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Henri de Saint-Simon

Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (French: [ɑ̃ʁi də sɛ̃ simɔ̃]), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He is a younger relative of the famous memoirist the Duc de Saint-Simon.

Henri de Saint-Simon
Posthumous portrait (1848);
after Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Born
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon

(1760-10-17)17 October 1760
Died19 May 1825(1825-05-19) (aged 64)
Paris, France
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolSaint-Simonianism
Socialism
Utopian socialism
Main interests
Political philosophy
Notable ideas
The industrial class/idling class distinction

Saint-Simon created a political and economic ideology known as Saint-Simonianism that claimed that the needs of an industrial class, which he also referred to as the working class, needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy.[10] Unlike conceptions within industrializing societies of a working class being manual labourers alone, Saint-Simon's late-18th-century conception of this class included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society such as businesspeople, managers, scientists and bankers, along with manual labourers, amongst others.[11]

Saint-Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class, that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work.[10] Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government.[11] Saint-Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring no hindrances to productive work and reducing idleness in society, regarding intervention beyond these as too intrusive.[10]

Saint Simon's conceptual recognition of broad socio-economic contribution, and his Enlightenment valorization of scientific knowledge, soon inspired and influenced utopian socialism,[11] liberal political theorist John Stuart Mill,[6] anarchism through its founder Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who was inspired by Saint-Simon's thought[7] and Marxism with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identifying Saint-Simon as an inspiration to their ideas and classifying him among the utopian socialists.[11] Saint-Simon's views also influenced 20th-century sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, including Veblen's creation of institutional economics that has included prominent economists as adherents.[12]

Biography

Early years

Henri de Saint-Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat. His grandfather's cousin had been the Duke of Saint-Simon.[13] "When he was a young man, being of a restless disposition ... he went to America where he entered into American service and took part in the siege of Yorktown under General Washington."[14]

From his youth, Saint-Simon was highly ambitious. He ordered his valet to wake him every morning with, "Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do."[15] Among his early schemes was one to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by a canal, and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea.[16]

During the American Revolution, Saint-Simon joined the Americans, and believed that their revolution signaled the beginning of a new era.[17] He fought alongside the Marquis de Lafayette between 1779 and 1783, and was imprisoned by British forces. After his release, he returned to France to study engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mézières.[18]

At the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, Saint-Simon quickly endorsed the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. In the early years of the revolution, Saint-Simon devoted himself to organizing a large industrial structure in order to found a scientific school of improvement. He needed to raise some funds to achieve his objectives, which he did by land speculation. This was only possible in the first few years of the revolution because of the growing instability of the political situation in France, which prevented him from continuing his financial activities and indeed put his life at risk. Saint-Simon and Talleyrand planned to profiteer during the Terror by buying the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, stripping its roof of metal, and selling the metal for scrap. Saint-Simon was imprisoned on suspicion of engaging in counter-revolutionary activities. He was released in 1794 at the end of the Terror.[17] After he recovered his freedom, Saint-Simon found himself immensely rich due to currency depreciation, but his fortune was subsequently stolen by his business partner. Thenceforth he decided to devote himself to political studies and research. After the establishment of the Ecole Polytechnique in 1794, a school established to train young men in the arts of sciences and industry and funded by the state, Saint-Simon became involved with the new school.[19]

Life as a working adult

 
Henri de Saint-Simon, portrait from the first quarter of the 19th century by Godefroy Engelmann

When he was nearly 40 he went through a varied course of study and experiment to enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage in 1801 to Alexandrine-Sophie Goury de Champgrand, undertaken so that he might have a literary salon. After a year, the marriage was dissolved by mutual consent. The result of his experiments was that he found himself completely impoverished, and lived in penury for the remainder of his life. The first of his numerous writings, mostly scientific and political, was Lettres d'un habitant de Genève, which appeared in 1802. In this first work, he called for the creation of a religion of science with Isaac Newton as a saint.[19] Around 1814 he wrote the essay "On Reconstruction of the European Community" and sent it to the Congress of Vienna. He proposed a European kingdom, building on France and the United Kingdom.[20]

In 1817, in a treatise entitled L'Industrie, he began to propound his socialist views, which he developed further in L'Organisateur (1819), a periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte collaborated. One of Saint-Simon's major beliefs was that the world should be linked with canals.[19]

L'Industrie caused a sensation, but brought few converts. A couple of years later in his writing career, Saint-Simon found himself ruined, and was forced to work for a living. After a few attempts to recover his money from his former partner, he received financial support from Diard, a former employee, and was able to publish in 1807 his second book, Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIX siècle. Diard died in 1810 and Saint-Simon found himself poor again, and this time also in poor health. He was sent to a sanatorium in 1813, but with financial help from relatives he had time to recover his health and gain some intellectual recognition in Europe. In February 1821 Du système industriel appeared, and in 1823–1824 Catéchisme des industriels.[21]

