy, valued the goods in money in the

ordinary way, and then expressed those values in labour notes at the rate

of 6_d._ for every hour’s work. It could hardly have been done on any

other plan. But it was none the less true that Owen’s system was in this

way inverted, for instead of the labour standard determining the selling

value of the product, the money value of the product determined the value

of the labour.

(_b_) As soon as the society began to attract members who were not quite

as conscientious as those who first joined it, the Exchange was flooded

with goods that were really unsaleable. But for the notes received in

exchange for these the authorities would be forced to give goods which

possessed a real value, that is, goods which had been honestly marked,

and which commanded a good price, with the result that in the long run

there would be nothing left in the depot except worthless products. In

short, the Exchange would be reduced to buying goods which cost more than

they were worth, and selling goods that really cost less than they were

worth.

Since the notes were not in any way registered, any one, whether a

member of the society or not, could buy and sell them in the ordinary

way and make a handsome profit out of the transaction. Three hundred

London tradesmen did this by offering to take labour notes in payment

for merchandise. They soon emptied the Exchange, and when they saw that

nothing valuable was left they stopped taking the notes, and the trick

was done.

M. Denis very aptly points out that the Exchange was really of not much

use to the wage-earner, who was not even allowed to own what he had

produced. There is some doubt after all as to whether the system would

prove quite successful in abolishing the wage-earners.

[524] This does not imply that consumers’ associations, when they are

better organised and federated, with large central depots at their

command, will not take up this project once again—that is, will not

try to dispense with money in their commercial transactions. They will

certainly keep an eye on that problem.

[525] That was Holyoake’s view (_History of Co-operation_, vol. i, p.

215). But, according to a passage quoted by Dolléans, Owen contemplated

making an appeal to the co-operative societies to come to the rescue of

his National Labour Exchange.

[526] To the workers he wrote: “Would you like to enjoy yourselves the

whole products of your labour? You have nothing more to do than simply to

_alter the direction of your labour_. Instead of working for you know not

whom, _work for each other_.” (Quoted by Foxwell in his introduction to

Anton Menger’s _The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour_.)

[527] See the lecture on _Les Prophéties de Fourier_ in Gide’s

_Co-opération_.

[528] It is hardly necessary, however, to credit him with a greater

amount of eccentricity than he actually possessed, and I seize this

opportunity of refuting once more a story told by more than one eminent

economist, attributing to him the statement that the members of the

Phalanstère would all be endowed with a tail with an eye at the end of

it. The caricaturists of the period—“Cham,” for example—represent them

in that fashion. The legend doubtless grew out of the following passage

from his works, which is fantastic enough, as everybody will admit. After

pointing out that the inhabitants of other planets have several limbs

which we do not possess, he proceeds: “There is one limb especially

which we have not, and which possesses the following very useful

characteristics. It acts as a support against falling, it is a powerful

means of defence, a superb ornament of gigantic force and wonderful

dexterity, and gives a finish as well as lending support to every bodily

movement.” (_Fausse Industrie_, vol. ii, p. 5.)

[529] _Nouveau Monde industriel_, p. 473.

[530] Letter dated January 23, 1831, quoted by Pellarin, _Vie de Fourier_

(Paris, 1850).

[531] _Nouveau Monde industriel_, p. 26. For further details see _Œuvres

choisies de Fourier_, with introduction by Charles Gide, and Hubert

Bourgin’s big volume on Fourier.

[532] It is necessary to point out that Fourier’s suggestions for a

solution of the domestic servant problem are really not quite so definite

as we have given the reader to understand in the text. They are mixed up

with a number of other ideas of a more or less fantastic description, but

very suggestive nevertheless. This is especially true of the suggestion

to transform domestic service by making it mutually gratuitous—an idea

that is worth thinking about.

[533] We were thinking especially of associations like that of the

painters under the leadership of M. Buisson, where distribution is as

follows: labour, 50 per cent., capital 27 per cent., administration 12

per cent.

[534] _Association domestique_, vol. i, p. 466.

[535] _Ibid._, p. 466. Note that Fourier says that this only applies to

civilised societies. For those who live in the future Harmony city there

will be other and more powerful motives.

[536] _Unité universelle_, vol. iii, p. 517.

[537] _Ibid._, p. 457.

[538] The system of integral association proposed by Fourier, including

both co-operative production and co-operative distribution, will be

better understood if we look at the facts of the present situation.

On the one hand we have co-operative associations of producers who are

not particularly anxious that their products should be distributed

among themselves; they simply produce the goods with a view to selling

them and making a profit out of the transaction. On the other hand,

the distributing societies simply aim at giving their members certain

advantages, such as cheaper goods, but they make no attempt to produce

the goods which they need.

In countries where co-operative societies are properly organised, as they

are in England, for example, many of these societies have undertaken to

produce at least a part of what they consume, and some of them have even

acquired small estates for the purpose; but only a small proportion of

the employees are members of the societies, with the result that their

position is not very different from that of other working men. One

understands the difficulty of grouping people in this way. But if the

associations are to live it is absolutely necessary that they should

produce what they require under conditions that are more favourable than

those of ordinary producers; in a word, that they should be able to

create a kind of new economic environment.

Even in the colonies one does not find many instances of vigorous

associations of this kind.

[539] Co-partnership as outlined by M. Briand is to-day an item in the

programme of the Radical Democratic party. See _Les Actions du Travail_,

by M. Antonelli.

[540] M. Faguet, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, August 1, 1896.

[541] “Industrialism is the latest scientific illusion.” (_Quatre

Mouvements_, p. 28.) We must also draw attention to his suggestion for

co-operative banks, where agriculturists could bring their harvest and

obtain money in exchange for it—a rough model of the agricultural credit

banks. But he only regarded this as a step towards the Phalanstère.

[542] The kinds of labour which Fourier selects as examples are always

connected with fruit-growing—cherry orchards, pear orchards, etc. Fruit

and flowers have a very important place in his writings. He seems to have

anticipated the fruit-growing rancher of California.

