“Stage Theories of History: Liberal vs Marxist (1990)”

By David M. Hart

[Created: 20 July, 1990] [Revised: 25 October, 2024]

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

Introduction

A paper given at the Institute for Humane Studies "Advanced History Seminar", College of Notre Dame, Belmont, California (20-26 July, 1991).

Introduction

It is an old Chinese curse to wish someone that they live in interesting times. As we witness the world-wide political, economic and social collapse of communism (i.e. societies created according to the principles of Marxism) which has taken place since the momentous events of 1989, I for one am glad I live in interesting times. It is now obvious to even the most hardened socialist that the greatest social and economic experiment of the 20thC (and perhaps of all time) has failed, and failed miserably. The planned economy, one of the most important components of the Marxist vision of the future, has been proven to be unable to satisfy the most basic needs of consumers, let alone provide the innovations and increases in productivity that one would expect of the "next stage of economic development" which is what Marxist historians have been telling us for over 100 years. 45 years of socialism in Eastern Europe and nearly 75 years of socialism in the USSR has resulted in political repression of the most appalling sort, economic stagnation, the growth of an entirely new class of rulers or exploiters, and the moral corruption of entire societies unable and unwilling to face the consequences of this failure until the very last moment. In fact, one might even describe it as a retrogression to an "New Old Regime."

To 19thC liberals it was obvious that socialism, Marxism, communism (and I use the terms interchangably even though there are important differences between three concepts) was both unworkable and morally repulsive. Afterall, liberals had to coexist with the simultaneous development of socialism and Marxism during liberalism's heyday in the mid and late 19thC and they were aware of the main claims Marxists made against the liberal capitalist order: namely, that it replaced the exploitation of the aristocratic old regime with a new regime of bourgeois industrialists and middle class businessmen and professionals, that industrialisation made the average working person worse off than they were beforehand, that it engendered a sharpening of imperialistic and militaristic antagonisms, and that the very heart of the liberal political commonwealth (the rule of law and the natural rights of the individual) was a sham and a flimsy façade designed to hide bourgeois exploitation behind a cloak of "liberty" and "individual freedom."

For many reasons, the French classical liberals were more aware than their English and American colleagues of the threat posed by socialism. Afterall, socialism in the form of Jacobinism and radical Rousseauanism had appeared during the French Revolution in the early 1790s and again in the 1848 Revolution when Blanqui and his colleagues set up one of the first socialist public welfare and make-work programs, the "National Workshops" during the provisional government. In the 1840s and 1850s the laissez-faire liberals in France aimed their propaganda against the twin threat from the right, in the form of the monarchists or the Bonapartists, and the left, in the form of the emerging socialist movement. To Frédéric Bastiat, Gustave de Molinari and Joseph Garnier and the other liberals associated with the Society for Political Economy and the laissez-faire Journal des Économistes much of their time had to be devoted to countering the socialist threat.

Liberals in England, on the other hand, seemed to take a more relaxed attitude towards socialism. This can be explained as a result of a number of factors: the fact that socialist ideas were less well developed in Britain than on the continent, the absence of a recent revolutionary past made the threat of social upheaval less threatening in the immediate future, and the pervasive influence of utilitarianism in Britain which could be used to support both radical liberalism and socialism depending upon the context. A good example of the more accommodating view of the English towards socialism (compared to their French counterparts) is the attitude of the great English liberal John Stuart Mill. Because he did not believe in the natural right of the individual to own property, because he did not grasp completely the force of the concept of laissez-faire and the spontaneous order of the free market, and because he placed such faith in the capacity of social theorists to judge different societies by means of the utilitarian calculation of total social happiness, Mill believed that the jury's verdict on socialism was still out. He found the proposals of the French utopian socialists intriguing and perhaps even exciting, because they offered a solution to the problem of alienation, the unequal division of property, and widespread poverty.

However, Mill was not such an idealist that he did not recognise that the comparison between socialism and liberalism had to be done in a fair, utilitarian manner. The crux for Mill was the twofold comparison between the ideal of socialism or communism with the ideal of liberalism (or what he called the "régime of individual property"), and the reality of socialism with the reality of liberalism. In The Principles of Poltical Economy (1848) Mill made the following assertion about the relative merits of communism vis-à-vis individualism:

If, therefore, the choice were to be made between Communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices; if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a consequence, that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour...; if this, or Communism, were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance. But to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communinism as its best, with the régime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The principle of private property has never yet had a fair trial in any country; and less so, perhaps, in this country than in some others...

...the question of Socialism is not, as generally stated by Socialists, a question of flying to the sole refuge against the evils which now bear down on humanity; but a mere question of comparative advantages, which futurity must determine (my emphasis). We are too ignorant of what individual agency in its best form, or Socialism in its best form, can accomplish, to be qualified to decide which of the two will be the ultimate form of human society.

If a conjecture may be hazarded, the decision will probably depend mainly on one consideration, viz. which of the two systems is consistent with the greatest amount of human liberty and spontenaity. (Penguin ed. pp. 358-60).

