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Saint‐Simon and the Politics of Industrial Societies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Ghiţa Ionescu
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Extract

MOST STUDENTS OF SAINT-SIMON HAVE BEEN ESPECIALLY CONCERNED with his relations with the different 19th-century ideological movements; hence few have approached his work from the point of view of the incompatibility between his attitudes and those of the Jacobins. Yet such an approach re-situates his intellectual biography in its proper context – and indeed protects his work from the anachronistic interpretations which have plagued it in the history of ideas. Moreover it illuminates even more rewardingly his present relevance. His clash with Jacobinism might be taken as the startingpoint of the opposition between Jacobinism and industrialism, between the modern industrial societies and the ‘politics of power’ of the old centralized nation states. From this then derives his theory of the difference between the politics of power and the politics of abilities. The importance of this theory, especially for political science, has not been sufficiently stressed in the classic studies on Saint-Simon's work. Mostly sociological, these studies are divided amongst themselves on whether his work must be seen as socialism, Utopian or otherwise, or as elitism, technocratic or otherwise. And yet it is this theory which provides the logical link between these two seemingly contradictory interpretations.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1973 , pp. 24 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1973

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References

1 The first work which claimed Saint‐Simon for political science is Enrico Vidal's excellent Saint‐Simon e la scienza politico, Milan, 1959, which discusses in general the inter‐disciplinary relevance of Saint‐Simon's work, until now understood to be exclusively sociological and therefore not fully understood.

2 de Saint‐Simon, C. H., Du système industriel, Editions Anthropos, Paris, 1966, 3, 1. p. 79.Google Scholar

3 L'induslrie, Anthropos, 2, 1, pp. 162–3 (Italics in the text).

4 Ibid., p. 166.

5 Sur la querelle der abeilles et des frélons, Anthropos, 2, pp. 216–18.

6 Du système industriel, Anthropos, 3, 2, pp. 12–13.

7 Ibid., Anthropos, 3, 1, p. 117.

8 L'industrie, Anthropos, 1, 2, p. 210.

9 Du système, Anthropos, 3, 1, p. 156.

10 Gide and Rist: Histoire des doctrines économiques, Paris, 1909.

11 Perroux, François: Industrie et création collective, I, Paris, 1964, pp. 102–3.Google Scholar

12 ‘The law which established the powers and the form of government is not as important and does not have as much influence on the welfare of nations as that which established ownership and regulated its exercise.’L'industrie, Anthropos, 2, 1, p. 82.

13 Ibid., p. 89.

14 Ibid., p. 90.

15 Ibid., p. 89.

16 Durkheim, E., Socialism and Saint‐Simon, London, 1959, pp. 157 and 160–1.Google Scholar

17 Gouhier, H., La Jennesse d'Auguste Comte, Paris, Vol. 3, p. 193.Google Scholar

18 Bouglé, C. and Halévy, E.: Doctrine de Saint‐Simon, Paris, 1924, douzieme seance, p. 396.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 394, n, 265.

20 Catéchisme des industriels, Anthropos, 4, p. 13.

21 L'organisatenr, Anthropos, 2, p. 150.

22 L'indnstrie, Anthropos, 2, p. 91.

23 De la réorganisatian eurapéenne, Anthropos, 1, p. 196.

24 L'organisateur, Anthropos, 2, pp. 48 ff.

25 Ibid., pp. 50 ff.

26 Saint‐Simon's parliamentary organization resembles most that of Yugoslavia among Parliaments actually in existence. The 1957 Yugoslav constitution had indeed experimented with a Chamber of Producers – and the idea of ‘Government by Assembly’ is at the basis of Yugoslav constitutionalism. But the present Yugoslav Parliament has five chambers among which one, that of Nationalities, is increasingly important.

27 De l'organisation sociale, Anthropos, 5, pp. 129–30.

28 Catéchisme der industriels, Anthropos, 9, pp. 62–3.

29 Apter, David E., The Politics of Choice and Allocation, Yale, 1972, p. 90.Google Scholar

30 Catéchisme, Anthropos, 4, p. 198.

31 De la réorganisation de la société européanne, Anthropos, 1, pp. 246–7.

32 L'industrie, op. cit., 2, p. 147.

33 Travaux, philosophiques, scientifiques etc., Anthropos, 6, pp. 467–73.

34 L'organisateur, Anthropos, 4, pp. 141–2.

35 Reflections on Sovereignty, Harvard, 1908.

36 Du système industrial, Anthropos, 3, pp. 208–10.

37 De la réorganisation européenne, Anthopos, 1, p. 197.

38 Ibid., pp. 199–200.

39 Ibid., pp. 207–19.

40 Ibid., p. 243.

41 In that order, thus: ‘and the French nation will no longer have to fear the Jacobin doctrines and the Bonapartist plots’. Du système, op. cit., p. 125.

42 See especially Godechot, J.: Les institutions de la France sour la Révolution et l'Empire, Paris, 1957 Google Scholar; Soboul, A.; L'an I de la Révolution. Paris, 1960 Google Scholar and Et. Starosselski: La dictature Jacobine, Paris.

43 Cf. Lenin, my, the Commune and the State’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1970, pp. 131–65.Google Scholar

44 L'industrie. Eighth letter to an American, Anthropos, 2, p. 182.

45 Ibid., p. 214.

46 L'organisateur, Anthropos, 4, p. 77 and pp. 163–4.

47 Ibid., p. 83 and p. 85.

48 Ibid., p. 85, n. 1.

49 Ibid., p. 86 (italics in the text).

50 Ibid., p. 86–7.

51 Socialism, p. 155.

52 Histoire des idées politiques, Les tours de droit, Paris, 1967, pp. 170 ff.

53 Système industriel, Anthropos, 3, 6, p. 185.

54 Ibid., p. 91.

55 Système industriel, Anthropos, 3, 5, pp. 177–8.