Death and legacy

 
Saint-Simon's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

On March 9, 1823, disappointed by the lack of results of his writing (he had hoped they would guide society towards social improvement), he attempted suicide in despair.[22] Remarkably, he shot himself in the head six times without succeeding, losing his sight in one eye.[23]

Finally, very late in his career, he did link up with a few ardent disciples. The last and most important expression of his views is Nouveau Christianisme (1825), which he left unfinished.

He was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.

Ideas

Industrialism

In 1817 Saint-Simon published a manifesto called the "Declaration of Principles" in his work titled L'Industrie ("Industry").[10] The Declaration was about the principles of an ideology called industrialism that called for the creation of an industrial society led by people within what he defined as the industrial class.[10] The industrial class, also referred to as the working class, was defined as including all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, emphasizing scientists and industrialists, but including engineers, businesspeople, managers, bankers, manual workers, and others.[11]

Saint-Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class, that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work.[10] He saw the origins of this parasitic activity by idlers in what he regarded as the natural laziness of humanity.[10] He believed the principal economic roles of government were to ensure that productive activity in the economy is unhindered and to reduce idleness in society.[10]

In the Declaration Saint-Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond these two principal economic roles, saying that when the government goes beyond these roles, it becomes a "tyrannical enemy of industry" and that the industrial economy will decline as a consequence of such excessive government intervention.[10] Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy, such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government.[11] His views were radical for his time. He built on Enlightenment ideas which challenged church doctrine and the older regime with the idea of progress from industry and science[19]

Heavily influenced by the absence of social privilege he saw in the early United States, Saint-Simon renounced his aristocratic title and came to favor a form of meritocracy, becoming convinced that science was the key to progress and that it would be possible to develop a society based on objective scientific principles.[24] He claimed that feudal society in France and elsewhere needed to be dissolved and transformed into an industrial society.[25] As such, he invented the conception of the industrial society.[25]

Saint-Simon's economic views and ideas were influenced by Adam Smith whom Saint-Simon deeply admired, and referred to him in praise as "the immortal Adam Smith".[2] He shared with Smith the belief that taxes needed to be much reduced from what they were then in order to have a more just industrial system.[2] Saint-Simon desired the minimization of government intervention into the economy to prevent disruption of productive work.[2] He emphasized more emphatically than Smith that state administration of the economy was generally parasitic and hostile to the needs of production.[25] Like Adam Smith, Saint-Simon's model of society emulated the scientific methods of astronomy, and said "The astronomers only accepted those facts which were verified by observation; they chose the system which linked them best, and since that time, they have never led science astray.".[26]

Saint-Simon reviewed the French Revolution and regarded it as an upheaval driven by economic change and class conflict. In his analysis he believed that the solution to the problems that led to the French Revolution would be the creation of an industrial society where hierarchy of merit and respect for productive work would be the basis of society, while ranks of hereditary and military hierarchy would lessen in importance in society because they were not capable to lead a productive society.[11]

Karl Marx identified Saint-Simon as being among whom he called the "utopian socialists", though historian Alan Ryan regards certain followers of Saint-Simon, rather than Saint-Simon himself, as being responsible for the rise of utopian socialism that based itself upon Saint-Simon's ideas.[11] Ryan also distinguishes between Saint-Simon's conceptions and Marxism's, as Saint-Simon did not promote independent working-class organization and leadership as a solution to capitalist societal problems, nor did he adhere to the Marxist definition of the working class as excluded by fundamental private property law from control over the means of production.[11] Unlike Marx, Saint-Simon did not regard class relations, vis the means of production, to be an engine of socio-economic dynamics but rather the form of management.[11] Furthermore, Saint-Simon was not critical of capitalists as exclusive owners, collaborators, controllers, and decision-makers. Rather, he regarded capitalists as an important component of the "industrial class."[27] Ryan further suggests that by the 1950s it was clear that Saint-Simon had presaged the "modern" understanding of industrial society.[11]

Feudalism and aristocracy

In opposition to the feudal and military system—the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the restoration—he advocated a form of technocratic socialism, an arrangement whereby industrial chiefs should control society, similar to Plato philosopher kings. In place of the medieval church, spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science. Men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it. The conflict between labour and capital emphasized by later socialism is not present in Saint-Simon's work, but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control of production is to fall, shall rule in the interest of society.[citation needed] Later on, the cause of the poor receives greater attention until, in his greatest work, Nouveau Christianisme (The New Christianity), it takes on the form of a religion. This development of his ideas occasioned his final quarrel with Comte.

