Utopian socialism: Difference between revisions

Like Fourier, '''Robert Owen (1771-1858)''' considered his ideas hardly less a product of divine grace. But unlike Fourier, Owen was a practical man, full of that spirit which seeks truth in nothing but the Deed. He owned a large New England textile factory, where he lowered the workday to ten and a half hours, provided education, and refused to employ children below the age of ten. To the shock of his contemporaries, improving the conditions of workers actually ''increased'' productivity. Like Fourier, the scale at which Owen's '''New Harmony''' Utopia operated was unmistakably that of the factory. For both men, the factory was taken as the highest expression of industrial capitalism, and was therefore the model and the scaffolding of their socialist projects.

'''Saint-Simon (1760-1825)''' operated on another scale entirely. With him Socialism graduates from an imagined outcome to an observable, historical process. Simon operates at the level of the bank, rather than the factory. He fought alongside Lafayette in the American War of Independence, studied engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mézières, speculated on land during the French Revolution (which he supported), and afterward became involved with the recently organized Ecole Polytechnique. In 1802 he advocated a religion of science with Isaac Newton as a Saint and in 1814 sent a proposal to the Congress of Vienna for a European supranational assembly. His socialist writing began in 1817. Saint-Simon saw a contradiction between two classes, not bourgeois and proletariat, but producer and idler. He proposed a system in which production would be organized according to social needs. After his death, his followers gave a series of lectures (1828-29), making the case for rational management of capital.<blockquote>...if industry is to attain the maximum possible perfections: first, the instruments must be distributed according to the needs of each locality and each branch of industry; second, they must be distributed according to the individual capacities so that they are put to work by the most capable men ... <ref name=":0">"The Saint-Simonians in Industry and Economic Development,"  John C. Eckalbar, ''The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Jan.'', 1979 [https://annas-archive.org/md5/bf49107e703aaae80b398ba5e32d7c5b Annas-Archive link]</ref></blockquote>Private property would still exist, but would be severely limited by the abolition of inheritance and other factors. Social hierarchy would be preserved but stripped of heredity and passive ownership. At the top would be bankers, technocratic philosopher kings allocating investment to supervise the general development of society.<blockquote>For the bankers, because of their knowledge and connections, are much more in a position to appraise the needs of industry and the ability of the industrialists than are idle and isolated individuals.<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>In the Final State, banking will gain a "total view" of the World Economy, using this information to allocate wealth as "trustee of all instruments of production; in brief, of that which today composes the entire mass of individual properties ... everything is interlocked and all is planned" in the "interest of all."<ref name=":0" /> At the apex of the system is a Central Bank, representing "government in the material order," which would draw the "most skillful bankers into a unitary and directing bank dominating them all."<ref name=":0" /> In this it will be assisted by a tiered structure of regional secondary banks through which "the central bank would keep in touch with the principal localities to know their needs and productive power."<ref name=":0" /> Below these are tertiary banks specializing in particular fields or functions.

That the heights of finance were transformed is demonstrated by the fact that the '''Rothschilds''', whom Credit Mobilier competed against and who, in their struggle, found it necessary to adopt the same pattern of organization as Credit Mobilier. Eckalbar cites Alexander Gerschenkron, who gives the example: "When the Rothschilds prevented the Pereires from establishing the Austrian Credit-Anstalt, they succeeded only because they became willing to establish the bank themselves and to conduct it not as an old fashioned banking enterprise but ''as a credit mobilier, that is, as a bank devoted to railroadization and industrialization of the country.''"<ref name=":0" /> '''Marx''', who found the Second Republic and Saint-Simonian stockjobbers repellant, could not deny that "the application of joint-stock companies to industry marks a new epoch in the economical life of modern nations."<ref>http://marxengels.public-archive.net/en/ME0978en.html#Pe</ref>