Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1826)

Outstanding representative of the French utopian socialism in the 19th century.

Saint-Simon was born on October 17, 1760, in Paris, France, into a noble family, claiming to be a descendant of Charles the Great. In 1779, at the age of 19, Saint-Simon fought with French forces in the American War of Independence. After the war, Saint-Simon returned to France, where the French Revolution broke out in 1789, a revolutionary movement that had a decisive influence on the formation of Saint-Simon's thought, which made Saint-Simon profoundly recognize the nature of the class struggle of the French Revolution, and put forward the idea that the French Revolution was not only a political struggle between the feudal aristocracy and the burghers, but also a struggle between the feudal aristocracy, the burghers, and the proletariat, and set his mind to act as the “spokesman of the working class” and fight for the liberation of the working class and the happiness of all mankind.

From 1798, Saint-Simon has devoted himself to the study of science, attended classes at the École Polytechnique in Paris and socializing with famous scientists. In 1803, he published his first important work, Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries (abbreviated as Geneva Letters), which dealt with some of the basic ideas of his utopian socialism, such as the class struggle. In his article Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels pointed out that Saint-Simon recognized the French Revolution as a class war, and not simply one between nobility and bourgeoisie, but between nobility, bourgeoisie, and the non-possessors, was, in the year 1802, a most pregnant discovery. In 1814, he co-authored with Thierry the work The Reorganisation of European Society, which received the attention of the society. Between 1817 and 1818, he published his selected works Letters to an American and Views on Property and Legislation. In 1821, he published the famous work On Industrial System, which depicts the future social system. In 1824, he published Catechism of the Industrials, and in 1825, he completed The New Christianity. Saint-Simon died on May 19, 1825.

Saint-Simon’s basic ideas include the following main contents: (1) He mercilessly exposed and criticized the capitalist society, holding that under the capitalist system, greed has become the dominant sentiment in all individuals; egoism, which is the morale gangrene of the human race, catches hold on the political body and becomes a malady common to all classes of society. (2) He held that the development of human society is a law-governed process of progress, pointing out that human society, like nature, also has laws, that social development is a matter of the waves behind pushing the waves ahead, and that everything that has happened in the past and everything that is going to happen in the future forms a series whose older terms are in the past and whose future terms are in the future. Only through in-depth study of the past and present can mankind discover their internal connections and laws and foresee the future development of society. (3) He called the ideal social system he pursued the industrial system (or “scientific-industrial system”) and advocated that the industrial system would inevitably replace the capitalist system. In terms of content, Saint-Simon’s thoughts were chiefly reflections on the French Revolution and Napoleonic militarism. Saint-Simon held that the world would be further industrialized and that the development of science and technology would ultimately solve most of the problems of mankind. Therefore, he opposed feudalism and militarism and advocated that the businessmen, industrial leaders, scientists, and engineers should jointly lead society and build an industrialized nation led by modern science. In Saint-Simon’s view, under the new industrial system, political science would become the science of production, and politics would be embraced by the economy (the political rule over persons will turn into the administration of things and the conduct of processes of production), and this idea was valued by Engels. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels pointed out that in 1816, Saint-Simon declared that politics is the science of production, and foretold the complete absorption of politics by economics. Saint-Simon has profoundly exposed and criticized the grievances of capitalism, put forth lots of ingenious visions for the future society, had an important impact on the formation of Marx and Engels’ scientific socialism theory, and is an immediate theoretical source of scientific socialist thought. However, due to the limitations of historical era and theory, Saint-Simon opposed violent revolution and advocated peaceful transition and transformation, and failed to find an actual and correct path to realize socialism.