Religious views

Prior to the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon had not concerned himself with theology. In this work he starts from a belief in God, and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to its simple and essential elements. He does this by clearing it of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects that he says gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it. He propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity this precept: "The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end."[28] This principle became the watchword of the entire Saint-Simon school of thought.

Influence

Philosophical

During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had very little influence; he left only a few devoted disciples who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they revered as a prophet.[citation needed] The most acclaimed disciple of Saint-Simon was Auguste Comte.[29] Others included Olinde Rodrigues, the favoured disciple of Saint-Simon, and Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, who together had received Saint-Simon's last instructions. Their first step was to establish a journal, Le Producteur, but it was discontinued in 1826. The sect had begun to grow, and before the end of 1828 had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns.

An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard, who gave a "complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith" in a long course of lectures in Paris, which was well attended. His Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon (2 vols., 1828–1830), which is by far the best account of it, won more adherents. The second volume was chiefly by Enfantin, who along with Bazard stood at the head of the society, but who was superior in philosophical acumen and was prone to push his deductions to extremities. The revolution of July 1830 brought a new freedom to the socialist reformers. A proclamation was issued demanding community of goods, abolition of the right of inheritance and enfranchisement of women.

Early next year the school obtained possession of Le Globe through Pierre Leroux, who had joined the school. The school now counted among its number some of the ablest and most promising young men in France, many of the pupils of the École Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm. The members formed themselves into an association arranged in three grades, and constituting a society or family, which lived out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny. Before long dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man of stolid temperament, could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism with lax notions as to marriage and the relations between the sexes. In the name of progress, Enfantin announced that the gulf between the sexes was too wide and this social inequality would impede rapid growth of society. Enfantin called for the abolition of prostitution and for the ability for women to divorce and obtain legal rights. This was considered radical for the time.[30]

After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example. A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character. They moved to Ménilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a communalistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Although the monks of Enfantin's school were required to be celibate, rumors were spread that they engaged in orgies.[31] Shortly after, the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings prejudicial to the social order and the sect was entirely broken up in 1832. Many of its members became famous as engineers, economists and men of business. Enfantin would go on to organize an expedition of the disciples to Constantinople, and then to Egypt, where he influenced the creation of the Suez Canal.[32]

French feminist and socialist writer Flora Tristan (1803–1844) claimed that Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, anticipated Saint-Simon's ideas by a generation.[33][dubious ]

Literary

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Possessed, 'Saint-Simonist' and 'Fourierist' are used as derogatory insults of others by many of the politically active characters.

According to Fr. Cyril Martindale, Robert Hugh Benson got the idea of his dystopian science fiction novel about the Antichrist, published in 1908 as Lord of the World, from his friend and literary mentor Frederick Rolfe who also introduced Monsignor Benson to the writings of Saint-Simon. According to Fr. Martindale, as Benson read Saint-Simon's writings, "A vision of a dechristianised civilisation, sprung from the wrecking of the old régime, arose before him and he listened to Mr. Rolfe's suggestion that he should write a book on Antichrist."[34]

Works

Saint-Simon wrote various accounts of his views:

  • Lettres d'un habitant de Genève à ses contemporains (1803)
  • L'Industrie (1816–1817)
  • Le Politique (1819)
  • L'Organisateur (1819–1820)
  • Du système industriel (1822)
  • Catéchisme des industriels (1823–1824)
  • Nouveau Christianisme (1825)
  • An edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was published by the survivors of the sect (47 vols., Paris, 1865–1878).

