See also: Saint-Simon
The Saint-Simonism is socio-economic doctrines, with political coloring and ideological, whose influence at the 19th century was determining, and who can be regarded as a current founder of the modern thought technocratic.
These doctrines hold its name of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, count of Saint-Simon (1760 - 1825), cousin far away from famous the memorialist Louis de Rouvroy, duke of Saint-Simon.
Doctrines
The count of Saint-Simon claimed to replace God by the universal gravitation (a very simple experiment consisting in placing a Aimant on a surface Métal lic vertical shows that the Aimant does not fall, therefore that the force of gravitation is not the only force of the Univers).
He took Isaac Newton like absolute reference. In the letter of an inhabitant of Geneva to his contemporaries (1803), it posed the base of a kind of " religion " science.
This idea appears at the beginning of its philosophical career, in the letter of an inhabitant of Geneva to his contemporaries (1803). One can consider that Saint-Simon is thus the heir, with two centuries of delay, of the theory of the Héliocentrisme, and the Révolution copernician which developed with and the 18th siècles.
It in addition initiates topics taken again later by certain socialist movements : abolition of the heritage of the instruments of work , assertion of the sexual Freedom .
On the social plan, the theory of the Social classes at Saint-Simon stresses the exploitation of a vast majority of Travailleurs of any nature by a weak minority of Oisif S (in particular the " owners Shareholder s").
On the " plan; spirituel" , Saint-Simon intended to substitute science for the Religion.
On the temporal level, he wanted to substitute the economy (that he called industry overall) for the policy.
He estimated indeed that the Gouvernement S were only one lure and that “industries” held the reality of the capacity.
According to Pierre Musso, the bonds of friendship which he imagined between the men answered an analogy with physical Réseaux (channels in its native Picardy), from where the name of Philosophie of the networks.
He thus thought that the intervention of the State in “industry” was by pernicious nature. But, as an authority appeared nevertheless necessary, he recommended the introduction of a Parlement on three levels:
- a room of inventors, and engineers charged to work out the projects,
- a room in charge of their execution,
- a room of writers and artists in charge of their promotion.
He dreamed of an industrial age, making following the feudal age , and of a federation grouping all the governments of Europe.
At the end of its life, it provided the foundations of a pseudo " religion" , that it called new Christianity wrongly, since its system was atheistic. The " New Christianisme" was declared " improvement of the moral, physical fate and intellectual of the most class and more pauvre". Its disciples defended of at the same time technical theses (development of the transportation routes…) and policies (abolition of the privileges of the birth, equality between the sexes…).
Repression of the national memory
Ignored wrongly, the doctrines of Saint-Simon were in catch with its century. It remains, today, a matter with modern reflection surprisingly (Technocratie, equality of the sexes, importance of the Réseaux,…).
The reasons of the repression of the Saint-Simonism out of the national memory are multiple, and are explained in particular by judged radical standpoint attentatoires with the Propriété and the Mœurs (it will be necessary to await Leon Blum so that the Socialisme speaks about sexuality), of the texts difficult to read, and of course the later development and the considerable influence of the Marxist Pensée, which condemned the Saint-Simonism.
History
Auguste Count secretary of Saint-Simon
The Saint-Simonism started to exert a certain influence at the time of the alive one of its founder, as from the moment when Auguste Count became the private secretary of Saint-Simon after it was congédié polytechnic school. Count was indeed secretary of Saint-Simon of 1817 with 1824, and helped it in its philosophical work.
While being opposed to Saint-Simon, whom it left in 1824, Count contributed to spread the ideas Positiviste S initiated by its former Saint-Simon Master. However, one cannot regard Count as a pure Saint-Simonian.
First Saint-Simonians
After the Utopia (and the death of Saint-Simon in 1825), the former militants, entered the businesses, the policy and the press, undertook into practice to put the ideas of their youth: One often forgets that Enfantin was, with Ferdinand de Lesseps, the initiator of the digging of the Suez Canal, or that the first Railroad builds in France (Paris - Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer) was it by Saint-Simonians.
Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin (polytechnician) assisted with the burial of Saint-Simon in 1825. It is at this time that it took again the doctrines of Saint-Simon.
With Olindes Rodrigues and Saint-Amand Bazard, it founded a community with Ménilmontant, which degenerated into a kind of religiosity (1829 with 1832), denounced by certain contemporaries as being a Secte. Childish and Bazard were made call " Fathers suprêmes". They make appear in 1829 and 1830 the Exposure of the Doctrines of Saint-Simon .
Childish diffused its ideas via the newspapers: the Producer and the Earth . Childish was director of the railroad company the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean ( PLM ) as of its creation, as well as general Compagnie of water. It took an active part in the Colonisation of the Algérie (see below).
Childish a great influence on the liberal current in France had. Saint-Amand Bazard developed the doctrines. There was a “schism” in the Saint-Simonism: Bazard was detached from Childish to found a in particular connects socialist near to the Collectivisme.
