“Class, Exploitation and Industry in French Liberal Thought, 1800-1850 (1985)”

By David M. Hart

[Created: 26 April, 1985] [Revised: 24 October, 2024]

This is part of a collection of Papers by David M. Hart

Introduction

A Paper given to the Carl Menger Society, Oxford Meeting, 26-28th April, 1985.

Introduction

Before discussing the French contribution to class theory I would like to make two introductory points. Firstly, that Marxist class analysis has reached a crisis and that even within the Marxist framework the statist implications of Marx's idea of exploitation is becoming obvious. [1] Secondly, that we are faced with two choices as regards class analysis. Either we abandon it as useless or we try to find an alternative which is not subject to the same problems as the Marxist theory of class. I have made the latter choice and I believe it is a choice which has been made before. It is not commonly known that there is and has been an alternative theory of class analysis. I would like to discuss some examples of it within the Anglo-American liberal tradition before turning to the French liberals of the early 19th century.

Crisis in Marxist Class Theory

The late twentieth century has been a difficult time for Marxist theories of class. The predictions so confidently made by Marx and others in the nineteenth century concerning the inevitability of the proletarian revolution in the most advanced capitalist countries have repeatedly been confounded by events. The fact that the first revolution made in the name of Marx took place in one of the most economically backward nations in Europe rather than in the industrially advanced nations of Germany or Great Britain with their well developed proletarian "class"; the fact that soldiers and peasants rather than factory workers were the backbone of the revolt; the fact that class conflict did not disappear in states ruled by Marxist parties but rather metamorphosed into new and particularly vicious forms of class rule, all suggest that Marxist theories of class are fundamentaly flawed. [2] The problematical nature of Marxist class analysis has been recognised by writers working within the Marxist tradition for many years. One of the best examples of a Marxist critique of Marxist class analysis is Jean Cohen's recent work Class and Civil Society. Cohen has suggested that the major weakness in these theories is a misunderstanding by Marx of the nature of state power and its radically different mode of operation to that of civil society. [3]

It is this reduction of the state to a mere instrument of the ruling class that precludes the investigation of the internal dynamics of the political sphere and the nature of the power of those who occupy its ranks. The meagerness of Marxist analyses of the state can thus be attributed to an overextended and overburdened class concept. [4]

The failure of Marxism, according to Cohen, is "rooted in the premises and project of Marxian class theory itself" (p. 2) and that

The concept of class can certainly point to forms of domination, inequity and potential social struggles over the division and control of labor time. Yet it is unable to provide the exclusive referent for an alternative vision of society or even for the dynamics of contestation and transformation in the present. More significant, the Marxian concepts of class, totality, system, and history cannot serve as the standpoint from which to unify, theoretically or practically, the plurality of social struggles and movements in contemporary society... Since we can no longer ground unity on the fact of labor or in the concept of class, what is needed now is a new theoretical reflection and interpretation of social contestation and political action. [5]

Cohen's task in Class and Civil Society is to identify the gaps and weaknesses in Marxist class analysis and to formulate a new theory based upon what she calls a "critical stratification theory". She does not succeed in my view in this important task. However she does manage to identify the most important failure of Marxist theories of class, viz. the abandonment of what Cohen calls "the rich opposition between the state and civil society" (p. 103). This omission by Marxists of serious discussion of the dichotomy between civil society (i.e. the market and other voluntary institutions in our terms) and the state is peculiar. After all, it was Hegel who, in the Philosophy of Right, based his political philosophy upon this very distinction.6] If the main thrust of Marxist theories of class and exploitation is seriously deficient and is thus unable to explain adequately the struggles of the past or the present then perhaps it would be wise to examine the origins of theories of exploitation and class in order to untangle the confusion which lies at its very heart. In my view, an examination of the origins of class theories will reveal a forgotten alternative theory of class which existed in the shadow of Marx's more famous body of thought. The task I have set myself is to examine the alternative, liberal notion of class and exploitation which developed in France in the first half of the nineteenth century and which is based upon the economic theory developed by Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say.