See also

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d Jeremy Jennings. Revolution and the Republic: A History of Political Thought in France Since the Eighteenth Century. Oxford University Press, 2011. p. 347.
  2. ^ a b c d Gregory Claeys. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Thought. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2005. p. 136.
  3. ^ a b c Pilbeam, Pamela M. (2014). Saint-Simonians in Nineteenth-Century France: From Free Love to Algeria. Springer. p. 5.
  4. ^ John Powell, Derek W. Blakeley, Tessa Powell. Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences: The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1914. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. p. 267.
  5. ^ Jean-René Suratteau, "Restif (de la Bretonne) Nicolas Edme", in: Albert Soboul (ed.), Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, Paris, PUF, 1989, 2nd ed. Quadrige, 2005, pp. 897–898.
  6. ^ a b Nicholas Capaldi. John Stuart Mill: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2004. pp. 77–80.
  7. ^ a b Rob Knowles. Political Economy from Below: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism 1840-1914: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism, 1840-1914. Routledge, 2013. p. 342.
  8. ^ Koslowski, Stefan (2017). "Lorenz von Stein as a disciple of Saint-Simon and the French Utopians". Revista europea de historia de las ideas políticas y de las instituciones públicas. 11.
  9. ^ Horowitz, Irving Louis, Veblen's Century: A Collective Portrait (2002), p. 142
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Keith Taylor (ed, tr.). Henri de Saint Simon, 1760-1825: Selected writings on science, industry and social organization. New York, USA: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc, 1975. pp. 158–161.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Alan Ryan. On Politics. Book II. 2012. pp. 647–651.
  12. ^ Vincent Mosco. The Political Economy of Communication. SAGE, 2009. p. 53.
  13. ^ "Britannica".
  14. ^ Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal, Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 109
  15. ^ Busky, Donald F.: "Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union"
  16. ^ Manuel, Frank E.: "The Prophets of Paris", Harper & Row 1962
  17. ^ a b Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 25. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
  18. ^ Hasan, Samiul; Crocker, Ruth; Rousseliere, Damien; Dumont, Georgette; Hale, Sharilyn; Srinivas, Hari; Hamilton, Mark; Kumar, Sunil; Maclean, Charles (2010), "Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy (Comte de)", in Anheier, Helmut K.; Toepler, Stefan (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, Springer US, pp. 1341–1342, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4_811, ISBN 9780387939940
  19. ^ a b c d Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 26. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
  20. ^ Dosenrode, Søren (1998). Danske EUropavisioner. Århus: Systime. p. 11. ISBN 87-7783-959-5.
  21. ^ Saint-Simon, Henri (2012-11-14). Œuvres complètes de Saint-Simon: 4 volumes (in French). Presses Universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2-13-062090-7.
  22. ^ Pickering, Mary (2006-04-20). Auguste Comte: Volume 1: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-521-02574-4.
  23. ^ Trombley, Stephen (2012-11-01). Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World. Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-78239-038-1.
  24. ^ Newman, Michael. (2005) Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280431-6
  25. ^ a b c Murray E. G. Smith. Early Modern Social Theory: Selected Interpretive Readings. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press, Inc, 1998. p. 80.
  26. ^ Murray E. G. Smith. Early Modern Social Theory: Selected Interpretive Readings. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press, Inc, 1998. pp. 80–81.
  27. ^ Arthur Bernie. An Economic History of Europe 1760-1930. Routledge, 1930 (original), 2010. p. 113.
  28. ^ Saint-Simon (1825). Nouveau christianisme (New Christianity). Paris, France.
  29. ^ Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 27. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
  30. ^ Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 29. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
  31. ^ Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 30. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
  32. ^ * Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 28, 31–37. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
  33. ^ Promenades dans Londres, first published 1840. Page 276, Broché edition (2003) from La Découverte.
  34. ^ Martindale, C.C. (1916). The Life of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, Vol. 2. page 65. London: Longmans, Green & Co.

General references

Attribution
  •   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainKirkup, Thomas; Shotwell, James (1911). "Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 45–47.

External links

  • "Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism" Catholic Encyclopedia article
  • Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism: A Chapter in the History of Socialism in France by Arthur John Booth
  • The French Faust: Henri de Saint-Simon, 1955 biography by Mathurin Dondo
  • Henri de Saint-Simon: The Great Synthesist by Caspar Hewett
  • New Christianity, 1825, Henri de Saint-Simon