Even if we find it hard to understand how a liberal like Mill could even begin to compare the ideal of communism with the ideal of liberalism, he was correct to see that the ideal of one had to compared with the ideal of the other, and the imperfect reality of one with the imperfect reality of the other. In the 19thC the supporters of socialism had the benefit of comparing their yet to be realised ideal with the very imperfect liberal reality of 19thC British and European society. We can also agree with Mill that the ideal of the "régime of individual property" has yet to be fully realised anywhere, even 140 years after Mill wrote. However, what we can say with certainty, something denied to Mill in 1848, is that we are the "futurity" he spoke of. We have seen a number of attempts to put into practice the ideal of socialism or communism, to create the last and more perfect stage of human society, and in all its manifestations it has failed the test Mill set it. - "which of the two systems is consistent with the greatest amount of human liberty and spontenaity?" At all levels, the imperfect reality of socialism has failed against the imperfect reality of the free market.

I say all this by way of introduction. Because socialism or communism has failed so spectacularly (even Stalinist Albania is finally opening up to the West after 50 years of repressive communist purity and isolation) the temptation for us is to abandon everything about Marxism or socialism. But this would be a mistake. Not everything associated with Marxism or socialism is mistaken or wrong-headed. Like Mark Antony said of Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar I have not come to praise Marxism but to bury it. However, before we bury the corpse of Marxism I would like to rifle through its pockets to see if there is anything of value worth keeping, perhaps a few gold coins. As one might have expected, the very few gold coins left on the corpse were not the result of any useful or productive labour on the part of Marxism while it was alive, but was the result of the labour of others. As usual Marxism could only function by exploiting the labour of others.

What I am referring to is the Marxist theory of history and class - the idea that history moves through a series of stages, each one of which is characterised by a particular "mode of production" unique to that stage of development, and dominated by a particular class of individuals who benefit from a number of political and economic privileges and "exploit" the mass of the ordinary working people. There are two points I would like to make about the Marxist theory of history and class:

• 1. that thinking this way about history, in particular the idea that the development of Western society occurred as an evolution through a definite series of economic stages (each with its own class of exploiters and exploited), is not as "Marxist" as we might think; that it in fact has quite a long pedigree before Marx adopted and amended the theory in the mid-19thC which stretches back to the 18thC Enlightenment; and that a number of very important liberal thinkers (including Turgot and Adam Smith in the 18thC and Benjamin Constant, Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer, Gustave de Molinari and Herbert Spencer in the 19thC) used the theory and made important contributions to its development. I would conclude that this way of looking at history is just as much "liberal" as it is "Marxist."
• 2. The second point I would like to make is that thinking about history in terms of the evolution of society through economic stages and as a struggle between an exploiting and exploited class is still an important, interesting and productive method of doing history today.

Before turning to a number of liberal interpretations of the stage theory of history and class analysis we need to be clear about what constituted the Marxist theory of economic stages.

Recommended Reading on Marx's Theory of History and Class

1. Jon Elster, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

2. Readings in Marxist Sociology, ed. Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).

3. Karl Marx, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, ed. T.B. Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976).

Marx's Stage Theory of History and Class

The Marxist version of the historical development of western society (its application to non-western societies has always been a difficult problem for rigid and doctrinaire Marxists) was a "five or six stage model" depending on one's interpretaion of Marx:

• 1. primitive communism
• 2. the Asiatic mode of production
• 3. ancient slavery
• 4. feudalism
• 5. capitalism
• 6. socialism/communism

1. primitive communism: all property is communally owned, all tasks equally divided, and all the products of labour equally shared according to need. The society is tribal and there is no established class of exploiters. Not all Marxists accepted this stage as having actually existed.

2. the Asiatic mode of production: a stagnant and unchanging society in which a centralised government bureaucracy (consituting the ruling class) controls irrigation for agriculture and owns all the productive land which is worked by propertyless peasants. Marx viewed this as a dead-end in terms of historical development. Only outside intrevention (such as the British conquest of India) could foce these societies to evolve.

3. ancient slavery: typified by the slave economies of Ancient Greece and Rome, where an aristocratic land-owning class used slaves to work the land. The weakness of this society was the low level of productivity of slave labour and the concern by the slave owners for consumption rather than productive investment. Slave societies were inherently war-like as they required frequent wars to replenish their supply of slave workers through conquest and defeat.

4. feudalism: this is Marx's weakest and least developed stage of economic development which seems to serve the purpose of including everything between the decline of ancient slavery and the emergence of capitalism

5. capitalism: the stage of development where the means of production are privately owned and where production is for profit not personal use. The classic form of capitalist production and exploitation was the mid-19thC factory, owned by a single capitalist, and worked by a large number of waged workers. The latter were exploited by not being paid the full value of their day's labour. The "surplus value" being kept as profits by the capitalist. The great positive benefits of capitalism was twofold: its ability to completely destroy the old feudal society (by means of a revolution ssuch as the French Revolution), and its economic dynamism in creating wealth and the potential for prosperity for all. It was thus a precondition for the final transition to socialism. The downfall of capitalism would be its ruthless exploitation of the factory working class, who were present in large numbers in the urban factories and thus able to organise poltiically, and the eventual slowing down of innovation and of increases of productivity of the capitalist system in its late stages. An example of Marx's method is the following passage from Capital, vol. iii, part 2 from Selected Writings, pp. 186:

The owners of mere labour-power, the owners of capital, and the landowners, whose respective sources of income are wages, profit, and rent of land, or in other eords, wage-labourers, capitalists, and landoweners, form the three great classess of modern society based upon the capitalist mode of production.