The Two Liberal Traditions

The question one should ask oneself is the following: if the Marxist concept of class and exploitation is hopelessly wrong, then why bother at all with class. Surely it would be better to recognize that class, along with so many other key concepts in the Marxist intellectual bag, is a fiction that does not correspond to reality as we know it. This is indeed what many modern liberals and historians of liberalism have done. To give only two examples, the recent history of liberalism by Anthony Arblaster [7] makes no mention of liberal ideas of exploitation and the theory of class which is based upon it. If one's knowledge of liberalism was based entirely upon Arblaster's work an important and vital element of liberalism would remain hidden permanently from view. Nor does Hayek mention class, except to disparage it in its Marxist form, even though he is certainly aware of the importance of the liberal distinction between civil society and the state. This is rather odd because Hayek has done more than any other political philosopher in this century to understand the nature of civil society (with his theory of spontaneous orders). He has also contributed to the revival of interest in the Scottish enlightenment, amongst whose luminaries Adam Ferguson and John Millar practically originated the liberal theory of class and liberal sociological analysis of political society in their respective works: An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) and The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771). [8]

How does one explain the neglect of what I consider to be one of the fundamental contributions of liberalism to social and political theory? One possibility is that the very success of Marxism as an intellectual and political movement and the central place of class and exploitation within it caused an understandable overreaction to class theories amongst liberals and conservatives. Class theories became too closely associated with Marxism and so liberalism turned away from its earlier interest in these matters to devote itself more to constitutional and electoral questions, free trade, and economic reform. Another possible explanation for the lack of recognition of liberal class theories is given by the Oxford political philosopher Larry Siedentop. The contribution of liberals to the development of sociology (which is the unfortunate modern name for what was once known as speculative and philosophical history) has been largely ignored by historians, according to Siedentop. It is customary to associate the development of sociology as a separate discipline with the beginnings of socialism and to identify sociology's founding fathers with socialist writers such as August Comte. In a pleasant reversal of roles, Siedentop is one of the few modern writers to recognize the liberal contribution to theories of class and its influence on the development of sociology. Important concepts such as equality, the development of systematic theories of social change, the central rôle given to changing modes of production in influencing and changing social relations and ideas, and the critical concept of class in historical analysis "were introduced by liberal thinkers, and only later adapted by socialist writers."9] The reason for the comparative neglect of French liberal contributions to social theory is due, in Siedentop's view, to the excessive attention given to only one of the two traditions which he identifies in liberal thought, i.e. the English liberal tradition. English liberalism, in his view, tended to emphasise philosophical, psychological or constitutional questions. On the other hand, the French liberals of the early nineteenth century, Siedentop's second liberal tradition, tended to be historians, jurists, or political economists and journalists with a greater interest in historical, economic, and what we would call sociololgical problems.

The liberals which Siedentop identifies as the "originators of a sociological approach to political theory" included Mme de Staël, Benjamin Constant, the group known as the Doctrinaires (Royer-Collard, Barante, and Guizot) and, most importantly, Alexis de Tocqueville.10] However, as important as these liberals are in the development of a sociological and historical approach to political theory, there is another group of lesser-known liberal theorists of which Siedentop seems to be unaware but which is a better example of this second more historically and sociologically minded tradition. This lesser-known group includes Benjamin Constant, Jean-Baptiste Say, Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer, the early, more liberal Henri Saint-Simon, and Augustin Thierry.

My research is intended to show that this other group of radical liberals (in particular Comte and Dunoyer) developed a sophisticated and coherent sociological and historical approach to liberal political theory which Siedentop has identified as the hallmark of the French liberal tradition vis-à-vis the English. It will also show that this group developed a theory of liberalism which was quite distinct from, although related to, the better known liberalism of Tocqueville and the Doctrinaires.Shirley Gruner goes so far as to argue that the different social theories presented by Comte, Dunoyer and Thierry, on the one hand, and Guizot and the Doctrinaires on the other, are so radically different that the two groups logically cannot both claim to be "liberal." Gruner prefers to call the "Thierry-Le Censeur européen group" radical liberal and the Guizot group constitutional conservative. [11] However Siedentop's explanation for the neglect of the second liberal tradition is not a satisfactory one. If one accepts, as I do, the distinction of two traditions within liberalism (one constititional and philosophical, the other historical and sociological) one cannot accept his identification of a particular tradition with a particular nation. Shirley Gruner has shown that the split between constitutional and sociological liberalism exists within French liberalism, with the Doctrinaires representing the former and Comte and Dunoyer representing the latter and with Tocqueville resting uneasily between the two.