Without stopping to examine some of the more solid reasons—which

unfortunately are buried beneath a great deal of rubbish—why

fruit-growing should take the place of agriculture, we must just recall

the curious fact that he was always emphasising the superiority of sugar

and preserves over bread, and pointed to the “divine instinct” by which

children are enabled to discover this. The suggestion was ridiculed at

the time, but is to-day confirmed by some of the most eminent doctors and

teachers of hygiene.

[543] It is interesting to contrast this view with Bücher’s, who thinks

that the evolution of industry simply increases its irksomeness. A

conception of regressive or spiral evolution might reconcile the two

views.

[544] Let us not forget his _Petites Hordes_, which consisted of groups

of boys who undertook the sweeping of public paths, the surveillance of

public gardens, and the protection of animals. The idea was very much

ridiculed at the time, but a number of similar organisations, each with

its badge and banner, were recently instituted by Colonel Waring in the

city of New York.

[545] “My theory is that every passion given by nature should be allowed

the fullest scope. That is the key to my whole system. Society requires

the full exercise of all the faculties given us by God.”

[546] _Quatre Mouvements_, p. 194.

[547] See, for example, such works as Zola’s _Travail_, and Barrè’s

_L’Ennemi des Lois_; and as an example of the general change in the tone

of the economists we may refer to Paul Leroy-Beaulieu’s latest writings,

in which he speaks of Fourier as a “genial thinker.”

[548] It is no part of our task to relate the story of the several

colonies founded either by disciples of Fourier or of Owen. Experiments

of this kind were fairly general in the United States between 1841 and

1844, when no less than forty colonies were founded. Brook Farm, which

is the best known of these, included among its members some of the most

eminent Americans—Channing and Hawthorne, for example—but none of the

settlements lasted very long.

Similar attempts have been made in France at a still more recent period.

The one at Condé-sur-Vesgres, near Rambouillet, where a few faithful

disciples of Fourier have come together, is still flourishing.

[549] Founded in 1859, it only became a co-partnership in 1888, the year

of Godin’s death.

[550] As a matter of fact it first appeared as an article in the _Revue

du Progrès_ in 1839.

[551] Buonarotti was the author of _La Conspiration pour l’Égalité, dite

de Babeuf_, published in 1828. Little notice was taken of the volume by

the public, but it was much discussed in democratic circles.

[552] _Organisation du Travail_, 5th ed. (1848). p. 77.

[553] We refer to it as the commonest type because in the previous

section we have shown that other co-operative societies exist, such as Le

Travail, for example, which claims to be modelled upon Fourier’s scheme,

especially in the matter of borrowed capital. But the usual type is

affiliated to the Chambre consultative des Associations de Production.

Article II of its regulations reads as follows: “No one will be allowed

to become a subscriber who is not a worker in some branch of production

or other.” See the volume published by the Office du Travail in 1898,

_Les Associations Ouvrières de Production_.

[554] In the _Journal des Sciences morales et politiques_, December 17,

1831. Only one association—the goldsmiths’, in 1834—was founded as the

result of this article.

[555] Quoted by Festy, _Le Mouvement ouvrier au Début de la Monarchie de

Juillet_, p. 88 (Paris, 1908).

[556] Buchez’s proposals for the reform of the “great industry” were of

an entirely different character.

[557] François Vidal, _De la Répartition des Richesses_ (1846).

[558] “The emancipation of the working classes is a very complicated

business. It is bound up with so many other questions and involves such

profound changes of habit. So numerous are the various interests upon

which an apparent though perhaps not a real attack is contemplated, that

it would be sheer folly to imagine that it could ever be accomplished by

a series of efforts tentatively undertaken and partially isolated. The

whole power of the State will be required if it is to succeed. What the

proletarian lacks is capital, and the duty of the State is to see that he

gets it. Were I to define the State I should prefer to think of it as the

poor man’s bank.” (_Organisation du Travail_, p. 14.)

[559] “The illusive conception of an abstract right has had a great

hold upon the public ever since 1789. But it is nothing better than a

metaphysical abstraction, which can afford but little consolation to

a people who have been robbed of a definite security that was really

theirs. The ‘rights of man,’ proclaimed with pomp and defined with

minuteness in many a charter, has simply served as a cloak to hide the

injustice of individualism and the barbarous treatment meted out to

the poor under its ægis. Because of this practice of defining liberty

as a right, men have got into the habit of calling people free even

though they are the slaves of hunger and of ignorance and the sport of

every chance. Let us say once for all that liberty consists, not in the

abstract right given to a man, but in the power given him to exercise and

develop his faculties.” (_Organisation du Travail_, p. 19.)

[560] Cf. pp. 186 _et seq._

[561] “Your want of faith in association,” he wrote to the National

Assembly of 1848, “will force you to expose civilisation to a terribly

agonising death.”

[562] _L’Humanité_ (1840). It would be wrong to conclude, however,

that this desire for secularising charity meant that Leroux was

anti-religious. On the contrary, he admits his indebtedness for the

conception of solidarity to the dictum of St. Paul, “We are all members

of one body.”

[563] “I was the first to employ the term ‘socialism.’ It was a neologism

then, but a very necessary term. I invented the word as an antithesis

to ‘individualism.’” (_Grève de Samarez_, p. 288.) As a matter of

fact, as far back as 1834 he had contributed an article entitled _De

l’Individualisme et du Socialisme_ to the _Revue encyclopédique_. The

same word occurs in the same review in an article entitled _Discours sur

la Situation actuelle de l’Esprit humain_, written two years before. See

his complete works, vol. i, pp. 121, 161, 378. For a further account of

Leroux see M. F. Thomas’s _Pierre Leroux_ (1905), a somewhat dull but

highly imaginative production.

[564] For Cabet’s life and the story of Icaria see Prudhommeaux’s two

volumes, _Étienne Cabet_ and _Histoire de la Communauté icarienne_.

[565] “The communists will never gain much success until they have

learned to reform themselves. Let them preach by example and by the

exercise of social virtues, and they will soon convert their adversaries.”

