THE SOCIAL ANALYSIS OF THREE EARLY 19TH CENTURY FRENCH LIBERALS: SAY, COMTE, AND DUNOYER* MARK WEINBURG Ueporlment of Hislory. University ofChica,?o The topic of this paper is the class theory of It was a vast social-historical treatise shaped and Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832). Charles Comte informed by the principles of political economy. (1782-1838) and Charles Dunoyer (1786-1862). It would be impossible to discuss the class However, in order to be fully accurate, this title theories of these men without examining their should be qualified in several respects. First, the view of history, their political ideas and most thinking of these men can not be examined in importantly their economic thought. In fact, the complete isolation, divorced from traditional main thesis of this paper is that a cogent, liberal ideas, the works of their contemporaries cohesive and vastly powerful social analysis was and the intellectual currents of the day. created with the fusion of liberal historical and Secondly, their class theories strictly speaking political thought with the economic orthodoxy cannot be separated from what we might now of Jean-Baptiste Say. consider the separate specializations of econom- An examination of any group of critical ics, history and political theory. This is the radicals, such as the French liberals of the nature of the times as well as in the nature of the Restoration and July Monarchy periods, subject. In the early 19th century, the social necessarily must address itself to three basic sciences had not developed in the sense which we questions. First, what was the primary liberal know them today. With the exceptions of view of the origins and history of the class history and political economy, real special- structure of their society? Secondly, how did izations had not yet become established among they envision the structure of a truly just the "political and moral sciences", as they were society? And finally, by what means was the just then known. In this group, Say is the exception, society to be attained? From this derives the a true specialist, perhaps the first professional basic organization of the paper. In the first economist of the 19th century. Comte is closest section, 1 will present a brief and by no means to Say in this regard, a professor of law and a exhaustive examination of some aspects of the publicist. He wished to apply in his own field the revolutionary liberal tradition in which these scientific methods of J. B. Say. His Trait6 de men shared and some of the contemporaneous legislation involved a meticulous examination of intellectual climates which influenced their the history and social organizations of the work. The second section will deal with the human race based upon the principles of utility development of the doctrines of industrielisme and political economy. Dunoyer, who is which was the synthesis of traditional liberal remembered primarily as a political economist, views on history and politics and the new science was somewhat more ambitious in his endeavors. of economics. The final section of the paper will Trained as a lawyer, he was a publicist, a examine the vitally important concepts of professor of political economy, and he wrote his anarchy and social evolution as' they were chief work, La Libert6 du travail as a history of developed in the later writings of Say, Comte the growth of liberty in civilization, which to and Dunoyer. Dunoyer meant the history of civilization itself. The original version of this paper was delivered at the Fourth Libertarian Scholars Conference, October, 1976, One of the most important themes in the New York City. historical thought of thelate 18th and early 19th 46 MARK WEINBURG centuries was the concept of the evolution of 18th century found the ideological grounds for civilization through various stages. Perhaps the revolution. first among the French to develop this was In his revolutionary tract, Paine distinguished Bossuet in his Discours sur I'histoire universelle radically between society and government, one, (1681). In 1750, Turgot set out in his Plan de always a blessing arising from our wants, the deux discours sur I'histoire universelle the other, a necessary evil, arising from our division of civilization into the stages of wickedness.131 Paine realized, of course, that in hunting, pastoral and agricultural societies a developed and civilized society brute force which was to be so influential among later alone would not suffice to support a political liberal theorists. It was within this evolutionary order.141 A successful revolutionary must first framework that the liberals of the Restoration break the bonds of conviction and emotion period developed their ideas concerning the which attach men even to bad governments. structure of modern society.lll This was the role of natural law and social The fundamental liberal notion of the origin contract theories, to sap the legalist and of the pre-revolutionary and restoration class theological foundations of monarchical govern- structure of France was based upon what we ment. Thus, rather than the anointed of God, might most simply call the Conquest Theory. the king became merely the descendant of the This concept was hardly a novelty in the "principal ruffian of some restless gang" who at post-Napoleonic era. It was, rather, a common- one time managed to usurp the natural rights of place of 18th century liberal radicalism. Thomas men. Paine employed it to attack the legitimacy of the Similar notions were developed just prior to British monarch in his Common Sense of 1776. the outbreak of the French Revolution by Abbe Paine's wry comments about French bastards Sieyes in his tract, What is the Third Estate? and armed banditti may have lacked scholarly Amid the breakdown of the late medieval and restraint, but they were an effective piece of absolutist order in France, Sieyes appealed to propaganda in the American Revolutionary the growing sense of nationhood within French struggle.lZ1 society. Sieyes defined the essence of this Briefly, the conquest theory traced the origin nationhood as the existence of a community of contemporary European class structure to the living in a common order under a common barbarian invasions which swept over the law.lS1This emphasis upon a common order and Roman Empire and imposed upon the indige- a common law was in stark contradiction to the nous peoples of western Europe and the political theory and practices of absolutism. In Mediterranean world a barbarian military the theory of the absolutist state, society hierarchy from whence there developed the consisted of innumerable legally autonomous royal and noble classes of medieval and modern groups variously called estates, corps, orders or Europe. Coincidental with this was the rise of classes. Society was divided vertically and Christianity and the consequent elaboration of a horizontally into these particular groups, each religious hierarchy, the higher orders of which having its own functional monopoly, its own were rapidly co-opted by the secular aristocracy. status, and its own privileges @rivatae Ieges or For centurie~,the servile masses groaned under private laws); hence the opposition between the tyranny of the feudal system; however, the "particular orders" and "common order", various rivalries of kings and lords and religious "private laws" and "common law". Over all and secular factions allowed opportunities for the king enjoyed absolute power, at least in the growth and reassertion of the productive theory. Each particular corps or group had the classes. In France, the growing importance of right to counsel the king in matters which were these classes received legal sanction in the germane to its interests. In turn the king recognition of the Third Estate as one of the dispensed justice.161 three great orders of the realm. It was in a It was the obvious breakdown of this critical examination of these origins of the particularist and feudal view of society towards structure of their society that the radicals of the which Sieyes aimed his arguments. He noted 1 THE SOCIAL ANALYSIS OFTHREE EARLY 19TH CENTURY FRENCH LIBERALS 47 that it was the Third Estate which performed all development of those faculties across the course the essential functions of society, meaning here of human history would reveal those laws and production and commerce. The feudal view make it possible to trace the probable future perhaps fit the time when the Third Estate was course of the race.lgl Both Condorcet's emphasis merely the servile horde which existed only to on the scientific method and his general scheme provide the sustenance of the warrior and for the development of civilization were to have clerical classes. However, with the growth of great influence among the liberals of - the arts, of industry and of commerce, the Third post-Napoleonic era. Estate had grown to become the largest, the In the period stretching from the American strongest, and most vital portion of society. revolution to the restoration of the Bourbons in French society was no longer the medieval France, there was general recognition, through- commonwealth of knights and priests and serfs, out the Western world, of the great progress but a modern nation based upon industry and which had been attained through the develop- commerce, and the Third Estate was that ment of the physical sciences and technology. nation; nothing outside the Third Estate could There was also, after the style of Condorcet, a share in that nationhood. "The Third Estate growing confidence that those same methods which had been reduced to nothing, has when applied to the phenomena of society and reacquired, through its industry, a part of what government would bring about a great flowering the injustice of the stronger had taken from it." of the social sciences and a consequent ration- The nobility was no longer the "monstrous alization of society.