The problem with Siedentop's explanation is that he is not aware of the same split which exists within Anglo-American liberalism. I have already mentioned the sociological approach of Adam Ferguson and John Millar. [12] One could also mention Thomas Paine, John Taylor and John Calhoun in America; and Thomas Hodgskin, John Wade, James Mill and John Stuart Mill in Great Britain as examples of liberal writers who developed extremely interesting ideas on class based upon a similar civil society vs. state dichotomy.

Class in Anglo-American Liberalism

To demonstrate to sceptics who may not recognise this sociological strain in Anglo-American liberalism I would like to briefly discuss Paine, Hodgskin, Wade, and the Mills. The following brief discussion of their work illustrates quite well the fact that a concern for class, based on the distinction between market created wealth and state privileged parasitism, is common in Anglo-American thought and similar to the more systematic theories of the radical French liberals of the Restoration period.

Thomas Paine

Although Paine is not often included as a liberal his regard for the individual, for natural rights, for the benefits of civil society and commerce surely make a strong claim for him to be considered as being well within the broader libral tradition. His The Rights of Man is an outstanding analysis of the benefits of voluntary association and the disruptive effects of state intervention and aristocratic privilege. [13] However, the clearest statement of his class analysis was written in 1792 in "A Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation"

There are two distinct classes of men in the Nation, those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon the taxes... When taxation is carried to excess, it cannot fail to disunite those two, and something of this is now beginning to appear. [14]

For Paine the "producing classes" were in a virtual state of war with the parasitical aristocracy, those who lived off hereditary privilege, sinecures and other government sources of wealth. [15] Unfortunately Paine's aim was not to develop these insights about class analysis into an extended theoretical work, but rather to use them polemically in his struggle against the Old Regime on both sides of the Atlantic. I believe they are no less valuable for not being assimilated into a larger theoretical corpus.

Ricardian Socialists

Following the French Revolution and in the immediate period of economic adjustment in the 1820s an unusual parallel development in the formation of liberal class analysis took place. In both England and France radicals developed theories of class and exploitation with some striking similarities. Modern writers have interpreted the English radicals as essentially "Ricardian" in their analysis and so labelled them "Ricardian socialists". This is certainly a misnomer for John Wade and Thomas Hodgskin especially. [16] Hodgskin in The Natural and Artifical Right of Property Contrasted gives a clear example of the application of the libertarian non-aggression principle to the acquisition and exchange of property. He also implies that those who benefit from "artificial" property rights, i.e. by force and state privilege, comprise a class antagonistic to the producing class. The distinction is made more explicitly by John Wade in both The Extraordinary Black Book (1819) and his magazine The Gorgon. In the August 8, 1818 issue of The Gorgon Wade identifies the following classes:

The different classes which we have mentioned (the upper and middling classes such as the aristocrats and the Commissioners of Taxes), are identified with corruption, and from a principle of self-preservation will resolutely oppose every attempt at Reform. Opposed to this phalanx, with interests quite distinct and even incompatible, are arrayed the PRODUCTIVE CLASSES of society... who by their labours increase the funds of the community, as husbandmen, mechanics, labourers, etc; and are thus termed to distinguish them from the unproductive classes, as lawyers, parsons, and aristocrats; which are termed the idle consumers, because they waste the produce of the country without giving anything in return. To render our enumeration complete, we ought to notice the class of paupers and public creditors, and we shall then have mentioned all the elements, which form that strange compound, English society.Gorgon . Volumes 1-2. 1818-1819 (New York: Greenwood Reprint Corporation, 1969), p. 90.

The basic error of most scholars who have dealt with the "Ricardian socialists" is to consider their class analysis as the defining characteristic of a socialist and to ignore their very strong belief in property and the free market.

