Le Play: a sociological reaction against industrialism

Frederic Le Play (1806-1882), an engineer trained at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Mines, was an important French social reformer of the second half of the nineteenth century.^[262] Founder of an inductive approach - the method known as “workers’ budgets” - which he developed under the name of social science, he is one of those who, following in the footsteps of social Catholics (Faccarello 2014), criticised political economy for its moral and political consequences.

Like many of his fellow students, during the later 1820s Le Play became aware of the influence of the Saint-Simonians, especially during his first European walk­ing tours in 1829; but he did not associate himself with them. His desire to create his own particular social science dates from this period.

His lectures on metallurgy at the Ecole des Mines from 1840 to 1856 emphasised the human factor in industry, and he encouraged engineers to study society and take account of the social and economic dimensions of their future profession. This is an important point, since there is a tendency to associate French engineers with the development of mathematical economics with the so-called “engineer-economists” (Etner 1987, Mosca 1998). Le Play’s own approach, and that of some of his disci­ples who shared his background, indicates another current of thinking that placed the study of society at the forefront of intellectual and professional considerations.

Made aware of the problems caused by industrialisation by his extensive Euro­pean travels, Le Play saw social science as a solution to what he conceived to be a social evil (Le Play 1870, 188-220; 1879, xv, 12).

He concluded that the eighteenth century had bequeathed two beneficial inven­tions: Watt’s steam engine and Arkwright’s loom. But this was unfortunately spoiled by a third, harmful innovation: the political economy of the “Economistes” and Turgot, which Adam Smith had systematised:

Completely unfamiliar with any knowledge of workshops, for ten years he used his writing skills and “sound reasoning” to develop the logical conse­quences of the “fundamental error” of the 18th century.... His attractive book on the “Wealth of Nations” has over the past century persuaded succes­sive generations that patronage [i.e. a paternalistic system of employment] is an unnecessary complication. This doctrine, convenient for the master, perni­cious for the factory worker, quickly replaced stability and peace in the work­shops with trouble and discord. It contains the seed of the ruin of Europe.

(Le Play 1879, 124)

Le Play’s critique of political economy became more precise when he connected what happens on the shop floor to the functioning of the labour market. While list­ing the factors that made “England’s invasion by evil” possible, he first noted an excessive division of labour, which he believed was incompatible with tradition. The second cause was the excessive importance given to manufacturing, since the English overestimated the advantages of the accumulation of wealth without con­sidering “the disadvantages attached to the sudden accumulation of populations periodically delivered to the malaise, subjected to a cruel instability, worked with feelings of antagonism irreconcilable with any social order” (Le Play 1870, 200).

The third cause is the exaggeration of certain doctrines relating to labour management. This evil comes from several writers who, having ignored the practice of prosperous workshops, have established a systematic distinction between economic order and moral order.... They have disregarded the recip­rocal duties imposed on masters and workers by age-old customs............................................. Thus,

for example, they have assimilated the social laws which fix the wages of workers to the economic laws which regulate the exchange of commodities. In so doing, they have seeded disorganisation into the labour system, for they have led the masters to exempt themselves, in all conscience, from the most salutary obligation of Custom.

(Le Play 1870, 201)

In this series of assertions, Le Play linked political economy to the ruin of tradition, a dissociation between economy and morality with the labour market functioning as its operator. Le Play here rejected the idea that harmony in the productive world could be established on the basis of a labour market functioning according to the law of supply and demand. Associated with the instability of industrial activity, this economic organisation transferred much of the risks to workers, who would lose their jobs and incomes in times of economic crisis. This practice led to social antagonism and wrecked traditional morality, a situation that Le Play associated with the relation of master to worker. Policy based on the relationship of master and servant would have a countercyclical effect: when the economy is booming masters should refrain from increasing their production and hiring more workers; and conversely, they should retain their workers in period of economic crisis. Le Play conceded that this moral view would limit the growth of the economy, and importantly the rise of large manufactures, but it would increase the well-being of the lower classes and maintain social peace (Le Play 1867, II, 413-4).

Hence the social science that he developed from the 1850s onwards^[263] aimed to strengthen the link between morality and economy by returning to the sound tra­ditional practices obliging masters to take care of workers and their families dur­ing hard times. Based on the observation of the Ten Commandments, this moral regulation of economic activity was the means of maintaining harmony between social groups within the framework of industrial society. Even though Le Play was enthusiastic about socialist approaches at the beginning of the 1848 Revolution, he rejected both these and the laissez-faire advocated by classical economists (Le Play 1879, 42).

Using his scientific training and his own observation, in his first book - Les ouvriers europeens (Le Play 1855) - Le Play based his social science on a precise empirical foundation: the meticulous study of workers’ budgets. This monographic approach, directly examining the material conditions and the intellectual, moral and religious life of a working-class family, became for him the scientific basis for his social and political views.

The monographic method provides every man who takes the trouble to apply it with the means of knowing what share is given to the two needs, corre­sponding to the moral and the material life of each family. It shows the dura­bility of the two basic constitutional elements essential to prosperous peoples.

(Le Play 1879, 217)

This monographic method had a strong impact on the disciples of Le Play, who adopted it; but it also had a significant impact on economists seeking a more empirical approach to economic thinking, relying on statistics, as with one of the most eminent among them, Emile Cheysson (1836-1910). An engineer trained at Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, he taught economics of industry at Ecole des Mines from 1885 to 1905, as well as political economy and then social economy at the Ecole libre des sciences politiques from 1882 to 1906. The study of budgets was also adopted in Britain, supported by the Royal Statistical Society and developed especially by Charles Booth in his studies on poverty in London. Seebohm Rowntree’s study of York (1901) built extensively on this work.

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