Saint-Simon
Henri de Saint-Simon[1] (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), was a French political and economic theorist and businessman whose thought played a substantial role in influencing politics, economics, sociology, and the philosophy of science.
He established a political and economic ideology known as industrialism. As a French social theorist and is said to be one of the chief founders of Christian socialism. Is socialism compatible with Christ and the doctrines of Jesus? Was Saint-Simon really talking about socialism that we see people promoting today? He did write about an industrial class which he also labeled the "working class".
He said an effective society and an efficient economy needed to recognize and fulfill. As a businessman, he defined the working class as not just manual laborers alone. The working class, or industrial class, included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to a healthy society, from businesspeople and managers, innovators and scientists, and even bookkeepers, bankers, and pastors.
He believed the greatest threat to the industrial class was another class he called the idling class. He did not consider businessmen, their managers, and other innovators were not a part of the idling class. The idling class were the capable people who chose to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while often avoiding doing some productive work.
Karl Marx[2] projected that Saint-Simon was a "utopian socialists" but little could be farther from the truth. True Utopian socialism was dependent on voluntary cooperation and not an authoritarian application of power through government or force of arms.[3]
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels talked about anyone who espoused ideas that were remotely appearing as socialist society as "utopian". This utopian mindset often played fast and loose with the means to produce said goals.
Saint-Simon's version of progressive liberalism was far different than what often posses as liberalism today. Some modern promoters of Saint-Simonianism ideologies suggest he was in favor of government intervention.[4] His emphases on less government and voluntarism would bring him into conflict with the violent left and anarchists. He was far more practical in his approach and many of the elements of the modern socialist would make society ill if not kill it all together.
Saint-Simon stressed the need a merit-based hierarchy[5] in society and in the economy rather than the "equality of outcome" approach we hear from socialists of today. He advocated a society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and innovators to be the decision-makers in business and even limited government. He strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring no hindrances to productive work and reducing idleness in society. He believed that any intervention by government beyond these to functions as too intrusive.
And the word government has a variety of meanings. Not only did he advocate a limited role for government but his goal was that society itself would evolve beyond the need for the "state".[6]
Because the industrial class included all the practicle members of a productive society the idle class was not composed solely of the idle rich but also of the 'unproductive' masses.[7]
As a firm believer in Thessalonians[8] Saint-Simon did not advocate government welfare given out to the poor and certainly did not intend that the idle class should have an influence or vote over what limited role of government there would be in his advocated society.[9]
With the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon sought to reduce Christianity to its essential elements. He saw the dogmas of religions as outgrowths of a desire to control converts and practitioners of denominations rather than the promotion of the practice of Pure Religion. In his new Christianity: "The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end."[10]
The best way to organize society in the practice of Pure Religion is to do so as the early Church did. The early Church organized in small groups of Tens ministered to in a network of Deacons, ministers and overseers also who also gathered in groups of Tens. This simple pattern was one of the most common patterns of organizing free societies and had been commanded by Christ.
Saint-Simon Says
- "Today, for the first time since the existence of societies it is a question of organizing a totally new system; of replacing the celestial with the terrestrial, the vague by the positive, and the poetic by the real." Henri de Saint-Simon
- "No man has a right to free himself from the law of labour." Saint-Simon
- "True equality consists in each drawing benefits from society in exact proportion to his social outlay, that is to his real capacity, to the beneficent use he makes of his abilities. And this equality is the natural foundation of industrial society." Saint-Simon
- "Equality is the natural foundation of industrial society." Saint-Simon
- "In the old system Society is governed essentially by men; in the new it is governed only by principles."
- "Today, for the first time since the existence of societies it is a question of organizing a totally new system; of replacing the celestial with the terrestrial, the vague by the positive, and the poetic by the real.
- "I have divided [the different sections of mankind] into three classes. The first, to which you and I have the honour to belong, marches under the banner of the progress of the human mind. It is composed of scientists, artists and all those who hold liberal ideas. On the banner of the second is written 'No innovation!' All proprietors who do not belong in the first category are part of the second. The third class, which rallies round the slogan of 'Equality' is made up of the rest of the people.
- "The whole of society rests upon industry. Industry is the sole guarantee of its existence, the single source of all its wealth and all its prosperity. The state of things most favorable to industry is by that very reason the most favorable to society."
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Footnotes
- ↑ Originally named Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon
- ↑ "Of the "utopian socialists," to use Marx's label, Saint-Simon was the most accurate forecaster of the politics and economics of industry. Rational, worldwide territorial planning is implied in Saint-Simon's system..." Joseph Rykwert, The Seduction of Place (2000)
- ↑ Utopian socialism is a label used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet and Robert Owen. ... Utopians believe that people of all classes can voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it is presented convincingly.
- ↑ "Saint-Simon was the first to emphasize the efficiency of huge industrial undertakings and argued that the government should actively intervene in production, distribution, and commerce in the interest of promoting the welfare of the masses. He sanctioned both private property and its privileges as long as they were used to promote the welfare of the masses." E. K. Hunt, Property and Prophets: The Evolution of Economic Institutions and Ideologies (2002), p. 80
- ↑ "Saint-Simon was the prophet of meritocracy, seeking to reorder society in the image of the new chessboard he had designed for prerevolutionary France, with a hierarchy in which the king was replaced by a figure called Talent." James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (1980)
- ↑ "As Paul Ricoeur points out, Saint-Simon leaves a legacy which affects all socialisms, for he introduces into social theory (the theme of idleness and parasitism as social problems consequent on the evasion of the central social responsibility ascribed to citizens: the duty to be productive. Saint-Simon then adds his second profound message – that the elimination of the social problem of parasitism can finally lead to the disappearance of the state." Peter Beilharz, Labour's Utopias: Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy (1992), p. 4.
- ↑ "For the logic of Saint-Simon is that the only legitimate social functions are those of production, and those of the scholarship which aids production. It is no accident that this corporatist utopia is today defended by western labour movements, for it exhausts the contemporary utopic vision of citizenship – good citizens are those who either boost Gross National Product or who conduct Wissenschaft as part of that process. For Saint-Simon was indeed to argue that 'Politics is the science of production'; here there is a politics of economic interests, but no other politics. Thus the second legacy – for where there is no politics, there need be no state, or at least no state conventionally defined. Saint-Simon proposes that there ought henceforth to be three chambers of government, functionally defined and solely directed to the national productive task." Politics would thus become administration, society would become a technocratic utopia untroubled by the routine vicissitudes of everyday life as encountered by the 'unproductive' masses. Bourgeoisie and proletariat would be locked into perpetual embrace, while parasites rich and poor alike would wither and government along with them. For the new society would only have hands, head and heart, and the parasites would be expelled by the body corporate." Peter Beilharz, Labour's Utopias: Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy (1992), p. 4.
- ↑ 2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
- ↑ "Saint-Simon was the founder of corporatism, or at least of technocracy. It is in Saint-Simon that we find the identification of the categories life, or society, with industry. Saint-Simon helps to generate a theme which subsequently pervades all socialist traditions, for he raises the issue of status or legitimacy of citizenship with reference to productivity. Saint-Simon's hoped-for world is not only one where those who do not work shall not eat; it is also a place where they absolutely shall not rule." Peter Beilharz, Labour's Utopias: Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy (1992), p. 4.
- ↑ Saint-Simon (1825). Nouveau christianisme (New Christianity). Paris, France.