James and John Stuart Mill

My final example of the awareness of class in Anglo-American liberalism comes from the writings of James and John Stuart Mill. James Mill's class analysis emerges from his distinction between "the People" and the aristocracy, or as he termed it "the sinister interests." As with Paine and Wade, Mill pits the two classes against each other in total combat. In an essay, "The State of the Nation" London Review, 1 (April 1835), quoted in Joseph Hamburger, Intellectuals in Politics: John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 44. he says

The first class, Ceux qui pillent, are the small number. They are the ruling few. The second class, Ceux qui sont pillés, are the great number. They are the subject Many. [17]

John Stuart Mill incorporated this class interpretation into his analysis of the natural constituency for the Reform Party in an essay on "Reorganization of the Reform Party" written in 1839. He defined the "Disqualified Classes", as he called them, as

All who feel oppressed, or unjustly dealt with, by any of the institutions of the country; who are taxed more heavily than other people, or for other people's benefit, who have, or consider themselves to have, the field of employment for their pecuniary means or their bodily or mental faculties unjustly narrowed; who are denied the importance in society, or the influence in public affairs, which they consider due to them as a class, or who feel debarred as individuals from a fair chance of rising in the world; especially if others, in whom they do not recognize any superiority of merit, are artificially exalted above their heads: these compose the natural Radicals... [18]

Perhaps the disappointments and disillusionment with political activity which affected Philosophic Radicalism in the 1840s prevented them from carrying their class analysis any further.

I have only recently come across John Mill's essays on French history which reveal both his profound knowledge of French liberal thought and his interest in "philosophical history." It is the latter which shows quite clearly Mill's own sympathy towards class analysis. This is especially true in his reviews of Guizot and Tocqueville. [[19]

Class and Exploitation in French Liberal Thought

I would like to spend the rest of this paper discussing some of the writings of Jean-Baptiste Say, Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer in order to show how the liberal concept of class developed in one particular instance. I have decided to concentrate on these three writers because of the extraordinary richness of their thought and the remarkable consistency with which they applied liberal principles to the development of their theory of society.

Jean-Baptiste Say

It is useful to begin with the the economic theories of Say because it was he who acted as an important catalyst in the revival of liberal ideas in the unsettled period between the fall of Napol%on and the 1830 revolution. Say was active during the Directory as one of the principle editors of the journal, La Décade philosophique from 1794 to 1800, in which he developed many of his economic and social ideas. It is quite probably that he became aware of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations at this time as it appeared in several new French editions and translations throughout the 1790s. Say established his reputation as the leading French political economist with the publication of his influential Traité d'économie politique (1803).20] As far as the development of liberal class theory is concerned the additions and changes which Say made for the second edition of 1814 and the third edition of 1817 are of great importance. In the intervening decade and a half Say witnessed the massive economic interventionism and reckless militarism of Napoléon as well as the acceleration of industrialisation in the north east of France. As an erstwhile cotton spinning manufacturer who had suffered under the uncertainties of Napoléon's continental blockade he was able to combine the theory he drew from Adam Smith with the practical knowledge he had gained as a business man during the upheavals of the revolution. He also witnessed the terrible recession which hit all of continental Europe and Great Britain as the economy slowly adjusted to the demands of peace-time and the absence of war inflation. In addition to the expanded edition of the Traité Say's other important theoretical work is the Cours complet d'économie politique pratique (1828). It is widely recognized by historians of economic thought that Say played a key role in defending the productive activity of the entrepreneur in organizing economic production. Perhaps because of his own experience in such a role Say was able to go beyond the narrower outlook of the physiocrats and their hostility towards commercial and industrial middlemen. Say expanded the sphere of acknowledged productive activity to include the entrepreneur, the engineer, the planner and financier, and even the speculator. He also emphasized that the acquisition of wealth should not be at the expense of another and this lies at the heart of his class analysis since the exploitive class was indeed that group of people who did not engage in mutually beneficial exchanges. In his wide-ranging introduction to the Cours complet he stated that

On the other hand, if we consider wealth in the interest of society we should devote particular attention to individual wealth because individual wealth ensures the well-being of the individuals who compose society. But we regard the goods acquired by an individual as a gain only to the extent that it is not achieved by means of an equivalent loss for another individual. Society has gained nothing when one man's loss is another's gain. Individuals can believe that the most important thing is to acquire wealth without concerning themselves with its origin. This narrow economic calculation will not satisfy serious investigators or liberally minded individuals. The latter want to know the source of wealth which must be continually produced if constantly changing needs are to be provided for."Considérations générales", p. 18 of vol. 1 of the Cours complet.

The origin of property and wealth is vitally important if a just and productive society is to be created and few political economists or sociologists were as concerned as Say was in the question of the origin of property. The just acquisistion of property depends upon the non-coercive nature of production and exchange in the market place. The opposite of justly acquired property provides a definition of exploitation. In a interesting attempt at a sociology of market society Say showed how just property was acquired.