The economic structure of modern society is indisputably most highly and classically developed in England. But even here the class structure does not appear in pure form. Intermediate and transitional strata obscure the class boundaries even in this case, though very much less in the country than in the towns. However, this is immaterial for our analysis. We ahve seen that the constant tendancy, the law of development of the capitalist mode of production, is to separate the means of production increasingly from labour, and to concentrate the scattered means of production more and more into large aggregates, thereby transforming labour into wage-labour and the means of production into capital.

6. socialism/communism: The result of the crises of capitalism is the transition to the final economic stage of social development, socialism/commuism (also achieved by means of revolution). In this stage the full economic potential of industrialisation would be achieved by the dispossession of the capitalist class by the propertyless working class. All property would again become communal, production would be for use not profit, all workers would be paid equally once the surplus value of their labour had been returned to them. Money would cease to be the medium of exchange, the "alienation" experienced by workers working for someone else would disappear, and the chaos and anarchy of the market would be replaced by a "common plan" of economic production. At the same time the means of exploitation, the state, would "wither away" and society would at long last become classless.

The strengths and weaknesses of Marx's theory of history and class are too numerous to discuss here at length. I will merely assert that the more significant weaknesses include the following:

• 1. he seriously misunderstands the nature of "feudal" society, expecially its complexity and the significant degree of "capitalist" activity in trade and the urban centres.
• 2. Marx's theory of exploitation based upon the erronious "labour theory of value" means that he has a fundamentally flawed concept of the nature of capitalist society
• 3. the historically inaccurate predictions about the increasing immiseration of the workers under capitalism and the decreasing productivity and innovation in "late capitalism"
• 4. Marx's absurd idea that a sophisticated industrial economy could function without money and free market prices, and that the market could be replaced by central planning
• 5. Marx's disdain for "bourgeois freedoms" made him blind to the authoritarian implications of the future socialist society.
• 6. his naive assertion that there would not be a class of exploiters in socialist society

The positive and useful aspects of the Marxist theory of history and class includes the fact that it focusses the attention of the historian on a number of imporatnt matters such as:

• 1. that throughout history there have been a number of extraordinary (indeed revolutionary) changes in the way in which economic goods and services are produced. A consequence of this is that historians must realise how important tis he study of economies and economic institutions.
• 2. that how these goods and services are produced has some impact on the political structure of society and on the way people think about themselves
• 3. that societies do have a class of individuals who use political and economic privilege in order to exploit others
• 4. and that nature of this class of exploiters is influenced by the means of production

But, in spite of the very serious flaws in the Marxist theory of history and class, I would claim that this is no reason to abandon the stage theory of history and class altogether. One way of looking at the problem is to argue that what is most "Marxist" in Marx's theory is in fact wrong and useless to the historian. However, what is most useful in this way of thinking about history and society was not the invention of Marx but the product of a liberal tradition of historical analysis which preceeded him.

Liberal Stage Theories of History and Class Analysis

The Marxist stage theory of history can be seen as a branch of a much larger tradition of historical and economic thought which emerged in the mid-18thC. Both French and Scottish thinkers of the Enlightenment developed a "four stage" theory of economic development which became highly influential in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Some  of the leading theorists of this school are Adam Smith, John Millar and William Robertson in Scotland and Turgot and Rousseau in France. A Russian student of Smith, Semyon Desnitsky, summed up the "four stage" theory as follows:

We cannot measure the various successes of the human race, its risings and falling, on the basis of its imputed childhood, youth, maturity and old age... Fortunately for our times (1761), the newes tand most assiduous explorers of human nature have discovered incomparably better means for studying human nations in their various successes according to the circumstances and conditions through which those peoples, starting from their primordial society with wild animals, rose to the highest degree of greatness and enlightenment. Even ancient authors suggested four such conditions in the human race, of which the most primitive is held to be the condition of peoples living by hunting animals and feeding on the spontaneous fruits of the earth; the second is the condition of peoples living as shepherds, or the pastoral; the third is the agricultural; the fourth and last is the commercial... Such an origian and rising of human society  is common to all the primitive peoples, and in accordance with these four conditions of peoples we must deduce their history, government, laws, and customs and measure their various successes in sciences and arts. (Quoted in Ronald Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 5).

