Auguste and Léon Walras and Saint-Simonianism*

Abstract

The French philosopher and economist Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825) published numerous writings. Upon his death, his disciples endeavoured to pursue the dissemination of his ideas. A large number of great economists took the time to read Saint-Simon and his successors, and to write about them even when they did not share their ideas. It was the case of Auguste Walras (1801–1866) and his son Léon (1834–1910). The paper examines the relationship the two Walras had with the Saint-Simonians, considers their criticism of the Saint-Simonian political economy and economic policy and highlight their adherence to the opposition between idlers and workers.

Keywords:

• Walras
• Saint-Simonianism
• socialism

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 “De l’abolition de l’impôt, et de l’établissement de la Loi agraire …” [1831], in Walras 1990, 1–20.

2 The street disappeared when it was incorporated into Saint-Germain Boulevard during the Second Empire.

3 L. Walras, “Un initiateur en économie politique : A.-A. Walras” [1908], in A. Walras 2005b, 33.

4 Léon Walras indicated in a letter addressed to Georges and Louise Renard on 16 April 1908 that a complete collection of the Globe was in his father’s library (an unpublished letter preserved in the Lausanne archives under the document F. W. I, 474).

5 All of the Saint-Simonian references are found in the “Imprimés conservés par Léon Walras”, in A. and L. Walras 2005, 163–352.

6 The ties with some were still in existence in June 1832, a month during which he lent political economy books to Chéruel, Rodrigues’ disciple (Letter from Auguste Walras to Louis-Léon Gadebled from 17 June 1832, in A. Walras 2005b, 122).

7 P.-H. Goutte and J.-M. Servet, “Auguste Walras de 1831 à 1848”, in Walras 1990, CLII, note 1.

8 Ibid., note 2.

9 Goutte and Servet, in Walras 1990, 471, note 91.

10 Letters from 29 May, 17 June and 6 July 1832, in A. Walras 2005b, 118–125.

11 Goutte and Servet, op. cit., 257, note 4.

12 Revue encyclopédique, vol. LII, November 1831, 473–476.

13 Letter from 1 April 1860, in A. Walras 2005b, 399.

14 In his letter to Georges and Louise Renard on April 16 1908, he admitted to having read the Globe “15 or 16 years of age” in his father’s library room (an unpublished letter preserved in the Lausanne archives under the document F. W. I, 474).

15 L. Walras, letter to G.-U. Guillaumin, 3 June 1860, in Walras 1965, I, l. 34, 61. Auguste Walras wrote to his son about this project in a letter dated 1 May 1860 (Walras 2005b, 408) printed in La Révolution de 1848, t. IX, n° LIII, novembre-décembre 1912, 381.

16 Léon Brothier (1803–1870) first belonged to the Saint-Simonian movement, then in 1837, moved towards an intermediary conception of socialism between Saint-Simonianism and Owenism. In 1839, he published Du parti social. Exposition des principes économiques et politiques devant servir de base à ce nouveau parti. In 1855–1858, like Charles-Joseph Lambert, he contributed to the Revue philosophique et religieuse owned by Charles Lemonnier, also a Saint-Simonian.

17 Vol. 4, January–March 1859, 197–288.

18 Bruxelles: Fr. Van Meenen et Cie, 1859, 3 vols.

19 P. V-CV. See “Imprimés conservés par Léon Walras”, A. and L. Walras 2005, 195, 288.

20 Adolphe Guéroult (1810–1872) joined the Saint-Simonians in Paris and notably collaborated on the Globe. He then wrote for Le Temps and became the Journal des débats’ correspondent in Spain and then in Italy. After the Revolution in 1848 he wrote in La République and Le Crédit, a daily founded by Enfantin. After Louis Napoléon Bonaparte’s coup, he continued to write in L’Industrie, found employment at the Crédit mobilier created by the Pereire brothers in 1852, and in 1857 became the director of La Presse and finally, in 1859, founded a new daily: L’Opinion nationale. Auguste Walras enjoyed the content of the political newspaper and Guéroult’s articles (Letter to Léon Walras, 6 February 1860, in A. Walras 2005b, 388). In 1860, Léon Walras contacted Guéroult and was very insistent in obtaining a publication in La Presse, exposing him in detail his work programme (L. Walras, undated letter to A. Guéroult, but written in March-April 1859, in Walras 1965, I, l. 16, 35–39.).

21 Louis Jourdan (1810–1881) was one of the publishers of the newspaper Le Siècle from 1849 onwards. Close to Enfantin, he contributed to Courrier Français, headed by the ex-Saint-Simonian Émile Barrault.