The right to property arises from the very way in which goods appear in a social context. Goods which nature provides freely cannot be owned by right. If it were possible to make someone pay for such goods it would be an attack on natural equity because it would make someone pay for something which cost nothing (land is an exception to this). It is quite different with goods which no one can acquire without some sacrifice, some labour, or something which is the result of some previous sacrifice or labour. Whoever acquires this kind of good without giving an equivalent to the owner also attacks natural equity. In other words, they commit an act of dispossession (spoliation). From this it follows that in order to acquire what one does not produce one must exchange. It also follows that there are two different kinds of goods or wealth: wealth common to all is known as NATURAL WEALTH; wealth which is privately owned is called SOCIAL WEALTH and is the thing most people know as wealth par excellence. [21]

The pure form of the market society in which no political interference existed and in which the dominant form of property was the social wealth described above was the so-called "industrial system". By industry, Say did not mean heavy industry or even manufacturing, although he would certainly have included both forms in his system. What he meant by the term industry was any method of providing consumers non-coercively with what they desire.

(Industry) generally consists of the ability to create social wealth by means which are fantastically varied. However, the purpose of industry is always the same. It seeks to satisfy mankind's needs in such a way that the use of its products provides the consumer with sufficient enjoyment to consent to pay for them. If the enjoyment which these goods give consumers is not sufficient to encourage them to spend enough to cover the cost of production, then not only is there no production but the producer sustains a loss. [22]

In Say's view production must be useful to consumers and must be the result of freely consented exchanges. Given the generality of his definition of production and industry it is not surprising that Say is able and willing to include the services of doctors, lawyers, government officials (to some extent), and entrepreneurs. It then follows that the profits which result from voluntary exchanges are also just.

All these productive activities give rise to legitimate income. If someone receives an income which does not come from one of these sources which I have just outlined, then this income is stolen (usurpé). It comes from a loss of an equivalent amount born by society in general or by a part of society. [23]

The form of property with the most questionable origin was that of land. Say recognized that land ownership historically had often been acquired by force which, by his principles, negated the justice of its title.

The property with the most dubious claim to legitimacy is landed property. Is there a single estate which cannot trace its origin to some violent or fraudulent dispossession which was committed either recently or long ago, with the possible exception of Penn's descendents who are the legitimate heirs of the indians' land.

For practical reasons he admitted that most modern claims to land would have to be recognized if investment and agricultural development was to continue. And it was fortunate for many landowners, especially after the confusion of the Revolution, that property titles were not too closely scrutinised.

In spite of the varying degrees of legitimacy, it is fortunate for the economy that property of all kinds is invariably recognized and protected, even landed property which is the least honourable of them all.24]

However, he did cast serious doubt over the entire question and had he pursued it further he might have produced some revolutionary conclusions.

Say's theory of just property and productive economic activity led him to view the role of government in a very disparaging light. He certainly viewed it as a non-esssential property of social organization and was sympathetic to those who wished to escape its clutches by fleeing to join the anarchistic Indians in North America. Say reasoned that although such a refugee from the state would give up much of value which organized society had to offer sometimes the price of living in a highly regulated and restrictive society was too high to pay. [25] For those who chose to stay behind Say hoped to apply the same economic principles to state activity as he did to the market itself in order to lessen the state's burden as much as possible. Some modern observers have seen the beginnings of public choice and a theory of rent-seeking in Say's work on the public sector. [[26] He was aware of the ways in which certain groups could use the power of the state for their own purposes and suggested many ways in which venality and corruption could be minimised, most notably privatization. Say seems most modern when he is analysing the inevitable conflict which emerges within the state over control and access to government power.

The huge rewards and the advantages which are generally attached to public employment greatly excite ambition and cupidity. They create a violent struggle between those who possess positions and those who want them.27]

For modern readers living in an age of Thatcher and Reagan it is rather eerie to come across strong statements in favour of the privatisation of government functions so early in the nineteenth century. One particularly interesting example concerns the privatization of legal arbitration which is freely chosen by the participants and paid for by the party losing the suit. [28]