This way of looking at the economic development of western society, in particular the emergence of liberal commerical society based upon private property and free trade out of previous illiberal societies, is a vital part of the science of political economy which emerged in the late 18thC in France and Scotland. The underlying philosophy of history of Adam Smith, for example, is one which accepts the stage theory of history, and where the means of production influences the political structure, the prevailing values of that society, and determines the kind of class or "rank" which predominates, as the following quote from Smith's "Notes of his Lectures on Jurisprudence" 1762 shows:

There are four distinct stages which mankind passes through. 1s the age of Hunters; 2nd, the age of Shepherds; 3rd, the age of Agriculture; 4th, the age of Commerce.

... (having discussed the emergence of and transition to the first 3 ages Smith goes on to discuss the 4th age)... As society was farther improved the several arts, which at first first would be exercised by each individual as far as was necessary for his welfare (pardon the sex exclusive language!), would be separated; some persons would cultivate one and others, as they severally inclided. They would exchange with one another what they produced more than was necessary for their support, and get in exchange for them the commodities they stood in need of and did not produce themselves. This exchagne of commodities extends in time not only betwixt the individuals of the same society, but betwixt those of different nations. Thus we send to France our cloths, iron-work and other trinkets, and get in exchange their wines. To Spain and Portugal we send our superfluous corn, and bring from thence the Spanish and Portugese wines. Thus at last the age of Commerce arises. When therefore a country is stored with all the flocks and herds it can support, the land cultivated so as to produce all the grain and other commodities necessary for our subsistance it can be brought to bear, or at least as much as supports the inhabitants when the superfluous products, whether of nature or art, are exported and other necessary ones brought in exchange, such as society has done all in its power towards its ease and convenience. (Quoted in The Origins of the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. Jane Rendall (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp141-3).

Having progressed through these 4 stages (or "ages" as Smith called them) to reach the economic pinnacle of "commerce" a number of important changes occur in public attitudes and behaviour as a result. A common view was that commerce civilised mankind or made them more "polished." In Marxist terms one would say that the mode of production or "the spirit of commerce" as liberals called it (i.e.private ownership, the division of labour, and free trade) forced men and women to change their agressive behaviour towards one another. As the 18thC Scottish historian William Robertson wrote in "A View of the Progress of Society in Europe, from the Subversion of the Roman Empire, to the beginning of the sixteenth century" (1769):

The progress of commerce had considerable influence in polishing the manners of European nations, and in establishing among them order, equal laws, and humnaity... Society and manners must be considerably improved and many provisions made for public order and personal security, before a liberal intercourse can take place between different nations....

This increase of commerce, and of intercourse between nations... did not fail of producing great effects. Commerce tends to wear off those prejudices which maintain distinction and animosity between nations. It softens and polishes the manners of men. It unites them by one of the strongest of all ties, the desire of supplying them their mutaul wants. It disposes them to peace, by establishing in every state and order of citizens bound by their interest to be the guardians of public tranquility. As soon as the commercial spirit acquires vigfour, and begins to gain an ascendant in any society, we discover a new genius in its policy, its alliances, its ward, and its negotiations... In proportion as commerce made its way into the different countries of Europe, they successively turned their attentions to those objects, and adopted those manners, which occupy and distinguish polished nations. (quoted in Rendall, pp.189-93.)

The final example of the 18thC liberal theory of history and class is the Scottish sociologist and historian John Millar who, in the Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1779), gives a clear statement of the impact of changing modes of production on both the structure of classes (or "ranks" as he calls them) and the ideas held by those classes:

The farther a nation advances in opulence and refinement, it has occasion to employ a greater number of merchnats, of tradesmen and artificers; and as the lower people, in general become thereby more independent in their cirmcumstances, they begin to exert tjhose sentiments of liberty which are natural to the mind of man (sic), and which necessity alone is able to subdue. In proportion as they have less need of the favour and patronage of the great, they are at less pains to procure it; and their application is more uniformly directed to acquire those talents which are useful in the exercise of their employments. The impressions which they received in their former state of servitude are therfore gradually obliterated, and give place to habits of a different nature...

It cannot be doubted that these circumstances have a tendency to introduce a democratical government. As persons of inferior rank are place in a situation which, in point of subsistence, renders them little dependent upon their superiors; as no one order of men continues in the exclusive possession of opulence; and as every man who is industrious may entrertain the hope of gaining a fortune; it isto be expected that the prerogatives of the monarch, and of the ancient nobility, will be gradually undermined, that the privileges of the people will be extended in the same proportion and that power, the usual attendant of wealth, will be in some measure diffused over all the members of the community. (Quoted in Rendall, pp. 203-5).

These liberal ideas of history and class developed in France and Scotland in the mid and late 18thC were enormously influential in France in the early 19thC. They were taken up by a number of historians, economists and what we would now call sociologists in an attempt to explain the origins and historical development of the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the partial restoration of the old order. One of the better known of the historians was Augustin Thierry who applied class analysis and a modified stage theory of history to analyse the emergence of the middle class (or third estate as it was known in France) and the notion of political and economic liberty in the communes and towns of the middle ages. His class analsyis was based upon the idea of conquest, where one tribe or race was able to subdue another and to regularise thepayment of tribute into a permanent system of taxation and regulation of labour.