henri, saint, simon, claude, henri, rouvroy, comte, saint, simon, october, 1760, 1825, often, referred, french, simɔ, french, political, economic, socialist, theorist, businessman, whose, thought, substantial, influence, politics, economics, sociology, philoso. Claude Henri de Rouvroy comte de Saint Simon 17 October 1760 19 May 1825 often referred to as Henri de Saint Simon French ɑ ʁi de sɛ simɔ was a French political economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics economics sociology and the philosophy of science He is a younger relative of the famous memoirist the Duc de Saint Simon Henri de Saint SimonPosthumous portrait 1848 after Adelaide Labille GuiardBornClaude Henri de Rouvroy comte de Saint Simon 1760 10 17 17 October 1760Paris FranceDied19 May 1825 1825 05 19 aged 64 Paris FranceEra19th century philosophyRegionWestern philosophySchoolSaint SimonianismSocialismUtopian socialismMain interestsPolitical philosophyNotable ideasThe industrial class idling class distinctionInfluences Francis Bacon 1 Rene Descartes 1 John Locke 1 Isaac Newton 1 David Hume Edward Gibbon Voltaire Jean Jacques Rousseau Adam Smith 2 Augustin Thierry Anne Robert Jacques Turgot 3 Emmanuel Sieyes 3 Joseph de Maistre 4 Charles Dunoyer Jean le Rond d Alembert Marquis de Condorcet 3 Jean Baptiste Say Nicolas Edme Retif 5 Influenced Auguste Comte Prosper Enfantin John Stuart Mill 6 Pierre Joseph Proudhon 7 Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Pierre Leroux Michel Chevalier Pereire brothers Lorenz von Stein 8 Thorstein Veblen 9 Saint Simon created a political and economic ideology known as Saint Simonianism that claimed that the needs of an industrial class which he also referred to as the working class needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy 10 Unlike conceptions within industrializing societies of a working class being manual labourers alone Saint Simon s late 18th century conception of this class included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society such as businesspeople managers scientists and bankers along with manual labourers amongst others 11 Saint Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work 10 Saint Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy such as society having hierarchical merit based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision makers in government 11 Saint Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring no hindrances to productive work and reducing idleness in society regarding intervention beyond these as too intrusive 10 Saint Simon s conceptual recognition of broad socio economic contribution and his Enlightenment valorization of scientific knowledge soon inspired and influenced utopian socialism 11 liberal political theorist John Stuart Mill 6 anarchism through its founder Pierre Joseph Proudhon who was inspired by Saint Simon s thought 7 and Marxism with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identifying Saint Simon as an inspiration to their ideas and classifying him among the utopian socialists 11 Saint Simon s views also influenced 20th century sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen including Veblen s creation of institutional economics that has included prominent economists as adherents 12 Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Early years 1 2 Life as a working adult 1 3 Death and legacy 2 Ideas 2 1 Industrialism 2 2 Feudalism and aristocracy 2 3 Religious views 3 Influence 3 1 Philosophical 3 2 Literary 4 Works 5 See also 6 Citations 7 General references 8 External linksBiography EditEarly years Edit Henri de Saint Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat His grandfather s cousin had been the Duke of Saint Simon 13 When he was a young man being of a restless disposition he went to America where he entered into American service and took part in the siege of Yorktown under General Washington 14 From his youth Saint Simon was highly ambitious He ordered his valet to wake him every morning with Remember monsieur le comte that you have great things to do 15 Among his early schemes was one to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by a canal and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea 16 During the American Revolution Saint Simon joined the Americans and believed that their revolution signaled the beginning of a new era 17 He fought alongside the Marquis de Lafayette between 1779 and 1783 and was imprisoned by British forces After his release he returned to France to study engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mezieres 18 At the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 Saint Simon quickly endorsed the revolutionary ideals of liberty equality and fraternity In the early years of the revolution Saint Simon devoted himself to organizing a large industrial structure in order to found a scientific school of improvement He needed to raise some funds to achieve his objectives which he did by land speculation This was only possible in the first few years of the revolution because of the growing instability of the political situation in France which prevented him from continuing his financial activities and indeed put his life at risk Saint Simon and Talleyrand planned to profiteer during the Terror by buying the Cathedral of Notre Dame stripping its roof of metal and selling the metal for scrap Saint Simon was imprisoned on suspicion of engaging in counter revolutionary activities He was released in 1794 at the end of the Terror 17 After he recovered his freedom Saint Simon found himself immensely rich due to currency depreciation but his fortune was subsequently stolen by his business partner Thenceforth he decided to devote himself to political studies and research After the establishment of the Ecole Polytechnique in 1794 a school established to train young men in the arts of sciences and industry and funded by the state Saint Simon became involved with the new school 19 Life as a working adult Edit Henri de Saint Simon portrait from the first quarter of the 19th century by Godefroy Engelmann When he was nearly 40 he went through a varied course of study