[566] Protection was attacked by Sismondi in _Nouv. Princ._, Book

IV, chap. 11. He considered it a fruitful source of over-production,

and uttered his condemnation of the absurd desire of nations for

self-sufficiency. Saint-Simon considered Protection to be the outcome

of international hatred (_Œuvres_, vol. iii, p. 36), and commended

the economists who had shown that “mankind had but one aim and that

its interests were common, and consequently that each individual in

his social connection must be viewed as one of a company of workers”

(_Lettres à un Americaine, Œuvres_, vol. ii, pp. 186-187). The

Saint-Simonians never touched upon the question directly, but it is quite

clear that Protective rights were to have no place in the universal

association of which they dreamt. According to Fourier, there was to be

the completest liberty in the circulation of goods among the Phalanstères

all the world over. (_Cf._ Bourgin, _Fourier_, pp. 326-329; Paris, 1905.)

[567] We refer to two of them only: Augustin Cournot and Louis Say of

Nantes. The former, in his _Recherches sur les Principes mathématiques de

la Théorie des Richesses_ (1838), a work that is celebrated to-day but

which passed unnoticed at the time of its publication, has criticised

the theory of Free Trade. But the reputation which he subsequently

achieved was not based upon this part of the book. Louis Say (1774-1840)

was a brother of J. B. Say. He published a number of works, now quite

forgotten, in which he criticised several doctrines upheld by his

brother, whose displeasure he thus incurred. We refer to his last work,

_Études sur la Richesse des Nations et Réfutation des principales

Erreurs en Économie politique_ (1836), for this is the work to which

List alludes. It is probable that Louis Say’s name would have remained

in oblivion but for List. Richelot, in his translation of List (second

edition, p. 477), quotes some of the more important passages of Say’s

book.

[568] The union of England and Scotland dates from 1707. Compare the

passage in Adam Smith, Book V, chap. 2, part ii, art. 4; Cannan’s

edition, vol. ii, p. 384.

[569] List, _Werke_, ed. Häusser, vol. ii, p. 17. The seventh edition

of the _National System_, which was published in 1883 by M. Eheberg,

contains an excellent historical and critical introduction. Our

quotations are from the English translation by Lloyd, published in 1885,

republished, with introduction by Professor Shield Nicholson, in 1909.

[570] Petition presented to a meeting of the German princes at Vienna in

1820 (_Werke_, vol. ii, p. 27).

[571] Baden, Nassau, and Frankfort joined in 1835 and 1836. But there

still remained outside Mecklenburg and the Free Towns of the Hanse,

Hanover, Brunswick, and Oldenburg.

[572] List’s expression “exchangeable value” merely signifies the mass of

present advantages—the material profit existing at the moment. It is not

a very happy phrase, and it would be a great mistake to take it literally

or to attach great importance to it. In his _Letters to Ingersoll_, p.

186, he gives expression to the same idea by saying that Smith’s school

had in view “the exchange of one material good for another,” and that

its concern was chiefly with “such exchanged goods rather than with

productive forces.” We note that List never speaks of Ricardo, but only

of Smith and Say, whose works alone he seems to have read.

[573] “In the Italian and the Hanseatic cities, in Holland and England,

in France and America, we find the powers of production and consequently

the wealth of individuals growing in proportion to the liberties enjoyed,

to the degree of perfection of political and social institutions, while

these, on the other hand, derive material and stimulus for their further

improvement from the increase of the material wealth and the productive

power of individuals.” (_National System_, p. 87.)

[574] He defines “political or national economy” as “that which,

emanating from the idea and nature of the nation, teaches how a given

_nation_, in the present state of the world and its own special national

relations, can maintain and improve its economical condition.” (_Ibid._,

p. 99.)

[575] It was the example of England that gave List the idea, but the

whole conception is based upon a historical error. England possessed a

navy, had founded colonies and developed her international trade long

before she became a manufacturing nation. Since the time of List various

categories of national development have been proposed. Hildebrand speaks

of periods of natural economy, of money economy, and of credit economy

(_Jahrbücher für National Oekonomie_, vol. ii, pp. 1-24). Bücher proposed

the periods of domestic economy, of town economy, and of national economy

as a substitute (_Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft_, 3rd ed., p. 108).

Sombart, in his turn, has very justly criticised this classification in

his book _Der moderne Kapitalismus_ (vol. i, p. 51; Leipzig, 1902). But

would that which he proposes himself be much better?

No one, we believe, has as yet remarked that List borrowed this

enumeration of the different economic states, almost word for word, from

Adam Smith. In chap. 5 of Book II, speaking of the various employments

of capital, Smith clearly distinguished between three stages of

evolution—the agricultural state, the agricultural-manufacturing, and the

agricultural-manufacturing-commercial. Smith considered that this last

stage was the most desirable, but in his opinion its realisation must

depend upon the natural course of things.

[576] The term “normal” is one of the vaguest and most equivocal we have

in political economy. It would be well if we were rid of it altogether.

What controversies have not raged around the ideas of a normal wage or a

normal price! One of the chief merits of the Mathematical school lies in

the success with which it has effected the substitution of the idea of an

equilibrium price. The idea of a normal nation is about as vague as that

of a normal wage, and it is curious that our author describes as normal a

whole collection of characteristics which, according to his own account,

were at the moment when he wrote only realised by one nation, namely,

England.

[577] P. 292. The idea of national power is, moreover, not completely

lost sight of by Smith, as is proved by the following passages: “The

riches and, so far as power depends upon riches, the power of every

country must always be in proportion to the value of its annual produce.…

But the great object of the political economy of every country is to

increase the riches and power of that country.” (_Wealth of Nations_,

Book II, chap. 5; Cannan’s edition, vol. i, p. 351.)

[578] On the question of the industrial vocation of the temperate zone

and the agricultural vocation of the torrid compare _National System_,

Book II, chap. 4.

[579] “The German nation will at once obtain what it is now in need of,

namely, fisheries and naval power, maritime commerce and colonies.”

