The attempt to form a coherent doctrine of socialism: the Malonians and Jaures
Benoit Malon played a central role in this project, being both the founder and director of a pluralistic publication entitled La Revue socialiste, as well as an advocate of a unified and integral version of socialism, which would be the product of the socialist movement’s evolution.
The economic content of what was then considered to be the modern stage of socialism, “collectivism”, is central. Collectivism, from an economic standpoint, is the gradual socialization of main production resources and credit (railway, mines, canals and Banque de France), used by associations under the control of the state (but not used directly by the state). It is also the substitution of associative work for the wage system, first in industry, then in commerce and agriculture. Finally, it implies that workers should be allowed to dispose freely of their remuneration. This was the French implementation of the orientations of the International at the Marseille congress of 1879 - prior to the creation of the Second International in 1889 - which saw the victory of the “collectivists” over the mutualists and cooperativists.This economic content was presented as stemming from a French filiation, first proposed, before Marx, by Pecqueur in particular. According to Malon, modern collectivist socialism, as opposed to what was referred to as utopian communism, restricts socialization to productive forces: common goods and labour incomes are not to be socialized. State intervention is supported and a republican strategy of conquest of power is validated. This orientation challenged mutualism and the heritage of Proudhon, which according to Malon had negative repercussions on the socialist movement in the 1860s: cooperatives, in particular, proved incapable of bringing about emancipation from the wage system and replacing it with the associative model. Malon supported the economic content of this model of socialism with (1) a somewhat confused interpretation of the Marxist theory of value, based on Rodbertus and mainly Lassalle’s views on Marx; (2) the perception of a logical and historical sequence of events - a tendency to capitalist concentration, a transition to monopoly and constitution of industrial, banking and commercial feudal powers and finally the necessity for socialization of property by the state, with reference to Brousse’s communal public utilities approach (Brousse 1883 [1910]); (3) the iron law of wages, with the underlying influence of the Malthusian law of population; (4) and finally the influence of Spencerian evolution (Bellet 2000).
Malon placed emphasis on the practical dimension of this socialism, which he described as reformist, non-utopian, pragmatic and aiming for concrete outcomes. In this way, it appears to be compatible with Marx’s philosophy of history and historical materialism but rules out any fatalistic interpretation.Finally, Malon’s conception of socialism included the concept of morality: collectivism is presented as a synthetic and integral socialism (Malon 1890), in the sense that man is an individual and a social being that must emancipate itself from state authority. This emancipation must be both intellectual and political while the state keeps acting as a collectivist from an economic standpoint, regulating production and distribution of wealth (not consumption). Malon also placed emphasis on morality and the emergence of an “altruistic” era of humanity. This approach was also a way of bolstering the French filiation of socialism in the face of German socialism. It was followed by the group of Malonians - Fourniere (1901, 1904a), Rouanet (1887) and Renard (1887-88), the successive directors of the Revue socialiste - with varying degrees of inflection concerning Marx’s contribution to socialism, historical determinism, the rejection of catastrophism, the individualist filiation of socialism, the integration of federalist elements or the role of moral progress (Bellet 2016).
Jean Jaures was himself intrinsically linked with this collectivist line of thought and played a prominent role in the difficult constitution of a united socialist party in 1905. His Histoire socialiste de la Revolution franςaise, with several Malonians participating in it, bolstered the process of revitalization of French socialism. Jaures’ views are relatively flexible and weakly theorized economically, but do display some hallmarks of a “socialist method” (Jaures 1902 [2013]). The notion of revolutionary development is taken from Marx and is used to analyse the relationship between reform and revolution, the decline of capitalism brought about by the state, or the decline of the state, and the gradualism of revolutionary transformation.
However, while borrowing from Marx, he was also critical of the Communist Manifesto and Book I of Capital (the only book to be read directly at the time, apart from a few exceptions). Jaures upheld that property is defined by the law and is thus alienable even though he recognized the right of ownership as such. He clearly argued in favour of a state collective property so as to abolish capitalist exploitation and the wage system. Furthermore, he was critical of the German state socialism system, which restricted itself to merely correcting capitalism. He also voiced criticism against proposals which advocated the fragmentation of property and the general defence of individual property (linked to the Radical party), when the state had already set up limitations to private ownership (expropriation laws, tax on inheritance and so on). He was sceptical as regards production cooperatives as a way of achieving socialization since they failed in 1848; but he advocated corporative property under delegation of the state to regrouped workers, with a national board representing the groups and elected under universal suffrage. Finally, he upheld that socialism is the continuation of revolutionary individualism of the French Revolution and had to clearly address the issue of property. Strikes are legitimate as a permanent form of class struggle linked to the private ownership of the means of production, as a way for workers to defend their economic rights (wages, working hours and hygiene), and are opposed to general strikes as a political tool, defended by revolutionary syndicalism. The state cannot be assimilated with a bourgeois state and partial reforms within the capitalist system could lead to a transition to a socialist republic - Jaures on the whole supported Millerand’s contentious ministerial socialism as from 1899. Democracy, freedom and social Republic are thus associated with socialist ideas.