and experiment to enlarge and clarify his view of things One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage in 1801 to Alexandrine Sophie Goury de Champgrand undertaken so that he might have a literary salon After a year the marriage was dissolved by mutual consent The result of his experiments was that he found himself completely impoverished and lived in penury for the remainder of his life The first of his numerous writings mostly scientific and political was Lettres d un habitant de Geneve which appeared in 1802 In this first work he called for the creation of a religion of science with Isaac Newton as a saint 19 Around 1814 he wrote the essay On Reconstruction of the European Community and sent it to the Congress of Vienna He proposed a European kingdom building on France and the United Kingdom 20 In 1817 in a treatise entitled L Industrie he began to propound his socialist views which he developed further in L Organisateur 1819 a periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte collaborated One of Saint Simon s major beliefs was that the world should be linked with canals 19 L Industrie caused a sensation but brought few converts A couple of years later in his writing career Saint Simon found himself ruined and was forced to work for a living After a few attempts to recover his money from his former partner he received financial support from Diard a former employee and was able to publish in 1807 his second book Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIX siecle Diard died in 1810 and Saint Simon found himself poor again and this time also in poor health He was sent to a sanatorium in 1813 but with financial help from relatives he had time to recover his health and gain some intellectual recognition in Europe In February 1821 Du systeme industriel appeared and in 1823 1824 Catechisme des industriels 21 Death and legacy Edit Saint Simon s grave in Pere Lachaise Cemetery Paris On March 9 1823 disappointed by the lack of results of his writing he had hoped they would guide society towards social improvement he attempted suicide in despair 22 Remarkably he shot himself in the head six times without succeeding losing his sight in one eye 23 Finally very late in his career he did link up with a few ardent disciples The last and most important expression of his views is Nouveau Christianisme 1825 which he left unfinished He was buried in Le Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris France Ideas EditIndustrialism Edit In 1817 Saint Simon published a manifesto called the Declaration of Principles in his work titled L Industrie Industry 10 The Declaration was about the principles of an ideology called industrialism that called for the creation of an industrial society led by people within what he defined as the industrial class 10 The industrial class also referred to as the working class was defined as including all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society emphasizing scientists and industrialists but including engineers businesspeople managers bankers manual workers and others 11 Saint Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work 10 He saw the origins of this parasitic activity by idlers in what he regarded as the natural laziness of humanity 10 He believed the principal economic roles of government were to ensure that productive activity in the economy is unhindered and to reduce idleness in society 10 In the Declaration Saint Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond these two principal economic roles saying that when the government goes beyond these roles it becomes a tyrannical enemy of industry and that the industrial economy will decline as a consequence of such excessive government intervention 10 Saint Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy such as society having hierarchical merit based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision makers in government 11 His views were radical for his time He built on Enlightenment ideas which challenged church doctrine and the older regime with the idea of progress from industry and science 19 Heavily influenced by the absence of social privilege he saw in the early United States Saint Simon renounced his aristocratic title and came to favor a form of meritocracy becoming convinced that science was the key to progress and that it would be possible to develop a society based on objective scientific principles 24 He claimed that feudal society in France and elsewhere needed to be dissolved and transformed into an industrial society 25 As such he invented the conception of the industrial society 25 Saint Simon s economic views and ideas were influenced by Adam Smith whom Saint Simon deeply admired and referred to him in praise as the immortal Adam Smith 2 He shared with Smith the belief that taxes needed to be much reduced from what they were then in order to have a more just industrial system 2 Saint Simon desired the minimization of government intervention into the economy to prevent disruption of productive work 2 He emphasized more emphatically than Smith that state administration of the economy was generally parasitic and hostile to the needs of production 25 Like Adam Smith Saint Simon s model of society emulated the scientific methods of astronomy and said The astronomers only accepted those facts which were verified by observation they chose the system which linked them best and since that time they have never led science astray 26 Saint Simon reviewed the French Revolution and regarded it as an upheaval driven by economic change and class conflict In his analysis he believed that the solution to the problems that led to the French Revolution would be the creation of an industrial society where hierarchy of merit and respect for productive work would be the basis of society while ranks of hereditary and military hierarchy would lessen in importance in society because they were not capable to lead a productive society 11 Karl Marx identified Saint Simon as being among whom he called the utopian socialists though historian Alan Ryan regards certain followers of Saint Simon rather than Saint Simon himself