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VI

Although there is already some danger that we may appear unduly to exaggerate the importance of that little group of men, we have by no means yet surveyed the full extent of their influence. To be inspirers of practically all socialist movements15.45 during the past hundred years would be enough to secure them an important place in history. The influence which Saint-Simon exercised on the study of social problems through Comte and Thierry, and the Saint-Simonians through Quetelet and Le Play is hardly less important and will occupy us again. A full account of the spreading of their ideas through Europe would have to give considerable attention to the profound influence they exercised on G. Mazzii,15.46 the whole young Italian movement, Silvio Pellico, Gioberti, Garibaldi, and others15.47 in Italy, and to trace their effects on such divers figures as A. Strindberg in Sweden,15.48 A. Herzen in Russia,15.49 and others in Spain and South America.15.50Nor can we stop here to consider the frequent occurrence of similar types who sometimes rallied to the Saint-Simonian flag as did the Belgian industrialist, sociologist, and benefactor Ernest Solvay, 15.51 or the Néo-Saint-Simoniens who in postwar France published a new Producteur. 15.52 Such conscious or unconscious rebirths we meet throughout the last hundred years.15.53

There is, however, one direct effect of Saint-Simonian teaching which deserves more consideration: the founders of modern socialism also did much to give Continental capitalism its peculiar form; ``monopoly capitalism,'' or ``finance capitalism,'' growing up through the intimate connection between banking and industry (the banks organizing industrial concerns as the largest shareholders of the component firms), the rapid development of joint-stock enterprises and the large railway combines are largely Saint-Simonian creations.

The history of this is mainly one of the Crédit mobilier type of bank, the kind of combined deposit and investment institution which was first created by the brothers Pereire in France and then imitated under their personal influence or by other Saint-Simonians almost all over the European continent. One might almost say that after the Saint-Simonians had failed to bring about the reforms they desired through a political movement, or after they had grown older and more worldly, they undertook to transform the capitalist system from within and thus to apply as much of their doctrines as they could by individual effort. And it can not be denied that they succeeded in changing the economic structure of the Continental countries into something quite different from the English type of competitive capitalism. Even if the Crédit mobilier of the Pereires ultimately failed, it and its industrial concerns became the model on which the banking and capital structures in most of the industrial countries of Europe were developed, partly by other Saint-Simonians. For the Pereires the aim of their Crédit mobilier was most definitely to create a center of administration and control which was to direct according to a coherent program the railway systems, the town planning activities and the various public utilities and other industries which by a systematic policy of mergers they attempted to consolidate into a few large undertakings.15.54 In Germany G. Mevissen and A. Oppenheim, who had early come under Saint-Simonian influence, went similar ways with the foundation of the Darmstaedter Bank and other banking ventures.15.55 In Holland other Saint-Simonians worked in the same direction,15.56 and in Austria,15.57 Italy, Switzerland, and Spain15.58 the Pereires or their subsidiaries or connections created similar institutions. What is known as the ``German'' type of bank with its close connection with industry and the whole system of Effektenkapitalismus as it has been called is essentially the realization of Saint-Simonian plans.15.59This development was closely connected with the other favorite activity of the Saint-Simonians in later years, railway construction,15.60 and their interest in public works of all kinds,15.61 which, as years went by, became more and more their chief interest. As Enfantin organized the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway system, the Pereires built railways in Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and Russia and P. Talabot in Italy, employing as engineers on the spot other Saint-Simonians to carry out their directions. Enfantin, looking back at the works of the Saint-Simonians in late life, was well entitled to say that they had ``covered the earth with a network of railways, gold, silver, and electricity.''15.62

If with their far-flung plans for industrial organization they did not succeed in creating large combines, as was later done with the assistance of the governments in the process of cartelization, this was largely due to the policy of free trade on which France had embarked and of which some of the old Saint-Simonians, particularly M. Chevalier, but also the Pereires, were still among the chief advocates. But already others from the same circle, notably Pecqueur, 15.63 were agitating in the same direction as their friend Friedrich List in Germany. Yet they could not succeed till another branch from the same stem, positivism and ``historicism,'' had succeeded in effectively discrediting ``orthodox'' political economy. The arguments, however, which were later to justify a policy of supporting the growth of cartels were already created by the Saint-Simonians.

However far their practical influence extended, it was greatest in France during the second empire. During this period they had not only the support of the press because some of the leading journalists were old Saint-Simonians;15.64 but the most important fact was that Napoleon Ill himself was so profoundly influenced by Saint-Simonian ideas that Sainte-Beuve could call him ``Saint-Simon on horseback.''15.65 He remained on friendly terms with some of its members and even committed himself to part of their ideas in his programmatic Idées Napokoniennes and some other pamphlets.15.66 It is thus not surprising that the years of the second empire became the great period of the Saint-Simonian réalisations. So closely indeed did they become associated with the regime that its end meant more or less also the end of their direct influence in France.15.67

When to this influence of the French empire we add the facts that Bismarck's social policy and ideas were largely derived from Lassalle and thus via Louis Blanc, Lorenz von Stein, and Rodbertus from Saint-Simon,15.68and that the theory of the soziale Königtum and state socialism, which guided the execution of that policy, can be traced, through L. von Stein and Rodbertus and others, to the same source,15.69 we begin to get the measure of this influence in the nineteenth century. Even if this influence was tempered by others which in any case would have worked in the same direction, the statement of the German K. Grün, which may conclude this survey, appears certainly in no way to exaggerate their importance. ``Saint-Simonism,'' he wrote in 1845, ``is like a seed pod that has been opened and whose husk has been lost, while the individual seeds have found soil everywhere and have come up, one after the other.'' And in his enumeration of all the different movements which have been thus fertilized, we find for the first time the term ``scientific socialism''15.70 applied to the work of Saint-Simon, who ``had throughout his life been searching for the new science.''


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