(_National System_, p. 143.) List has no difficulty in allying his

patriotic idealism with the practical side of his nature.

[580] List deliberately distinguishes between exchange values and

productive forces; but the distinction is by no means a happy one. For a

policy which aims at encouraging productive forces has no other way of

demonstrating its superiority than by showing an increase of exchange

value. The two notions are not opposed to one another, and in reckoning

a nation’s wealth we must take some account of its present state as well

as of its future resources. In his _Letters to Ingersoll_ (_cf._ Letter

IV, referred to above) he distinguishes between “natural and intellectual

capital” on the one hand and “material productive capital” on the other

(Adam Smith’s idea of capital). “The productive powers of the nation

depend not only upon the latter, but also and chiefly upon the former.”

[581] _National System_, p. 117.

[582] Unjustly as we think, for on more than one occasion Smith did take

account of moral forces. He dated the prosperity of English agriculture

from the time when farmers were freed from their long servitude and

became henceforth independent of the proprietors. He remarks that

towns attain prosperity quicker than the country, because a regular

government is earlier established there. “The best effect which commerce

and manufactures have is the gradual introduction and establishment of

order and good government, and with them the liberty and security of

individuals among the inhabitants of the country. This, though it has

been the least observed, is by far the most important of their effects.

Mr. Hume is the only writer who so far as I know has hitherto taken

notice of it.” (Book III, chap. 4; Cannan, vol i, p. 383.) Speaking of

the American colonies, Smith (Cannan, vol. ii, p. 73) makes the remark

that although their fertility is inferior to the Spanish, Portuguese, and

the French colonies, “the political institutions of the English colonies

have been more favourable to the improvement and cultivation of this

land than those of any of the other three nations.” How could List have

forgotten the celebrated passage in which Smith attributes the prosperity

of Great Britain largely to its legal system, which guarantees to each

individual the fruits of his toil and which must be reckoned among

the definitive achievements of the Revolution of 1688? “That security

which the laws in Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy

the fruits of his own labour is alone sufficient to make any country

flourish, notwithstanding these and twenty other absurd regulations of

commerce; and this security was perfected much about the same time that

the bounty was established.” (Book IV, chap. 5; Cannan, vol. ii, pp.

42-43.)

[583] _National System_, chap. 17, beginning.

[584] Compare chapters 7 and 15, where he treats of the manufacturing

industry in its relation to each of the great economic forces of the

country.

[585] _Ibid._, p. 87.

[586] _National System_, p. 150.

[587] “It may in general be assumed that where any technical industry

cannot be established by means of an original protection of 40 to 60

per cent., and cannot continue to maintain itself under a continued

protection of 20 to 30 per cent., the fundamental conditions of

manufacturing power are lacking.” (_Ibid._, p. 251.)

[588] “Solely in nations of the latter kind, namely, those which

possess all the necessary mental and material conditions and means for

establishing a manufacturing power of their own and of thereby attaining

the highest degree of civilisation and development of material prosperity

and political power, but which are retarded in their progress by the

competition of a foreign manufacturing Power which is already farther

advanced than their own—only in such nations are commercial restrictions

justified for the purpose of establishing and protecting their own

manufacturing power.” (_Ibid._, p. 144.)

[589] _Ibid._, p. 240.

[590] “Everyone knows,” says he (quoted by Hirst, pp. 231 _et seq._),

“that the cost of production of a manufactured good depends very largely

upon the quantity produced—that is, upon the operation of the law of

increasing returns. This law exercises considerable influence upon the

rise and fall of manufacturing power.… An English manufacturer producing

for the home market has a regular sale of 10,000 yards at 6 dollars

a yard.… His expenses being thus guaranteed by his sales in the home

market, the cost of producing a further quantity of 10,000 yards for the

foreign market will be considerably reduced and would yield him a profit

even were he to sell for 3 or 4 dollars a yard. And even though he should

not be making any profit just then, he can feel pretty confident about

the future when he has ruined the foreign producer and driven him out

of the field altogether.” List thinks that this shows how impossible it

is for manufacturers in a new country without any measure of protection

to compete with other countries whose industry is better established.

But this is one of the arguments that has been most frequently used by

British manufacturers in recent years in demanding protection against

American competition. We would like to know what List would have thought

of this.

[591] _National System_, p. 144, and the whole of chap. 16 of Book II.

He considered that “it would be a further error if France, after her

manufacturing power has become sufficiently strong and established,

were not willing to revert gradually to a more moderate system of

Protection and by permitting a limited amount of competition incite her

manufacturers to emulation.” (_Ibid._, p. 249.)

[592] _Ibid._, p. 253, and especially p. 162, etc., where with a

sudden change of front he declares himself in favour of Free Trade in

agriculture, and employs the arguments which Free Traders had applied to

all products. Compare again p. 230, where he declares that agriculture

“by the very nature of things is sufficiently well protected against

foreign competition.”

[593] The authors were unable to find a copy of Hamilton’s works in

France, but according to Bastable (_Commerce of Nations_, 6th ed.,

London, 1912, pp. 120, 121) the principal arguments deduced by the report

to prove the advantages of industry are that it permits of greater

division of labour, prevents unemployment, supplies a more regular market

than the foreign, and encourages immigration.

[594] It is very probable that List had read the work of another

American Protectionist, Daniel Raymond, whose _Thoughts on Political

Economy_ appeared in 1820 and ran into four editions (cf. _Daniel

Raymond_, by Charles Patrick Neill, Baltimore, 1897). This seems to be

the opinion of the majority of writers who during the last few years

have especially concerned themselves with the study of List’s opinions

(Miss Hirst, in her _Life of Friedrich List_, and M. Curt Kohler in his

book _Problematisches zu Friedrich List_, Leipzig, 1909). But to regard

Raymond as his only inspirer, as is done by Rambaud in his _Histoire des

Doctrines_, seems to us mere exaggeration. Apart from the facts that

Raymond’s ideas are not particularly original and that List had lived

some years in America in a Protectionist environment, List never quotes

him at all. On the other hand, he frequently and enthusiastically refers

to both Dupin and Chaptal in his _Letters to Ingersoll_. The expression

“productive forces” was probably borrowed from Baron Dupin’s _Situation

progressive des Forces de la France_ (Paris, 1827), which opens with the

following words: “This forms an introduction to a work entitled _The

Productive and Commercial Forces of France_. By _productive forces_ I

mean the combined forces of men, animals, and nature applied to the

work of agriculture, of industry, or of commerce.” Again, the idea of

protecting infant industries is very neatly put by Chaptal. On p. xlvi of

the introduction to his _De l’Industrie français_ (published in 1819) we

meet with the following words: “It does not require much reflection to be

convinced of the fact that something more than mere desire is needed to

overcome the natural obstacles in the way of the development of industry.