As the changes brought about by the industrial revolution became more obvious in England in the late 18thC and in France in the early 19thC it was necessary to modify the "four stage theory" (which culminated in the "age of commerce") to include a new final, fifth stage known as the "age of industry" or "industrialism" as Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer termed it. Dunoyer developed his new "five stage" theory of history in L'Industrie et la morale considérées dans leurs rapports avec la liberté (1825). According to Dunoyer, the final stage of economic evolution was the society or age of industry in which all human relations would be completely voluntary. All social and individual needs would be provided through the market and thus the state would either disappear entirely or be broken down into little more than radically decentralised "municipal" structures. Dunoyer's modification of the traditional eighteenth-century four stage theory of economic development is extremely interesting and worthy of detailed analysis. The contribution made by Dunoyer was to introduce two new stages to add to the traditional four stages of hunting, pasturing, agriculture and commerce through which European society had passed. The fifth stage had been created by the destruction of feudalism and the ancien régime by the French Revolution. Occupations and political office were now open to all but society was dominated by an excessive desire to seek political office ("places" as Dunoyer called them). The sixth and final stage was that of "industrialism" - a stage where the potentialities of extensive manufacturing and the commercialisation of all avenues of life were recognised and in which politics would be virtually done away with.

According to Dunoyer the economic stages through which European society had evolved were the following:

• 1. savagery based upon hunting and gathering
• 2. nomadic life based upon primitive herding
• 3. slave society based upon slave labour in the household and in the fields
• 4. the society of political privileges based upon rigid legal privileges beginning with feudalism and extending up to the mercantilism of the pre-revolutionary period
• 5. the system of political place-getting (especially under Napoleon) which was based upon fierce competition to secure government posts and other privileges
• 6. and the final stage of industry which was exclusively based upon production for the market.

Dunoyer defined the economic stage of industry as

... un état où ce droit (de s'enrichir par l'exercice de la domination) ne serait le privilége de personne; où ni peu ni beaucoup d'hommes ne fonderaient leur fortune sur le pillage du reste de la population; où le travail serait la ressource commune et le gouvernement un travail public, que la communauté adjugerait, comme tout travail du même genre, à des hommes de son choix, pour un prix raisonnable et loyalement débattu. [1]

The main characteristics of the régime of industry become clear from this passage: it is a society in which all must work by peaceful production and exchange, where there is no ruling class who exploit the labour of others, where government provides a small number of public services such as protection of personal liberty and property at minimal cost to the taxpayers, and where the government is freely chosen by election. Since Dunoyer readily admits that productive industrial activity has taken place in all societies from the state of savagery onwards, what makes an entire society "industrial" is not the proportion of individuals who live by the fruits of their own labour but the presence or absence of an exploiting ruling class. To the extent that a society has an organised class which lives by exploiting the labour of others and to the extent that the industrious classes are kept in a condition of dependence, to that extent the society is feudal, despotic, or in some other way unfree.2] A similar situation exists with Dunoyer's definition of an "industrious or industrial people." All societies must have an industrious class to some extent in order to produce the surpluses upon which the ruling class live. After all, a parasite cannot live independently of the host's body. But an entire people become "industrious" only when they have won a political victory over their erstwhile rulers, either by forcing them to give up their unproductive ways and to "dissolve themselves" into the working classes (a highly unlikely prospect) or by acquiring a political ascendancy over them, thus rendering them powerless to continue exploiting others. [3]

The country which most closely approached Dunoyer's ideal of a truly industrial society was the United States of America, which he considered "de tous les pays du monde (c'est) celui qui approche le plus du mode d'existence dont je parle."4] Taking article 36 from the Constitution of Pennsylvania, which stated that "Toute homme qui ne possède pas une propriété suffisante, doit avoir quelque profession, métier, commerce ou ferme qui le fasse subsister honnêtement" as typical, Dunoyer concluded that the United States was a society founded on industry and which had organised its social, political and legal institutions around this fact.5] The American government was suitably small, ill-paying and relatively inactive, thus making it undesirable to place-seekers wanting to make their fortunes and their career in it. Within American society the "spirit of domination" was so weak that it seemed likely that the Americans had been able to break the cycle of domination and class exploitation which had dogged human history for millenia. What was lacking, in Dunoyer's view, to make the United States the perfect industrial society was an explicitly recognised and publicly acknowledged set of industrial morals. It seemed that the material conditions in America had somehow run ahead of the public morals and the public did not therefore understand the reasons for their freedom, prosperity and absence of class domination. Dunoyer noted some oddly anti-industrial behaviour, such as the legislators in the state of Georgia turning to the authority of the ancient Greeks and Romans to justify slavery; taking the name of the Capitol building and the institution of the Senate from ancient Rome; the teaching of young men the Greek and Latin languages; and the adulation of a military hero such as Washington instead of a purely civil hero such as Benjamin Franklin. All of this suggested to him that the pernicious influence of the militaristic and tyrannical ancient world was still potent even in the most industrial nation the world had yet seen and that the United States still had some way to go before its morals matched its industrial economy. [6]