Charles Comte

Two of the most enthusiastic and original followers of Say's economic and social theories were the political journalists and academics Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer. Say's influence on Comte and Dunoyer was both intellectual and personal. The publication of an expanded version of Say's Traité in 1815 converted Comte to the sociological and economic approach to liberalism which he had pioneered and Comte duly acknowledged his profound intellectual debt to Say in a lengthy and enthusiastic review in their magazine. [29] Having absorbed Say's sociological and economic theories Comte and Dunoyer began to apply them in new and interesting ways. The first attempt at a new liberal social theory came later in 1817 when both Comte and Dunoyer wrote lengthy articles for the second volume of Le Censeur européen. Comte began the task of writing a magnificient interpretation of European development from the Greeks to post-revolutionary society. It started out with an article called "De l'organisation sociale considérée dans ses rapports avec les moyens de subsistance des peuples" and developed over the years into his magnum opus the Traité de législation ou exposition des lois générales suivant lesquelles les peuples prosp+rent, dépérissent, ou restent stationnaires (Paris, 1827) with its echoes of Montesquieu and Smith in its very title. Comte began his essay with an obvious borrowing from Say. He distinguished between three different ways in which wealth could be acquired: either one could use the fruits of nature, one could steal from one's fellows, or one could produce one's own goods by industry. Comte then proceeded to analyse European development, using a modified four stage theory which had been used by Turgot and Millar in the previous century.30] Unlike Marxian theories of societal development based upon a single mode of production, Comte readily admited that a mixture of these three modes could exist side by side. What he did observe, and which was the prime aim of his work, was to identify the gradual transformation of the economy from various class dominated and unproductive societies to one where pure industry predominated. The main stages in this transformation from warrior and slave society to pure industrial society were warrior tribal societies, the ancient slave societies of Greece and Rome (towards which both Dunoyer and Comte were exceedingly hostile), feudalism which existed up until the French Revolution, and the age of peace and industry immanent in the present. In all these societies bar the last there existed "la classe oisive et dévorante" and "la classe industrieuse".  The precise nature of the productive work which the industrious class did is not important. The vital apsect was that the products of their labour was coercively exploited by those who did not so labour.

There are many surprising parallels with the Marxist idea of economic development of class societies through stages. There is the insight that the mode or modes of production had a decisive influence on culture and politics. One can also find the idea that contradictions within each mode of production leads to a crisis and the transformation of that mode of production into a mode closer to that of pure industry. I will cite only one of many such examples.

It was natural that the Franks, who were incapable of existing other than by exploiting the industrious men which they had enslaved, despised those amongst themselves who turned to industrial activity. Those who abandonned the trade of pillage in order to become an industrious man renounced the state of barbarism and entered the state of civilisation. He abdicated his title of conqueror by joining the conquered class. This was called (déroger). On the other hand, a man was ennobled when he left the class of industrious or civilised men to enter the idle and parasitic class (dévorant), in other words the class of barbarians. A social organisation as vicious as the Frank's carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. As soon as men who do not belong to the dominant caste discover the secret of creating wealth by their own industry, and as soon as nobles have lost the power to get wealth other than by giving something of equal value in return, the former who are accustomed to order, to work and to economy increase constantly in numbers, whilst the latter group, not knowing how to produce anything and basing their glory on magnificient consumption, will be reduced in a short time to complete decadence. [31]

Comte expanded this interpretation of history considerably in his Traité de Législation, giving particular attention to the economic problem of slavery. Following the analysis of early class formation in tribal societies, Comte devotes Book 5 of his Traité to a sophisticated and precocious analysis of slave societies in both the ancient world and the contemporary empires of England, Holland, Spain, and the Southern States of the United States of America. The nature of the exploitation of slaves by the unproductive aristocratic class, the way in which the form of plantation production determines the degree of slave exploitation, the relationship between slave owners and the protection of their property by the state, the reasons for the decline of the Roman empire, the nature of obedience to authority, the reasons for the oppressed classes to seek a "usurper" like Marius or, as Comte seems to hint at, Napoleon to overcome their distress and exploitation, and the relative efficiency and profitability of slave labour are questions to which Comte devotes considerable attention. A comparison with the recent revisionist Marxist analysis of class society and slavery by de Ste Croix confirms my suspicion that Marx's class analysis is quite inappropriate to an understanding of ancient slave societies.32] What is surprising is that, like Cohen, de Ste Croix turns to a liberal class analysis along the lines developed by Comte to understand class struggles in the ancient world.

