The project of an equitable society

The first model esteemed that, with the old hierarchies having collapsed during the 1789 Revolution, the question of re-founding an ordered, well-run, efficient and equitable society culminated in the quest for social organisation guaranteeing the most rigorous equal opportunities, leaving only the clearly identified and selected abilities and wills of individuals to come into play.

In the early 1830s, Enfantin, “father” of the Saint-Simonian Church, wrote that the well-run administration of the new industrial and associated world would have to respect the idea that “each shall be ranked according to his ability and rewarded according to his works” (Enfantin 1832, 103), thus encapsulating their formula for social justice.

The first part of this slogan states that capital - the instrument of production - should not only shift from the hands of the idle to those of the “industriels” (indus­trial class) - and by “industrial class”, they meant everyone who produces goods and services - but also that, among these producers themselves, instruments should be meticulously distributed according to ability: in this way, as in any rational workshop, if not the ownership, at least the disposal of instruments would be pro­portionate to ability.

This is the expression of socialist equal opportunity. In Le Globe of 24 April 1831, we can also read that “absolute equality” is more than an error, it is a demagogic “lie”, and that the objective is quite different: “There is only one possi­ble and equitable equality in the interests of all, and that is the equality of opportu­nity, ranking according to ability, whatever one’s birth”. Realistic socialism should strive to organise this equality that, as a condition for the production of wealth, must tolerate a significant level of inequality as long as this inequality stems only from the abilities of each individual and enables the overall improvement of every­one’s lot, especially the less able.

These Saint-Simonian socialists moved at their own pace towards this equality that inevitably included acceptable inequalities, starting out from a liberal situa­tion of inequalities deemed unacceptable because they were unfounded and unor­ganised. It was this process of clarification itself to isolate the objective part of inequality, a solid and healthy pillar of the social order, at least as much as the asymptotic quest for equality, which really mattered. For, in the eyes of its most orthodox partisans, one of the beneficial consequences of this quest was to deprive politics of its classic mission - from then on, it was the economy that, in addition to its usual missions (the production, circulation and distribution of wealth) would be largely responsible for politics’ function by organising according to an indisputable hierarchical logic the new industrial hierarchies of the future social order.

Instead of abolishing aristocratic ranks and distinctions, let us therefore seek a new hierarchy that would be a true aristocracy, in other words, power devolved to the most worthy according to a new conception of the human and social dignity that we bear within us.

(L’Organisateur, 2 April 1831)

The Saint-Simonians summarised this progress in organising society by calling for the potential substitution of an archaic and arbitrary practice of “the govern­ment of men” by an objective and rational “administration of things”.^[234] The obsolete “government of men” integrates the conflict of interests and hence, explained these orthodox Saint-Simonians, man’s arbitrary domination and exploitation of man. As soon as the obsolete conflict between the idle class and the industrial class had been overcome, in the Saint-Simonian workshop creating wealth from the top down, con­flicts within the industrial class would disappear, transformed into love and recogni­tion, especially from the lower abilities towards the dominant abilities, who would be naturally benevolent. From then on, during this period, the orthodox version of Saint-Simonian socialism deviated from the Republican idea that was experiencing a revival: it was unnecessary, in a society devised as a large industrial workshop rationally organised from above, to mention diverging interests. Here, there would no longer be any divergence but instead fusion in the “common interest”, with the less well-endowed, if well-educated and diverted from their idle tendencies, enthu­siastically supporting this rational arrangement of modern industrial life.

The above paragraphs should not make us underestimate the innovative vision expressed by these Saint-Simonians, or this project for a just and therefore equita­ble society, for, first of all, this clarification of the principle of equity superseded certain earlier dominant visions that naturalised social hierarchies based on criteria of blood, birth, caste, gender and race. And secondly, it countered the assertion of a providentialist vision of the economy that led, by chance and strength, to the spon­taneous upsurge of hierarchies, inequalities and thus industrial and commercial dominations; here, the Saint-Simonians explained that, on the contrary, it should be supervised and organised according to certain values. And thirdly, this orthodox Saint-Simonian vision could be made more flexible by relaxing the constraint of strict proportionality between contribution and reward, ability and rank, and also by making stronger demands, notably in terms of guarantees, concerning what Saint- Simon had first designated as the most numerous and poorest class. Moreover, this relaxation was supported by many Saint-Simonians who were less orthodox and therefore more sensitive to the values of solidarity and fraternity.

4.