Even if the United States had not yet reached the stage of pure industrialism, Dunoyer was certain that he knew what such a society would look like. He knew that it would allow for the maximum of individual liberty and the unlimited development of all human faculties (not just the monetary or economic ones), that it was the only society in which science and technology could be developed to their greatest extent, and that it would allow for the first time the emergence of a set of values in which peace, tolerance, hard work and respect for others would be predominant. Concerning class conflict, Dunoyer believed that internally and externally industrial society was essentially peaceful and that only in such a society could inter-class and international conflict be eliminated for good. All this was possible because, for the first time in human history since the formation of the state, the aggression of the state would be eliminated forever by the drastic curtailment of its functions and perhaps even by its ultimate elimination altogether.

Dunoyer believed that true liberty could not exist outside of an industrial society. At any other stage of human development liberty was either non-existent or incomplete. He believed there were three essential conditions which needed to be fulfilled before one could claim to be truly free: one had to have the use of certain faculties of forces; one had to learn how to use these faculties without causing oneself harm; and one had to learn to use these faculties without harming others. In the most primitive societies the exercise of one's faculties was severely limited by the underdeveloped nature of the mode of production. Without economic surpluses and some technology one's range of activities and options for action were necessarily small. Only with the development of more productive modes of production such as agriculture could one begin to develop one's faculties along the lines Dunoyer had in mind. Once a basic level of economic surplus was available and once the knowledge to make use of it had become widespread, it became possible then to talk about an increase in freedom for human beings and in Dunoyer's account of the economic evolution of mankind he refers to the fact that each stage expands the freedom of mankind from the more limited freedom of the previous mode of production. However, it was not until the last stage of economic development that men learnt to use their economic surpluses and technology in a way that was not harmful to others, thus fulfilling the third condition for freedom. It is apparent from Dunoyer's discussion that he does not believe liberty to be a purely "negative" thing, in other words the absence of coercion on the part of the state on individual activity. Rather, his view of liberty is a combination of "negative" and "positive" aspects. On the one hand, one is not free unless one has a certain amount of wealth and knowledge to do an increasing number of things. On the other hand, the greatest threat to liberty comes from the actions of a ruling class or a state which coerce individuals. Thus in Dunoyer's view one needs both aspects to be truly free. [7]

The highest level of freedom is reached when the level of technology and economic production is such that it permits the unlimited development of all faculties. In order to reach the highest level of productivity industry requires the most enlightened, the most skilled, and the most intelligent managers, researchers and workers that it is possible to have. Thus Dunoyer believes the industrial system will encourage the development of these skills and will want them spread as broadly as possible, there being no need for "victims" or "dominateurs et ses satellites" in industrialism. [8] The needs of industrial society mean that there must be a close collaboration between science and technology in order that the discoveries of science can be made available to industry and thus passed on to the public in the form of new goods and cheaper industrial processes. Technological improvements over the past hundred years or so had made it possible to extend the division of labour almost indefinitely and thus dramatically increase production for the benefit of the mass of the people. Therefore engineers had to have the same respect as pure scientists, and the traditional practice of viewing science as a kind of genteel hobby with no practical use, should be replaced with the attitude that science was a "travail sérieux d'hommes vivant tous également des conquêtes qu'ils font sur la nature, et cherchant avec ardeur à connaître ses lois, pour les plier au service de l'humanité." [9]

Two other historical examples, apart from the United States, which excited Dunoyer about the beneficent effects of industry were Scotland in the late eighteenth century and the newly independent South American republics. Scotland in the mid-eighteenth century was a semi-barbarous nation, but in less than eighty years had become one of the most advanced industrial nations. This showed, Dunoyer thought, what might happen when pillaging and murder had come to an end as it had done in 1745. He was also confident about the prospects of the Latin American nations, which after independence had cut taxes, removed restrictions on the economy and reduced the number of government posts. The result confirmed Dunoyer's faith in what industrial values could achieved and he described the progress of these nations as "progrès si singulier, si hors de proportion avec ce qu'on voit dans d'autres quartiers du globe." [10] He was less sanguine about the prospects for Europe, which he believed would require a miracle to break away from its anti-industrial traditions.

The morals which an industrial society produces in its people are a direct result of the means by which wealth is created. Since wealth is no longer the result of pillage, theft, extortion and slave labour, those who acquire a surplus do so by their own productive work and exchange with others. Thus, through such peaceful productive work people come to learn self-discipline and moderation in their consumption. Although Dunoyer disagreed with an article in the Globe which argued that it was "profoundly moral" for mankind to conquer nature, he did agree that if men got their wealth by this means rather than by privileges from the state or exploiting the labour of slaves, they would inevitably learn about hard work, application, order, economy and frugality. [11] To use Dunoyer's phrase, "industrie véritable est la mère nourricière des bonnes moeurs." [12]