as being responsible for the rise of utopian socialism that based itself upon Saint Simon s ideas 11 Ryan also distinguishes between Saint Simon s conceptions and Marxism s as Saint Simon did not promote independent working class organization and leadership as a solution to capitalist societal problems nor did he adhere to the Marxist definition of the working class as excluded by fundamental private property law from control over the means of production 11 Unlike Marx Saint Simon did not regard class relations vis the means of production to be an engine of socio economic dynamics but rather the form of management 11 Furthermore Saint Simon was not critical of capitalists as exclusive owners collaborators controllers and decision makers Rather he regarded capitalists as an important component of the industrial class 27 Ryan further suggests that by the 1950s it was clear that Saint Simon had presaged the modern understanding of industrial society 11 Feudalism and aristocracy Edit In opposition to the feudal and military system the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the restoration he advocated a form of technocratic socialism an arrangement whereby industrial chiefs should control society similar to Plato philosopher kings In place of the medieval church spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science Men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it The conflict between labour and capital emphasized by later socialism is not present in Saint Simon s work but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs to whom the control of production is to fall shall rule in the interest of society citation needed Later on the cause of the poor receives greater attention until in his greatest work Nouveau Christianisme The New Christianity it takes on the form of a religion This development of his ideas occasioned his final quarrel with Comte Religious views Edit Prior to the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme Saint Simon had not concerned himself with theology In this work he starts from a belief in God and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to its simple and essential elements He does this by clearing it of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects that he says gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it He propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity this precept The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end 28 This principle became the watchword of the entire Saint Simon school of thought Influence EditSee also Saint Simonianism This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Henri de Saint Simon news newspapers books scholar JSTOR June 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message Philosophical Edit During his lifetime the views of Saint Simon had very little influence he left only a few devoted disciples who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master whom they revered as a prophet citation needed The most acclaimed disciple of Saint Simon was Auguste Comte 29 Others included Olinde Rodrigues the favoured disciple of Saint Simon and Barthelemy Prosper Enfantin who together had received Saint Simon s last instructions Their first step was to establish a journal Le Producteur but it was discontinued in 1826 The sect had begun to grow and before the end of 1828 had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard who gave a complete exposition of the Saint Simonian faith in a long course of lectures in Paris which was well attended His Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon 2 vols 1828 1830 which is by far the best account of it won more adherents The second volume was chiefly by Enfantin who along with Bazard stood at the head of the society but who was superior in philosophical acumen and was prone to push his deductions to extremities The revolution of July 1830 brought a new freedom to the socialist reformers A proclamation was issued demanding community of goods abolition of the right of inheritance and enfranchisement of women Early next year the school obtained possession of Le Globe through Pierre Leroux who had joined the school The school now counted among its number some of the ablest and most promising young men in France many of the pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm The members formed themselves into an association arranged in three grades and constituting a society or family which lived out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny Before long dissensions began to arise in the sect Bazard a man of stolid temperament could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism with lax notions as to marriage and the relations between the sexes In the name of progress Enfantin announced that the gulf between the sexes was too wide and this social inequality would impede rapid growth of society Enfantin called for the abolition of prostitution and for the ability for women to divorce and obtain legal rights This was considered radical for the time 30 After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character They moved to Menilmontant to a property of Enfantin where they lived in a communalistic society distinguished by a peculiar dress Although the monks of Enfantin s school were required to be celibate rumors were spread that they engaged in orgies 31 Shortly after the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings prejudicial to the social order and the sect was entirely broken up in 1832 Many of its members became famous as engineers economists and men of business Enfantin would go on to organize an expedition of the disciples to Constantinople and then to Egypt where he influenced the creation of the Suez Canal 32 French feminist and socialist writer Flora Tristan 1803 1844 claimed that Mary Wollstonecraft author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman anticipated Saint Simon s ideas by a generation 33 dubious discuss Literary Edit In Fyodor Dostoyevsky s novel The Possessed Saint Simonist and Fourierist are used as derogatory insults of others by many of the politically active characters