22 Charles Lambert (1804–1864), who was a former student of the École Polytechnique and the École des Mines, rallied to the doctrine in 1829. He contributed to the Globe and, after the scission of the movement, chose Enfantin’s side. Very devoted to the latter, he followed him in September 1833 to Egypt where the Saint-Simonians worked to put in place the doctrine and realise great endeavours. In this country where all of the Saint-Simonian’s dreams lay, Lambert founded the École des Mines in 1836 and ran it until 1840, before creating and running the École Polytechnique of Boulac near Cairo from 1840 until 1849, and training many engineers. He prepared projects for the digging of the Isthmus of Suez and contributed to many other endeavours. In 1847, for services rendered, he was bestowed the title of bey, from which his new name “Lambert-Bey” originated. In 1851, he returned to Paris where he worked in the administration as engineer-in-chief. Still faithful to Enfantin’s ideas, he initiated youngsters to the doctrine. In 1860, with Enfantin, Chevalier, the Pereire brothers, the industrialist François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour and several others, he participated in the founding of a society of mutual aid later presided by Fournel to help perpetuate the Saint-Simonian family.

23 Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1863.

24 E. Schérer, “M. Adolphe Guéroult”, Le Temps, n° 614, 30 décembre 1862, 3.

25 Schérer wrote :

He recounts that he has henceforth adopted Saint-Simonian doctrines, and adds that since 1830, the principles of the school have served as a compass for him, without any event having changed their course. Nevertheless, one cannot forget that even as its story becomes outdated, Saint-Simonianism seemed like a religion, and that its creator was passingly like a Messiah, and the school had taken on all the appearances of a Church. Saint-Simonianism was a faith, and that is why without a doubt it has survived […]. We have seen a host of social and humanitarian doctrines pass; it alone, after thirty years, seems to have neither lost one of its former members nor abandoned its pretensions. Most of the names who have illustrated this before are once again before the public. One finds it in the arts, sciences, business, industry, government and journalism. It has never lowered the flag. It has never sacrificed any of its doctrines. It is always enthusiastic and prophetic; it still constitutes a religion.

(Ibid.)

26 Léon Walras was not successful in having his response included in Le Temps but his “Lettres à M. Ed. Schérer” were printed in Le Travail on 31 October and 31 December 1866 and 28 February 1867. They are reprinted in L. Walras 1990b, 9–23; 2010, 3–18.

27 L. Walras, L’économie politique et la justice. Examen critique et réfutation des doctrines économiques de M. P.-J. Proudhon précédés d’une introduction à l’étude de la question sociale, Paris: Librairie de Guillaumin et Cie, 1860. The work was reprinted in L. Walras 2001, 75–313.

28 L. Walras, letter to Louis Jourdan, 23 March 1860, in L. Walras 1965, I, l. 25, 48–50.

29 L. Walras possessed the reprints of C. Lambert’s articles from the Revue philosophique et religieuse in 1856 in his personal series of books.

30 School inspector for primary schools in Eure, he was the author of several works on teaching and the French department.

31 When Enfantin retired to Ménilmontant with 40 disciples in 1832, they adopted the same garb with a waistcoat that fastened in the back with the help of another person to symbolise the necessary solidarity between the members of the group.

32 In the airing of his differences with the Saint-Simonians, Auguste Walras indicated that he was leaving aside “the religious and moral point of view strictly speaking” which implied differences more numerous and significant (Examen critique et réfutation du livre de Monsieur Thiers sur la propriété [1849], in A. Walras 1997, 291). In his letter to his son (1 April 1860), he recalled that the Saint-Simonians claimed to have founded a new religion. In order to establish a religion, it is necessary to have a definition of God. But “the Saint-Simonians are far from having given us an acceptable idea of the causa prima and, until they have linked the notion of the finite to that of the infinite by a vast conception, by a broad hypothesis, they shall not be able to assert that they have a religion.” (A. Walras 2005b, 400)

33 A. Walras could not ignore the disagreements of the Saint-Simonians (P. Enfantin) concerning the increase of the rent in Ricardo’s analysis. He wrote:

The Saint-Simonians taking advantage of Ricardo’s narrow and incomplete doctrine, had concluded that land rent and the profit of capital were [decreasing] facts which would cease to exist and humanity would find itself liberated of the reality of paying rent to the landowners and capital owners. In regards to what affects the profit from capital, the Saint-Simonians were right up to a certain point. […] Concerning land rent, the Saint-Simonians were utterly wrong.

(A Walras [1849] 1997, 290).

34 “As long as land is useful and limited, it will have value, and it will never cease to produce income. […] Here is where I differ in opinion from the disciples of Saint-Simon; […] I look at farm rent as a natural and therefore indestructible fact.” (Walras [1831] 1990, 17)

35 “I see that you are beguiled by the Saint-Simonians. I hope you will not be taken in by their fine words.” (op. cit, 399)

36 He evoked in a letter to his friend Gustave Maugin an evening when:

[they] intended to convert us, you and I, to Saint-Simonianism and when we took our leave safe and sound at around one in the morning. When I say safe and sound, I cannot pretend, however, that I did not borrow anything from the Saint-Simonians.