Perhaps the most far-reaching consequence of industrialism is the abolition of class conflict, which is achieved by two means. Firstly, there is the dismantling of the system of political power and privilege which makes exploitation possible in the first place. Without a state to enforce tariffs and trade restrictions or grant monopoly rights to favoured manufacturers or to provide lucrative jobs for the political place-seekers, there is no more institutional violence and therefore no ruling class which needs this violence to maintain its position of power. [13] The second means is the assumption common to nineteenth century economic liberals, that in the absence of political privilege there exists a harmony of interests between individuals in the free market. [14] In other words, the belief that there is no antagonism inherent in the nature of market relations between such actors as employer and employee, shop owner and customer and so on. The liberal theory of the harmony of interests is vital for the success of Dunoyer's concept of industrialism. Without it one of the corner stones of the industrial system, the absence of class conflict, is missing. Thus it was important for Dunoyer to refute a broad range of political theorists, the common feature of which was the belief that market relations were inherently antagonistic. For example, the conservative theorist Bonald argued that "(l)e malheur d'un état commerçant est d'être condamné à faire la guerre;" [15] Montaigne, who devoted one of his essays to the idea that the profit of one necessarily requires the loss of another;16] Rousseau, who put forward a similar argument to Montaigne; [17] and more recently, an essay in the Journal des Débats in 1820. In one respect only did Dunoyer agree with those who, like Bonald, argued that commerce was just another form of warfare between states. In the mercantilist system which existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and which in part still persisted into the nineteenth century, it was very true that a situation very close to war often existed between trade rivals such as France and England. But, Dunoyer insisted, this was due to the coercion and violence of the system of economic privileges which lay at the heart of mercantilism, than with the nature of trade itself. [18] The opposition of interests between contemporary English and French cotton spinners, for example, was the result of the political support and protection which the less skilled and less efficient French cotton spinners were able to get. The interests of the mass of the French consumers were definitely not in opposition with the English producers, who could supply them with cheaper cotton products than their French compatriots. The "unjust favours" which the French producers got made them just as much an "enemy" of their own people as of the English producers. The solution to this clash of interests was for the French to open completely their borders to free trade, to compete head on with the English and, if they found they could not do so, then they were obliged to learn English techniques of production by studying in England or working for English factories in France. The final result would be the reduction of political tensions, an increase in the level of skill of French workers, and the greatest possible diffusion of high technology to the benefit of all. [19]

To Dunoyer the idea of the necessary opposition of individual interests was an important component in the ancien régime and monarchist justification for the division of society into orders and corporations, the basis for this being that only such rigid institutions could prevent these inevitable conflicts from causing too much damage to society. [20] Dunoyer was particularly scathing about the monarchists' claim that only a system of privilege and state created hierarchy, from which they benefited enormously financially and socially, could bring peace to opposed social and economic groups. As we have seen above, it is this system of privileges and hierarchy which Dunoyer believed was the source of so much conflict under the ancien régime and so, not surprisingly, Dunoyer dismissed the arguments of the monarchists as the self-interested special pleading of a declining ruling class threatened with the loss of its old privileges.21]

A group of theorists from whom Dunoyer might have hoped to find support in the debate about the "harmony of interests" in the free market was the liberal school of constitutionalism of the Restoration period. Although they shared his view that individual interests are not necessarily opposed in the free market, their solution to the problem of class exploitation and political privilege was much less radical than Dunoyer's. Whereas he welcomed the revolutions in America, which eliminated much of the ancien régime in one blow, the other liberals preferred the much slower constitutionalist and evolutionist approach to reform, as for example Benjamin Constant did in his efforts to write a liberal constitution in the last moments of the Empire and the early days of the Restoration. Dunoyer dismissed the liberals' fascination with fine-tuning the form of government in an effort to "neutralise" the conflict between the politically privileged and the industrialist working classes as mere political "alchemy." [22] The problem with the liberal constitutionalists was that they were prepared to accept unjust and immoral means of acquiring wealth, even in an institutional form, for the sake of order and for what Dunoyer called a superficial form of social peace. Dunoyer parted company with them in his insistence that peace and an end to class conflict was only possible with the complete removal of all institutionalised injustice, whether slavery, feudalism, the tariffs and other controls of the mercantilist system, or the scramble for positions in the government and the state bureaucracy.

On s'est autrefois beaucoup moqué des alchemistes: ne se pourrait-on pas moquer un peu des politiques qui prétendent établir la paix par des formes de gouvernement? les alchemistes se proposaient-ils un problème plus insoluble que ces politiques? est-il plus difficile de produire de l'or avec d'autres métaux que de parvenir, par je ne sais quelles combinaisons, à faire sortir la paix de l'esclavage, du privilége ou de toute autre manière inique de s'enrichir? [23]

Dunoyer laid much of the blame for the weakness of a liberalism which concentrated so much of its attention on legal, constitutional and political matters, and which ignored the more fundamental issues of power, class rule and the economy, at the feet of Montesquieu. He believed that Montesquieu's theory of the division and balance of political powers had distracted attention away from the underlying economic reasons for peace and prosperity. It was a serious error, he thought, to attribute English freedom to the separation of power between the crown and the legislature ("par quels artifices") when the real reason was the economic system and the absence of violence in the means of production.24] Dunoyer admitted that the arrangement of political power was important but denied that it was of primary importance. Rather what was of primary importance in determining the degree of liberty and the amount of class conflict in any given society, as Dunoyer had argued throughout L'industrie et la morale, was the means of production and the class structure which emerged at each stage of the evolution of society. [25] So long as slavery, political privilege and monopoly existed, along with the political culture which these abuses produced, there was no possibility for lasting peace between the classes, no matter what political form the government took, or how liberal the constitution might be. Only in a society where each individual lived off the fruits of their own labour in a completely laissez-faire economy, Dunoyer asserted, could a true harmony of interests exist.