Everywhere we feel that ‘infant industries’ cannot struggle against older

establishments cemented by time, supported by much capital, freed from

worry and carried on by a number of trained, skilled workmen, without

having recourse to prohibition in order to overcome the competition of

foreign industries.”

It is certain that List, during his first stay in France, had read these

two authors, and had there found a confirmation of his own Protectionist

ideas. It is not less certain, from a letter written by him in April

1825 (quoted by Miss Hirst, p. 33), that he was converted before going

to America, but that he expected to find some new arguments there which

would strengthen him in his opposition to Smith. Marx’s assertion made in

his _Theorien über den Mehrwerth_, vol. i, p. 339 (published by Kautsky,

Stuttgart, 1905), that List’s principal source of inspiration was

Ferrier (_Du Gouvernement considéré dans ses Rapports avec le Commerce_,

Paris, 1805) has not the slightest foundation. Neither has the attempt

to credit Adam Müller with being the real author of the conception of

a national system of political economy. List, we know, was acquainted

with Müller, a Catholic writer who wished for the restoration of the

feudal system. But to be a German writer in the Germany of the nineteenth

century was quite enough to imbue one with the idea of nationality.

Moreover, Protectionists’ arguments are extremely limited in number, so

that they do not differ very much from one epoch to another, and it is a

comparatively easy task to find some precursors of Friedrich List.

[595] Published in a volume entitled _Outlines of a New System of

Political Economy, in a Series of Letters addressed by F. List to Charles

Ingersoll_ (Philadelphia, 1827). This publication did not find a place in

the collected edition published by Häusser, but the whole of it has been

incorporated in the interesting _Life of Friedrich List_ by Margaret E.

Hirst (London, 1909).

[596] This was the consideration that influenced him in adopting a

Protectionist attitude, although hitherto he had regarded himself as a

disciple of Smith and Say. (_Letters to Ingersoll_, p. 173.)

[597] _National System_, preface, p. 54.

[598] The _Zollvereinsblatt_, which was published by him towards the end

of 1843.

[599] _National System_, p. 230. We do not by any means imply that the

Germany of List’s day was in greater need of Protection than the Germany

of to-day. Indeed, if we accept Chaptal’s view, we may well deny this,

for, writing in 1819, he said that Saxony occupied a place in the front

rank of European nations in the matter of industry. Speaking of Prussia,

he declared that the industry of Aix-la-Chapelle alone was enough to

establish the fame of any nation (_De l’Industrie française_, vol. i,

p. 75). We must also recall the fact that the basis of the present

prosperity of Germany was laid under a _régime_ of much greater freedom.

[600] “Neither is it at all necessary that all branches of industry

should be protected in the same degree. Only the most important branches

require special protection, for the working of which much outlay of

capital in building and management, much machinery and therefore

much technical knowledge, skill, and experience, and many workmen

are required, and whose products belong to the category of the first

necessaries of life and consequently are of the greatest importance as

regards their total value as well as regards national independence (as,

for example, cotton, woollen, and linen manufactures, etc.). If these

main branches are suitably protected and developed, all other less

important branches of manufacture will rise up around them under a less

degree of protection.” (_National System_, p. 145.)

[601] On Carey see _infra_, Book III.

[602] Carey, _Principles of Social Science_.

[603] Carey, _Principles of Social Science_.

[604] _National System_, Book II, chap. 3.

[605] _Principles of Political Economy_, Book V, chap. 10, § 1.

[606] “Of all the things required for the purposes of man, the one that

least bears transportation, and is, yet, of all the most important, is

manure. The soil can continue to produce on the condition, only, of

restoring to it the elements of which its crop had been composed. That

being complied with, the supply of food increases, and men are enabled

to come nearer together and combine their efforts—developing their

individual faculties, and thus increasing their wealth; and yet this

condition of improvement, essential as it is, has been overlooked by all

economists.” (_Principles of Social Science_, vol. i, pp. 273-274.)

[607] _Principles of Political Economy_, Book V, chap. 10, § 1.

[608] On this point see Jenks, _Henry C. Carey als Nationalökonom_, chap.

1 (Jena, 1885).

[609] Compare the long passage in the _Principles_, Book V, chap.

10, § 1, which begins: “The only case in which on mere principles of

political economy protecting duties can be defensible is when they are

imposed temporarily (especially in a young and rising nation) in hopes

of naturalising a foreign industry, in itself perfectly suitable to the

circumstances of the country. The superiority of one country over another

in a branch of production often varies only from having begun it sooner.”

Stuart Mill, however, does not refer to List, and one wonders whether the

paragraph owes anything to his influence.

[610] We must make an exception of M. Cauwès, whose Protectionism, on

the contrary, is a quite logical adaptation of List’s idea, viz. the

superiority of nations possessing a complex economy. This is the only

scientific system of Protection that we are to-day acquainted with. But

it must be confessed that the majority of writers are very far removed

from Cauwès’ point of view. Compare his _Cours d’ Économie politique_,

3rd ed., vol. iii.

[611] Such, _e.g._, are the economists who are always speaking of a

“commercial deficit,” _i.e._ of an unfavourable balance of commerce.