(“Introduction Générale”, in A. Walras 2005b, 12 and L. Walras 1965, III, 187–188)

He also remarked that “Mr. Enfantin and his friends […] were prophets of superb shape, marvellous dress and articulated in a semi-financial, semi-biblical language” (“Le crédit gratuit réciproque” [1867], in L. Walras 1990a, 186).

37 The word “strength” is used instead of “force” in the same sentence of the Course (L. Walras [1892] 1996, 271).

38 “No, a thousand times over, far from decreasing, it is constantly increasing and day by day in a progressive society” (ibid., 266).

39 He wrote:

In fact, there are many different varieties of socialism: there is the triad of Saint-Simon and the religious and theocratic pontificate to which it gives rise; there is the passionate attraction of Fourier and his phalansteries; there is Mr. Louis Blanc’s brotherly communism; there are the antinomies and balances of Proudhon, and the economic and political chaos which this author himself so naïvely and fittingly calls anarchy.

(“Lettres à M. Ed. Schérer” [1866–1867], in L. Walras 1990b, 10–11; 2010, 4)

40 His strong stand even led him to write that any professor of political economy “who is not socialist is a cretin” (“Notes d’humeur”, in L. Walras 2000, 525).

41 In the Saint-Simonian vocabulary, these producers were referred to as industrialists, a term that included the various categories of workers who made a living from their work.

42 It is “the exploitation of man by his fellow man, exploitation continued and represented today by the relations of the owner with the worker, the master with the employee” (Doctrine de Saint-Simon 1830a, 107).

43 He wrote:

It is because they misunderstood the true theory of wealth that the Saint-Simonians left some confusion in their theory of property. Dismayed by the rent paid to the landowners by the farmers or by this part of the producers dedicated to agriculture, they believed that rent could be destroyed, which is a major mistake in political economy […]. This is precisely why the Saint-Simonians were misled by their misconceptions of wealth and the principles of political economy. What they say about owners in general is only true of capitalists.

(“De l’abolition de l’impôt…” [1831], in Walras 1990, 17)

44 The first five of the fifteen articles that make up Économie politique et politique are dedicated to this issue.

45 He also wrote:

Regarding property, the Saint-Simonians have always seemed to put the cart before the horse in my opinion. They were very concerned with, as we all know, the abolition of inheritance. I have told them many times that one must first take care of the establishment of property and that the question of transmission would come after. We have never been able to agree. […] The Saint-Simonians have kept their ideas as I have kept mine. Only time will tell who is right or wrong.

(A. Walras [1849] 1997, 289–290)

46 Léon Walras presented this conciliation in a text “Méthode de conciliation ou de synthèse” [1868]. He modified and completed it to prepare in 1872 an “Exposition et conciliation des doctrines sociales” (L. Walras 2000, 247–324). The initial text was almost integrally reiterated in 1896 into an article in the Revue socialiste (vol. 23, n° 136, 15 April, 385–406) and also published in the same year in the Études d’économie sociale (L. Walras 1990b, 151–173; 2010, 114–132).

47 When socialism limits itself to stating the social problem, and tries to formulate and solve it, it is right as opposed to liberalism; socialism is wrong when it goes so far as to propose an immediate and authoritarian application of any solution to the problem. In both cases, liberalism is variably wrong or right. It is wrong when it allows itself to deny the social question; it is right when it rejects the substitution of authority for liberty in matters concerning the solution of this question. […] When it comes to politics, liberalism is right as opposed to socialism: it is intolerable that a solution, even if it is the social truth itself, should claim to impose itself upon us against our will. On the other hand, in matters of science, socialism is right as opposed to liberalism: it is absurd to prohibit our investigations of the social problem, either in its entirety or in one of its elements.

(L. Walras [1868] 1990b, 160; 2010, 121)

48 Léon Walras extended this conciliation to a synthesis of communism and individualism and indicated: “I took a good deal of it from the old Saint-Simonians with whom I kept company when I was young” (ibid., 151, note 1; 114). He also established a distinction between the social conditions and positions to that end, as his father had already done in developing Leroux’s views, whom he recognised as being the father of the word socialism (“Le problème fiscal” [1896], in L. Walras 1990b, 392; 2010, 321–322).

49 “There is nothing more accomplished and beautiful in any science than banking theory.” (“La Bourse et le développement du capital” [1860], in Walras 1987, 113)

50 In a credit association, the share capital, in the form of loans and advances, is made available to cooperative companies that need it for their industrial or commercial operations, in return for the payment of interest.

51 The activities of this Caisse were discontinued in 1868.

52 In the “Notes sur Proudhon” (1859) he had given to his son, Auguste Walras had criticised the Proudhonian idea of “reciprocal free credit”, blaming it for “resurrecting” the errors of the Catholic Church and ignoring the distinction between capital and income (A. Walras, 2005a, 624–626). Léon Walras fought this approach with the same arguments in L’économie politique et la justice (L. Walras [1860] 2001, 204–217) and made fun of “one of the most colossal absurdities” shared by the Proudhon disciples (“Le crédit gratuit réciproque” [1867], in L. Walras 1990a, 186).