Constantin Pecqueur

Pecqueur was also a Saint-Simonian dissident who later temporarily joined the Fourierist school. His works and influence in the 1830s and 1840s are of pivotal importance to socialist economic ideas in France.

In terms of the associative model, Pecqueur defended the model of the Christian republic, which is based on socialization together with sovereignty of the people at each level of production. When it comes to the transition phase, Pecqueur argues in favour of a Fourierist model of productive communities but supported by the state, which exerts an indirect influence on the economy and ensures that there is no return to private coali­tions. The right of ownership (Pecqueur 1842) is transformed into the right to a function (that is, a coherent type of activities) but also righteous involvement of state officials or citizen-magistrates. The state defines the various functions with a balanced calculation of the quantity of labour, and verifies the aptitude of individuals to fulfil these tasks and appoints those who are apt to judge the results of their implementation. In accordance with a Christian standpoint, there should be absolute equality in terms of remuneration when work is carried out correctly - even though the equivalence of all functions within the economy is hard to achieve during the transition phase, hence a degree of inequality may prevail. Within the context of the 1848 revolution and pressure to create a Ministry of Labour, Pecqueur, together with Vidal and Blanc, played a crucial role in the work of the so-called “Luxembourg commission” concerning the implementation of national workshops (Frobert, 2014a).