Despite the frequent refutations which have been given of it, it is still

frequently quoted as an axiomatic truth. List criticised the school for

its complete indifference to the balance of imports and exports. But he

did not favour the Mercantilist theory of the balance of trade; on the

contrary, he regarded that as definitely condemned (p. 218). He regarded

the question from a special point of view, that of monetary equilibrium.

When a nation, says he, imports much, but does not export a corresponding

amount of goods, it may be forced to furnish payment in gold, and a

drainage of gold might give rise to a financial crisis. The indifference

of the school with regard to this question of the quantity of money

is very much exaggerated (Book II, chap. 13). The policy of the great

central banks of to-day aims at easing those tensions in the money market

which appear as the result of over-importation, and in this matter they

have proved themselves much superior to any system of Protection.

[612] Some writers go even farther. Patten (_Economic Foundations of

Protection_) longs to see a national type established peculiar to each

country, as the result of forcing the inhabitants to be nourished and

clothed according to the natural resources of the country in which they

live. We should, as a consequence of this, have an American type quite

superior to any European type. “Then,” says he, “we should be able to

exercise a preponderant influence upon the fate of other nations and

could force them to renounce their present economic methods and adopt a

more highly developed social State.” Until then no foreign goods are to

enter the country. Here, as is very frequently the case, Protectionism is

confounded with nationalism or imperialism.

[613] “A merely agricultural State is an infinitely less perfect

institution than an agricultural-manufacturing State. The former is

always more or less economically and politically dependent on those

foreign nations which take from it agricultural products in exchange

for manufactured goods. It cannot determine for itself how much it

will produce: it must wait and see how much others will buy from it.”

(_National System_, p. 145.)

[614] “A nation which has already attained manufacturing supremacy can

only protect its own manufactures and merchants against retrogression

and indolence by the free importation of means of subsistence and raw

materials, and by the competition of foreign manufactured goods.”

(_National System_, p. 153.) Hence the appeal to England in the name

of this theory to abolish her tariffs, but to gracefully allow France,

Germany, and the United States to continue theirs.

[615] See M. Pareto’s _Economia Politica_ (Milan, 1906) for a

demonstration that international exchange is not necessarily advantageous

for both parties (chap. 9, § 45).

[616] But the line is sometimes difficult to follow. Latterly statesmen

have been concerned not so much with the exportation of goods as with

the migration of capital. Ought the Minister for Foreign Affairs to veto

the raising of a loan in the home market on behalf of a foreign Power or

an alien company? To what extent ought bankers and capitalists to accept

his advice? Such are some of the questions that for some years past have

been repeatedly asked in France, England, and Germany. And it seems in

almost every case that political economy has had to bow before political

necessity, and not _vice versa_.

[617] It is very remarkable that List’s greatest admirer, Dühring, in

his _Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Sozialismus_ (2nd

ed., p. 362), insists on the fact that Protection is not an essential

element, but a mere temporary form of the principle of national economic

solidarity, which is List’s fundamental conception, and which must

survive all forms of Protection. Dühring is the only real successor

of List and Carey. He has developed their ideas with a great deal of

ability and has shown himself a really scientific thinker. But what he

chiefly admires in both writers is not their Protection, but their effort

to lay hold of the material and moral forces which lie below the mere

fact of exchange, and upon which a nation’s prosperity really depends.

His _Kursus der National- und Sozial-oekonomie_ (Berlin, 1873) is very

interesting reading.

[618] Except the Saint-Simonians nobody seems to have conceived of the

State’s responsibility for a nation’s productive forces. List refers to

them sympathetically, especially to those who, like Michel Chevalier,

“sought to discover the connection of these doctrines with those of

the premier schools, and to make their ideas compatible with existing

circumstances” (_National System_, p. 287). But List differs from them in

his love of individual liberty and in the importance which he attaches

to moral, political, and intellectual liberty as elements of productive

efficiency.

[619] _Philosophie du Progrès, Œuvres_, vol. xx, p. 19: “Growth is

essential to thought, and truth or reality whether in nature or in

human affairs is essentially historical, at one time advancing, at

another receding, evolving slowly, but always undergoing some change.”

In his _Contradictions économiques_ he defines social science as “the

systematised study of society, not merely as it was in the past or

will be in the future, but as it is in the present in all its manifold

appearances, for only by looking at the whole of its activities can we

hope to discover intelligence and order.” (Vol. i, p. 43.) “If we apply

this conception to the organisation of labour we cannot agree with the

economists when they say that it is already completely organised, or with

the socialists when they declare that it must be organised, but simply

that it is gradually organising itself; that is, that the process of

organisation has gone on since time immemorial and is still going on, and

that it will continue to go on. Science should always be on the look-out

for the results that have already been achieved or are on the point of

realisation.” (Vol. i, p. 45.)

[620] A vigorous exposition of his other ideas is given in Bouglé’s _La

Sociologie de Proudhon_ (Paris, 1911).

[621] The following are Proudhon’s principal works: 1840, _Qu’est-ce

que la Propriété?_ (studies in ethics and politics); 1846, _Système des

Contradictions économiques_ (the “philosophy of destitution”); 1848,

_Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation et Solution du Problème

social_; 1848, _Résumé de la Question sociale, Banque d’Échange_; 1849,

_Les Confessions d’un Révolutionnaire_; 1850, _Intérêt et Principal_ (a

discussion between M. Bastiat and M. Proudhon); 1858, _De la Justice

dans la Révolution et dans l’Église_ (three volumes); 1861, _La Guerre

et la Paix_; 1865, _De la Capacité politique des Classes ouvrières_. Our

quotations are taken from the _Œuvres complètes_, published in twenty-six

volumes by Lacroix (1867-70).

[622] “Do you happen to know, madam, what my father was? Well, he was

just an honest brewer whom you could never persuade to make money by

selling above cost price. Such gains, he thought, were immoral. ‘My

beer,’ he would always remark, ‘costs me so much, including my salary.

I cannot sell it for more.’ What was the result? My dear father always

lived in poverty and died a poor man, leaving poor children behind him.”

(Letter to Madame d’Agoult, _Correspondance_, vol. ii, p. 239.)