Charles Dunoyer

While Comte was examining primitive class societies and ancient slavery, Dunoyer was occupied in elaborating the implications of the future industrial society. What began rather tentatively in their journal Le censeur européen grew into a slim book-length study called L'industrie et moral considerée dans leurs rapports avec la liberté (Paris, 1825) which was later expanded twice into a more substantial work, De la liberté du travail (Paris, 1845). What they meant by the term industrialism was the use of the economic ideas of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say to analyse and defend a particular method of organising society, which gave priority to those who were in the forefront of producing for the market. According to the theory, the producers, when left completely free from all external political constraints, will attempt to satisfy their own needs and at the same time satisfy the needs of others. The result is a harmonious, peaceful and class conflict free social and economic order. Of prime importance for the free operation of economic law and the preservation of peace is the rôle of the state. Dunoyer went much further than any previous liberal thinker in arguing that the ultimate industrial state would be at most a nightwatchman state and at best non-existant:

Man's concern is not with government; he should look on government as no more than a very secondary thing - we might almost say a very minor thing. His goal is industry, labour and the production of everything needed for his happiness. In a well-ordered state, the government must only be an adjunct of production, an agency charged by the producers, who pay for it, with protecting their persons and their goods while they work. In a well-ordered state, the largest number of persons must work, and the smallest number must govern. The work of perfection would be reached if all the world worked and no one governed. [[33]

Closely related to Dunoyer's analysis of industry was his analysis of the impediments to its full realisation. Of course the main impediment was the state but unlike other liberals Dunoyer went much further in condemning it. In L'industrie et la morale he observed the doubly exploitative nature of the state: it wastes manpower and resources by keeping government officials away from productive jobs as well as employing them specifically to interfere with those who are left to work productively. [34] His most extensive analysis of the state occurs in an article in Le censeur européen where Dunoyer combines a public choice analysis of state employees with an historical analysis of the expansion of the state before, during and after the revolution, showing its seemingly inexorable rise under all manner of régimes. [35] Once again, class analysis is the guiding principle in his analysis and the experience of the revolution and Napoleon suggests a veritable war between the contending classes for control of the state.

It is impossible for a government to levy taxes and distribute large amounts of money without by that very process creating large numbers of enemies of its authority and those jealous of its power. The government creates large numbers of enemies because it becomes terribly onerous for those who pay the taxes. It creates many who are jealous of its power because it becomes extraordinarily profitable to those who receive the money from the state. The government thus creates a state of unavoidable hostility between those groups who eagerly covet the benefits which the state provides and the richer members of the public who try with all their power to avoid the burdens which are placed on them. In order to prevent any weakening of its power or to prevent power passing into someone else's hands, the government is forced to surround itself with spies, to fill the state's prisons with its political adversaries, to erect scaffolds for hanging, and to arm itself with a thousand instruments of oppression and terror. [36]

Conclusion

My intention has been to show the existence of a "second tradition" within liberalism in which questions of class and class conflict are extremely important. I also wanted to show the richness of one example of this tradition, viz. the French liberals of the Restoration period who provide such a stimulating and largely untapped intellectual resource. Since Marxists themselves are unhappy with their theory of exploitation it seems valid to turn to other intellectual traditions in order to overcome some of the difficulties in the Marxist theory of class, in particular their theoretical neglect of the state. My work is an attempt to examine one such alternative view which was developed in France in the early 19th century.

Endnotes

[1] See the interesting criticism of the state by the Marxist Stuart Hall, "The State - Socialism's Old Caretaker," Marxism Today, November 1984, pp. 24-29.

[2] One the most cogent criticisms of Marxist theories of class and industrial development is Ernst Nolte, Marxismus und Industrielle Revolution (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1983).

[3] Jean L. Cohen, Class and Civil Society: The Limits of Marxian Critical Theory (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983).

[4] Cohen, p. 104.

[5] Cohen, p. xii.

[6] Z. A. Pelczynski, "The Hegelian Concept of the State" in Hegel's Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives. A Collection of New Essays ed. Z. A. Pelczynski (Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 1-29; Z. A. Pelczynski, " Introduction: The Significance of Hegel's Separation of the State and Civil Society," in The State and Civil Society: Studies in Hegel's Political Philosophy ed. Z. A. Pelczynski (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 1-13; and Manfred Riedel, "Der Begriff der 'Bürgerliche Gesellschaft' und das Problem seines geschichtlichen Ursprungs," in Staat und Gesellschaft ed. E. W. Böckenförde (Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), pp. 77-108.