According to Fr Cyril Martindale Robert Hugh Benson got the idea of his dystopian science fiction novel about the Antichrist published in 1908 as Lord of the World from his friend and literary mentor Frederick Rolfe who also introduced Monsignor Benson to the writings of Saint Simon According to Fr Martindale as Benson read Saint Simon s writings A vision of a dechristianised civilisation sprung from the wrecking of the old regime arose before him and he listened to Mr Rolfe s suggestion that he should write a book on Antichrist 34 Works EditSaint Simon wrote various accounts of his views Lettres d un habitant de Geneve a ses contemporains 1803 L Industrie 1816 1817 Le Politique 1819 L Organisateur 1819 1820 Du systeme industriel 1822 Catechisme des industriels 1823 1824 Nouveau Christianisme 1825 An edition of the works of Saint Simon and Enfantin was published by the survivors of the sect 47 vols Paris 1865 1878 See also EditFrench Revolution Meritocracy Positivism Scientism Society of the Friends of Truth Utopian socialismCitations Edit a b c d Jeremy Jennings Revolution and the Republic A History of Political Thought in France Since the Eighteenth Century Oxford University Press 2011 p 347 a b c d Gregory Claeys Encyclopedia of Nineteenth century Thought Oxon UK Routledge 2005 p 136 a b c Pilbeam Pamela M 2014 Saint Simonians in Nineteenth Century France From Free Love to Algeria Springer p 5 John Powell Derek W Blakeley Tessa Powell Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences The Nineteenth Century 1800 1914 Greenwood Publishing Group 2001 p 267 Jean Rene Suratteau Restif de la Bretonne Nicolas Edme in Albert Soboul ed Dictionnaire historique de la Revolution francaise Paris PUF 1989 2nd ed Quadrige 2005 pp 897 898 a b Nicholas Capaldi John Stuart Mill A Biography Cambridge University Press 2004 pp 77 80 a b Rob Knowles Political Economy from Below Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism 1840 1914 Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism 1840 1914 Routledge 2013 p 342 Koslowski Stefan 2017 Lorenz von Stein as a disciple of Saint Simon and the French Utopians Revista europea de historia de las ideas politicas y de las instituciones publicas 11 Horowitz Irving Louis Veblen s Century A Collective Portrait 2002 p 142 a b c d e f g h i Keith Taylor ed tr Henri de Saint Simon 1760 1825 Selected writings on science industry and social organization New York USA Holmes and Meier Publishers Inc 1975 pp 158 161 a b c d e f g h i j k Alan Ryan On Politics Book II 2012 pp 647 651 Vincent Mosco The Political Economy of Communication SAGE 2009 p 53 Britannica Isaiah Berlin Freedom and Its Betrayal Princeton University Press 2002 p 109 Busky Donald F Communism in History and Theory From Utopian Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union Manuel Frank E The Prophets of Paris Harper amp Row 1962 a b Karabell Zachary 2003 Parting the desert the creation of the Suez Canal Alfred A Knopf p 25 ISBN 0 375 40883 5 Hasan Samiul Crocker Ruth Rousseliere Damien Dumont Georgette Hale Sharilyn Srinivas Hari Hamilton Mark Kumar Sunil Maclean Charles 2010 Saint Simon Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de in Anheier Helmut K Toepler Stefan eds International Encyclopedia of Civil Society Springer US pp 1341 1342 doi 10 1007 978 0 387 93996 4 811 ISBN 9780387939940 a b c d Karabell Zachary 2003 Parting the desert the creation of the Suez Canal Alfred A Knopf p 26 ISBN 0 375 40883 5 Dosenrode Soren 1998 Danske EUropavisioner Arhus Systime p 11 ISBN 87 7783 959 5 Saint Simon Henri 2012 11 14 Œuvres completes de Saint Simon 4 volumes in French Presses Universitaires de France ISBN 978 2 13 062090 7 Pickering Mary 2006 04 20 Auguste Comte Volume 1 An Intellectual Biography Cambridge University Press p 231 ISBN 978 0 521 02574 4 Trombley Stephen 2012 11 01 Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World Atlantic Books ISBN 978 1 78239 038 1 Newman Michael 2005 Socialism A Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 280431 6 a b c Murray E G Smith Early Modern Social Theory Selected Interpretive Readings Toronto Canada Canadian Scholars Press Inc 1998 p 80 Murray E G Smith Early Modern Social Theory Selected Interpretive Readings Toronto Canada Canadian Scholars Press Inc 1998 pp 80 81 Arthur Bernie An Economic History of Europe 1760 1930 Routledge 1930 original 2010 p 113 Saint Simon 1825 Nouveau christianisme New Christianity Paris France Karabell Zachary 2003 Parting the desert the creation of the Suez Canal Alfred A Knopf p 27 ISBN 0 375 40883 5 Karabell Zachary 2003 Parting the desert the creation of the Suez Canal Alfred A Knopf p 29 ISBN 0 375 40883 5 Karabell Zachary 2003 Parting the desert the creation of the Suez Canal Alfred A Knopf p 30 ISBN 0 375 40883 5 Karabell Zachary 2003 Parting the desert the creation of the Suez Canal Alfred A Knopf pp 28 31 37 ISBN 0 375 40883 5 Promenades dans Londres first published 1840 Page 276 Broche edition 2003 from La Decouverte Martindale C C 1916 The Life of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson Vol 2 page 65 London Longmans Green amp Co General references EditAttribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Kirkup Thomas Shotwell James 1911 Saint Simon Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 24 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 45 47 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Claude Henri de Rouvroy comte de Saint Simon Wikiquote has quotations related to Henri de Saint Simon Wikisource has original works by or about Claude Henri de Rouvroy comte de Saint Simon Saint Simon and Saint Simonism Catholic Encyclopedia article Saint Simon and Saint Simonism A Chapter in the History of Socialism in France by Arthur John Booth The French Faust Henri de Saint Simon 1955 biography by Mathurin Dondo Henri de Saint Simon The Great Synthesist by Caspar Hewett New Christianity 1825 Henri de Saint Simon Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Henri de Saint Simon amp oldid 1127570881, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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