[623] It has been said that Proudhon borrowed this formula from Brissot

de Warville, the author of a work entitled _Recherches philosophiques

sur le Droit de Propriété et sur le Vol, considérés dans la Nature et

dans la Société_. It was first published in 1780, and reappeared with

some modifications in vol. vi, pp. 261 _et seq._, of his _Bibliothèque

philosophique du Législateur_ (1782). But this is a mistake. Proudhon

declares that the work was unknown to him (_Justice_, vol. i, p. 301);

and, moreover, the formula is not there at all. Brissot’s point of view

is entirely different from Proudhon’s. The former believes that in a

state of nature the right of property is simply the outcome of want, and

disappears when that want is satisfied; that man, and even animals and

plants, has a right to everything that can satisfy his wants, but that

the right disappears with the satisfaction of the want. Consequently

theft perpetrated under the pressure of want simply means a return to

nature. The rich are really the thieves, because they refuse to the

culprit the lawful satisfaction of his needs. The result is a plea for

a more lenient treatment of thieves. But Brissot is very careful not to

attack civil property, which is indispensable for the growth of wealth

and the expansion of commerce, although it has no foundation in a natural

right (p. 333). There is no mention of unearned income. Proudhon, on the

other hand, never even discusses the question as to whether property is

based upon want or not. He would certainly have referred to this if he

had read Brissot.

[624] _Contradictions_, vol. i, pp. 219, 221.

[625] _Résumé de la Question sociale_, p. 29. We meet with the same idea

in other passages. “Property under the influence of division of labour

has become a mere link in the chain of circulation, and the proprietor

himself a kind of toll-gatherer who demands a toll from every commodity

that passes his way. Property is the real thief.” (_Banque d’Échange_, p.

166.) We must also remember that Proudhon did not consider that taking

interest was always illegal. In the controversy with Bastiat he admits

that it was necessary in the past, but that he has found a way of getting

rid of it altogether.

[626] We must distinguish between this and Marx’s doctrine. Marx believed

that all value is the product of labour. Proudhon refuses to admit this.

He thinks that value should in some way correspond to the quantity of

labour, but that this is not the case in present-day society. Marx was

quite aware of the fact that Proudhon did not share his views (see

_Misère de la Philosophie_). Proudhon follows Rodbertus, who taught that

the products only and not their values are provided by labour.

[627] _Propriété, 1er Mémoire_, pp. 131-132. It is true that Proudhon

adds that without land and capital labour would be unproductive. But he

soon forgets his qualifications when he proceeds to draw conclusions,

especially when he comes to give an exposition of the Exchange Bank,

where we meet with the following sentence: “Society is built up as

follows: All the raw material required is gratuitously supplied by

nature, so that in the economic world every product is really begot

of labour, and capital must be considered unproductive.” Elsewhere he

writes: “To work is not necessarily to produce anything.” (_Solution du

Problème social_, Œuvres, vol. vi, pp. 361 _et seq._, and p. 187.)

[628] _Propriété, 1er Mémoire_, p. 133.

[629] L. von Stein, _Geschichte der sozialen Bewegung in Frankreich_,

vol. iii, p. 362 (Leipzig, 1850). A remarkable piece of work altogether.

[630] It is true that Proudhon’s attack is entirely directed against the

ethics of private property. He shows how every justification that is

usually offered, such as right of occupation, natural right, or labour,

cannot justify the institution as it is to-day. Private property as we

know it is confined to the few, whereas on these principles it ought

to be widely diffused. Criticism of this kind is not very difficult,

perhaps, but it does nothing to weaken the arguments of those who would

justify property on the grounds of social utility. The criticism of the

Saint-Simonians, who approach it from the point of view of utility and

productiveness rather than from the ethical standpoint, seems to be

much more profound. This is why we have regarded them as the critics of

private property.

[631] “This is the fundamental idea of my first _Mémoire_.” (Quoted by

Sainte-Beuve, _P. J. Proudhon_, p. 90.) Later on he complains that the

suggestion was never even discussed.

[632] _Propriété, 1er Mémoire_, p. 94.

[633] _Ibid._, p. 91.

[634] Blanqui’s letter dated May 1, 1841, in reply to a communication

from Proudhon concerning the second _Mémoire_ on property.

[635] Cf. Sainte-Beuve, _P. J. Proudhon_, pp. 202, 203; and see on this

point Proudhon’s amusing letters to Guillaumin (_Correspondance_, vol.

ii).

[636] _Propriété, 1er Mémoire_, p. 203.

[637] An article in _Le Peuple_, in 1848. Proudhon’s attacks are more

especially directed against Fourier. Fourier’s was at this time the only

socialist school that had any influence, and this was largely due to the

active propaganda of Victor Considérant. See _Contradictions_, vol. ii,

p. 297, and _Propriété, 1er Mémoire_, pp. 153 _et seq._

[638] _Contradictions_, vol. ii, p. 285. For the attack on Cabet,

Louis Blanc, and the communists see the whole of chap. 12 of the

_Contradictions_. Louis Blanc “has poisoned the working classes with his

ridiculous formulæ” (_Idée générale de la Révolution_, p. 108). Louis

Blanc himself is summed up as follows: “He seriously thought that he was

the bee of the Revolution, but he turned out to be only a grasshopper.”

(_Ibid._)

[639] “I believe that I am the first person possessed of a full knowledge

of the phenomena in question who has dared to uphold the doctrine that

instead of restraining economic forces whose strength has been so much

exaggerated we ought to try to balance them against one another in

accordance with the little known and less perfectly understood principle

that contraries, far from being mutually destructive, support one another

just because of their contrary nature.” (_Justice_, vol. i, pp. 265-266.)

The same idea also finds expression on pp. 302-303. Elsewhere he remarks

that what society is in search of is a way of balancing the natural

forces that are contained within itself (_Révolution démontrée par le

Coup d’État_, p. 43).