[7] Anthony Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Oxford: Blackwewll, 1984).

[8] On the history of ideas on class see Peter Calvert, The Concept of Class: An Historical Introduction (London: Hutchinson, 1982) and Göran Therborn, Science, Class and Society: On the Formation of Sociology and Historical Materialism (London: NLB and Verso, 1980).

[9] Siedentop, "The Two Liberal Traditions," The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin, ed. Alan Ryan (Oxford University Press, 1979), p.153.

[10] Siedentop, p.157.

[11] See, Shirley M. Gruner, Economic Materialism and Social Moralism: A Study in the History of Ideas in France from the latter part of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century (The Hague, 1973), pp.108-10.

[12] On the sociology of the Scottish Enlightenment see, R. Meek, "The Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology," in Economics, Ideology and Other Essays (London, 1967); A. Skinner, "Economics and History: The Scottish Enlightenment," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, vol. 12, 1965, pp.1-22.

[13] Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, ed. Henry Collins (Penguin, 1969).

[14] In The Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. M. D. Conway and C. Putnam (New York, 1906), vol. 3.

[15] Discussed in Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 96.

[16] The confusion over whether to call Wade and Hodgskin socialists or liberals is evident in Noel W. Thompson, The People's Science: The Popular Political Economy of Exploitation and Crisis 1816-34 (Cambridge University Press, 1984). He manages to call them both Ricardian and Smithian socialists and still not recognise their essential libertarianism.

[17] "The State of the Nation" London Review, 1 (April 1835), quoted in Joseph Hamburger, Intellectuals in Politics: John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 44.

[18] Collected Works, vol. 6, ed. John M. Robson (University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 470.

[19] "Guizot's Essays and Lectures on History," in John Stuart Mill, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, volume XX: Essays on French History and Historians, ed. John M. Robson, introduction by John C. Cairns (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1985), pp. 257-94 and "De Tocqueville on Democracy in America" parts one and two in Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, volume XVIII: Essays on Politics and Society, ed. J. M. Robson (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1977), pp. 47-90, 153-211. See also Iris Wessel Mueller, John Stuart Mill and French Thought (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956) and Richard K. P. Pankhurst, The Saint-Simonians, Mill and Carlyle: A Preface to Modern Thought (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1957).

[20] On Say, see Joanna Kitchen, La Décade, 1794-1807. Un journal "philosophique" (Paris, 1965); Ernest Teilhac, L'oeuvre économique de Jean-Baptiste Say (Paris, 1927); Charles Comte, "Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de J.-B. Say," Mélanges... de J.-B. Say, (Paris, 1833); Edgar Allix, "J.-B. Say et les origines de l'industrialisme," Revue d'économie politique, 24, 1910; idem, "La méthode et la conception de l'économie politique dans l'oeuvre de J.-B. Say," Revue d'histoire é conomique et sociale, 4, 1911; Andé Liesse,"Un professeur d'économie politique sous la Restauration," Journal des économistes, 46, 1901.

[21] Section one, "Organes essentiels," of "Tableau général de l'économie des sociétés" in Cours complet, vol. 2, pp. 295-6.

[22] p.297-8.

[23] p.300.

[24] pp. 310-11.

[25] "Organes accidentels", in Cours complet, vol. 2, p. 334.

[26] Patricia J. Euzent and Thomas L. Martin, "Classical Roots of the emerging Theory of rent Seeking: the Contribution of Jean-Baptiste Say," History of Political Economy, 1984, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 255-62.

[27] Cours complet, vol. 2, p. 259. This entire chapter is an excellent analysis of government from the perspective of public choice.

[28] Cours, vol. 2, p. 276-78.

[29] Le Censeur européen, vol. 1, pp.175ff; vol.2, pp.167ff.

[30] On the history of this conception of development see Ronald L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge University Press, 1976).

[31] p.24-25.

[32] de Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (Duckworth, 1983).

[33] Le Censeur européen, vol. 2, p.102.

[34] p. 306.

[35] "De l'influence qu'exercent sur le gouvernement les salaires attachés à l'exercise des fonctions publiques," 1819, no. 11, pp. 105-28.

[36] Censeur européen, 1819, 11, p. 112.