The politician Lazare Hippolyte Carnot (second wire of Lazare Carnot known as " the organizer of the victoire"), some time the doctrines saint-simonienne developed.
Philippe Rough-hew, founder of the French co-operative movement, the newspaper the Workshop (1840-1850) (one of the large ancestors of the socialist press), and initiator of the Christian social movement, adhered during a few years to the Saint-Simonism. It was detached some in 1829 when it saw the sectarian turning which the Saint-Simonism took.
Pierre Leroux adopted the Saint-Simonism from which it separated in 1831, at the same time as Alexandre Bertrand. They had founded in 1824 the newspaper the Earth , which was during several years the body of the Saint-Simonians.
Michel Chevalier is as for him in the continuity of the liberal ideologies of Childish. He was to advise of Napoleon III.
Other Saint-Simonians, more pragmatic, were in the beginning great work at the time of the Industrial revolution which developed during second half of the 19th century:
- Boring of the Suez Canal (Ferdinand de Lesseps),
- Development of the railways (star of Legrand),
- Role growing of the banks to finance industrial development and commercial.
Influences
During the Industrial revolution
The Saint-Simonians felt invested a mission d'" apôtres" (see the exact significance of this term in the detailed article Apostle). They went thus " prêcher" in several towns of France, in particular with Lyon, in 1832, at the time of the revolt of the Silk workers. It was on this occasion that Frederic Ozanam, challenged by a Saint-Simonian, decided to create the Conférence of Saint-Vincent de Paul (according to Gerard Cholvy).
The ideas saint-simoniennes, in their liberal version, were adopted by Napoleon III , through its close adviser Michel Chevalier.
The heirs to Saint-Simon thus exerted a determining influence starting from second half of the 19th century, initially in France: economists, sociologists, industrialists, politicians, scientists, often polytechnicians. The influence was direct or indirect.
Colonization
They had also a great influence apart from the French territory through the Colonisation in Africa and with the Moyen the East, with characters like Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, then in the Années 1880 with the Cercle Saint-Simon.
The the East, in particular, attracted the Saint-Simonians after 1832 (judgment in France). Bottom of its prison, the Childish Père establishes the need for a union whose the Mediterranean will be the center; the Occident will give its technique, the Orient its reserves of faith. Some leave for the Egypt in order to apply their ideas to it and to carry out there a considerable project which would enable them to return to France haloed by a great success: They launch work of the Suez Canal.
Another ground of election: the Algeria, where the French conquest is done with difficulty. Enfantin, which obtained government of Louis-Philippe an official mission, publishes in 1843 a work in two volumes on the Colonization of Algeria. The following year, the newspaper Algeria is not restricted to denounce the methods of the general Bugeaud, the raids, it proposes a program of equipment. If Algeria ceases appearing in 1846, the colony remains, with men like Carette, A. Warnier, a hearth of ideas saint-simoniennes, and it is a Saint-Simonian of formation, the mulatto I. Urbain, who will advise in Napoleon III the policy of the Arab Royaume, policy more generous, founded on a responsibility and resource sharing (See Bonds].
Philosophical influences
It was seen that Auguste Count developed a Positivisme relatively near to the ideas saint-simoniennes, which employed already the term of positivism.
Saint-Simon allured other utopians, like Fourier and Proudhon .
In its original form, the doctrines did not exceed the borders. It on the other hand was taken again by other currents of thought out of France.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels borrowed certain concepts and certain formulas from the Saint-Simonism (concept of class). This is why the statue of Saint-Simon appeared in the sides of that of Lénine in Moscow, for the Soviet period.
Friedrich Hayek , theorist Libertarien, criticized these doctrines for its side pseudo-monk.
References
, Saint-Simonians. Reason, imaginary and Utopia , Paris, Belin, 2002.- Antoine Picon, Saint-Simonians: reason, imaginary and Utopia , Belin, 2002 “the golden age which a blind man tradition placed up to now in the past is in front of us. ”
- Christophe Prochasson, Saint-Simon or the antione: figures of the French Saint-Simonism: XIXe-XXe centuries , Perrin, 2005: Life and the thought of the economist and philosopher (1760-1825) and the posterity of his political thought through liberalism, socialism reformist and scientist at the XIXe century, technocracy reformist of the years 1960, or the Saint-Simon Foundation created in the years 1980.
- Philippe Régnier (Dir.), Studies saint-simoniennes , university Presses of Lyon, 2002: “What fascine today in this intellectual movement, it is modernity, the height of sights and the effectiveness with which, with the turning of 1830, it dealt with societies' problems which become again ours (...)”
- Philippe Régnier, Saint-Simonians in Egypt (1833-1851) , B.U.E-A, Abdelnour, Cairo, 1989
- Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, new Christianity: dialogs between a conservative and an innovator , ED. paddle, 2006: Reflection on the religion --irreligious-- who crosses the work of Saint-Simon.
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