[640] “Division of labour, collective force, competition, exchange,

credit, property, and even liberty—these are the true economic forces,

the raw materials of all wealth, which, without actually making men

the slaves of one another, give entire freedom to the producer, ease

his toil, arouse his enthusiasm, and double his produce by creating

a real solidarity which is not based upon personal considerations,

but which binds men together with ties stronger than any which

sympathetic combination or voluntary contract can supply.” (_Idée

générale de la Révolution au XIXe Siècle_, p. 95.) The economic forces

are somewhat differently enumerated in chap. 13 of _La Capacité des

Classes ouvrières_. Association and mutuality are mentioned; but while

recognising the prestige of the word “association,” especially among

working men, Proudhon concludes that the only real association is

mutuality—not in the sense of a mutual aid society, which he thinks is

altogether too narrow.

[641] It is true that Fourier was not a communist. Proudhon shows that on

the one hand his Phalanstère would abolish interest, while it would give

a special remuneration to talent on the other, simply because “talent

is a product of society rather than a gift of nature.” (_Propriété, 1er

Mémoire_, p. 156.)

[642] Proudhon’s opposition to the principle of association is very

remarkable. He refers to it more than once, but especially in the _Idée

générale de la Révolution_. “Can association be regarded as an economic

force? For my own part I distinctly say, No. By itself it is sterile,

even if it does not check production, because of the limits it puts upon

the liberty of the worker.” (P. 89.) “Association means that everyone

is responsible for someone else, and the least counts as much as the

greatest, the youngest as the oldest. It gets rid of inequality, with the

result that there is general awkwardness and incapacity.” (_Ibid._)

[643] _La Révolution démontrée par le Coup d’État_, pp. 53, 54.

Elsewhere: “When you speak of organising labour it seems as if you would

put out the eyes of liberty.” (_Organisation du Crédit et de l’Échange,

Œuvres_, vol. vi, p. 91.)

[644] _Programme révolutionnaire._ To the electors of the Seine, in the

_Représentant du Peuple_. (_Œuvres_, vol. xvii, pp. 45, 46.)

[645] “I should like everybody to have some property. We are anxious

that they should have property in order to avoid paying interest,

because exorbitant interest is the one obstacle to the universal use of

property.” (_Le Peuple_, September 2, 1849.)

[646] _Propriété, 1er Mémoire_, p. 204.

[647] _Contradictions_, vol. ii, p. 203.

[648] _Organisation du Credit et de la Circulation_, p. 131. Elsewhere:

“To adopt Hegelian phraseology, the community is the first term in social

development—the thesis; property the contradictory term—the antithesis.

The third term—the synthesis—must be found before the solution can be

considered complete.” (_Propriété, 1er Mémoire_, p. 202.) That term

will be possession pure and simple—the right of property with no claim

to unearned income. “Get rid of property, but retain the right of

possession, and this very simple change of principle will result in an

alteration of the laws, the method of government, and the character of a

nation’s economic institutions. Evil of every kind will be entirely swept

away.” Proudhon employed Hegelian terminology as early as 1840, four

years before Karl Grün’s visit to Paris. For Proudhon’s relation to Grün

see Sainte-Beuve’s _P. J. Proudhon_.

[649] _Justice dans la Révolution_, vol. i, pp. 182-183.

[650] _Ibid._, p. 269. “It is easy to show how the principle of mutual

respect is logically convertible with the principle of reciprocal

service. If men are equal in the eyes of justice they must also have a

common necessity, and whoever would place his brothers in a position of

inferiority, against which it is the chief duty of society to fight, is

not acting justly.”

[651] This idea of mutual service is further developed, especially in

_Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation_ (_Œuvres_, vol. vi, pp.

92-93), and in _Idée générale_, p. 97.

[652] That is how the problem is put in the preface to the first

_Mémoire_.

[653] _Contradictions_, vol. ii, p. 414.

[654] _Le Droit au Travail et le Droit de Propriété_, pp. 4, 5, 58 (1848).

[655] Every historian is agreed on this point, which Louis Blanc has

dealt with at great length in his _Histoire de la Révolution de 1848_

(chap. 11). The testimony of contemporaries, especially Lamartine in

his _Histoire de la Révolution de 1848_ (vol. ii, p. 120), is also very

significant. “These national workshops were placed under the direction of

men who belonged to the anti-socialist party, whose one aim was to spoil

the experiment, but who managed to keep the sectaries of the Luxembourg

and the rebels of the clubs apart until the meeting of the National

Assembly. Paris was disgusted with the quantity and the character of the

work accomplished, but it little thought that these men had on more than

one occasion defended and protected the city. Far from being in the pay

of Louis Blanc, as some people seem to think, they were entirely at the

beck and call of his opponents.” É. Thomas in his _Histoire des Ateliers

nationaux_ (pp. 146-147) relates how Marie sent for him on May 23 and

secretly asked him whether the men in the workshops could be relied upon.

“Try to get them strongly attached to you. Spare no expense. If there is

any need we shall give you plenty of money.” Upon Thomas asking what was

the purpose of all this, Marie replied: “It is all in the interest of

public safety. Make sure of the men. The day is not far distant when we

shall need them in the streets.”

[656] These addresses were afterwards published in a volume entitled _Le

Droit au Travail_.

[657] Louis Blanc, _Histoire de la Révolution de 1848_, vol. ii, p. 135.

[658] See the addresses in his _La Révolution de Février au Luxembourg_

(Paris, 1849).

[659] _Moniteur_, April 27, May 2, 3, and 6, 1848. The dismissal of the

commission meant an interruption of the _Exposé général_, but Vidal in

his work _Vivre en travaillant! Projets, Voires, et Moyens de Réformes

sociales_ (1848) continued the exposition. It contains a plan for

agricultural credit, a State land purchase scheme in order to get rid of

rent, a proposal for buying up railways and mines and for erecting cheap

dwellings. It affords an interesting example of State Socialism in 1848

which seems to have struck many people then as being very amusing.

[660] _Cf. supra_, p. 297, note 3.

[661] _Cf. supra_, “The Associative Socialists.”