In a long passage Dunoyer summarised his views on the harmony of interests in a purely industrial society. It was his opinion that only when every individual produced and traded their goods and services in a free market could the solution to the problem of political privilege, class conflict and exploitation be achieved. What is notable for its absence in this quotation is any discussion of constitutional freedoms, the balance of power between branches of the government, or the extent of the franchise. These classical problems of the constitutional liberals are irrelevant to Dunoyer and his "socially informed" liberalism, in which class structure, exploitation and mode of production hold the key to peace and freedom.

Il y a cela, dans les pays où l'industrie est la commune ressources des hommes, qu'ils peuvent tous satisfaire leurs besoins sans se causer mutuellement aucun dommage, sans attenter réciproquement à leur liberté. Par cela même que chacun porte son activité sur les choses, il est visible que nul homme n'est opprimé. On a beau se livrer chacun de son côté à l'étude des sciences, à la pratique des arts, nul ne fait ainsi violence à personne; on peut de toutes parts entrer dans ces voies et s'y donner carrière sans crainte de se heurter; on ne s'y rencontre point, on ne s'y fait pas obstacle, même alors qu'on s'y fait concurrence. Celui qui exerce une autre industrie que moi ne me trouble point; au contraire, son travail encourage le mien; car il m'offre la perspective d'un moyen d'échange, et la possibilité de satisfaire deux ordres de besoins, en ne créant qu'une seule sorte de produits. Celui qui se livre au même travail que moi ne me trouble pas davantage; sa concurrence, loin de m'empêcher d'agir, me stimule à mieux faire; et si j'ai moins de succès que lui, je peux m'affliger de mon incapacité, mais non me plaindre de son injustice. Il n'y a donc dans la carrière des arts producteurs que des rivalités innocentes; il n' a point d'oppresseur, point d'opprimé, et il n'est pas vrai de dire que l'on s'y trouve naturellement en état de guerre.

Toute domination disparaît des lieux où l'homme cherche uniquement dans le travail les moyens de pouvoir à sa subsistance; les rapports de maître et d'esclave sont détruits; les inégalités artificielle s'évanouissent; il ne reste entre les individus d'autre inégalité que celle qui résulte de leur nature. Un homme peut être plus heureux qu'un autre, parce qu'il peut être plus actif, plus habile, plus éclairé; mais nul ne prospère au détriment de son semblable; nul n'obtient rien que par l'échange ou la production; le bonheur de chacun s'étend aussi loin que peut le porter l'exercice inoffensif de ses forces, celui de personne ne va au-delà. [26]

To take full advantage of the benefits which the industrial system has to offer in greater productivity and prosperity, individuals will need to form a variety of voluntary associations to achieve their ends. Whereas in earlier modes of production men formed associations in order to make war or go on raiding parties, in the industrial mode of production there will be much greater need as well as greater opportunity to form private associations to achieve common goals. However, the object will no longer be war or war booty but peaceful production in such areas of activity as agriculture, construction, manufacturing, canal building, insurance and so on. Another similarity with earlier modes of production is that there will be a degree of ranking in industrial associations with large numbers of participants, with a leader, rank and file workers, and "officers" such as engineers and accountants. [27] Whatever the structural similarities might be with warrior bands or medieval guilds and corporations, the new industrial mode of production requires a quite different method of operation for its associations. Associations in previous modes of production sought to oppress their fellows, to restrict competition, to seize a monopoly of government posts, to get subsidies and other benefits from taxpayers' money. Under the régime of industry, Dunoyer argued, association would have as its purpose voluntary cooperation in order to transform physical resources into products for sale, not to deprive others of their property. It would help individuals to protect their liberty and property and would not be a cause of aggression against others. In all, industrial associations, Dunoyer optimistically believed, would add to the strength, prosperity and unity of the entire world. [28]

Having discussed how important associations are for the achievement of a diverse array of economic and social ends, Dunoyer turns to an analysis of associations of a purely political nature. And as happened on several occasions in the history of nineteenth century liberalism, extreme anti-statism and faith in the cooperative free market were pushed into a form of liberal anarchism. [29] Dunoyer concluded that the associations created for specific political purposes would gradually give up their monopolistic and coercive attributes and assume the structure and behaviour of private market associations. Like any other corporation or voluntary association, government associations would have to sell their products on a voluntary basis to customers who could not be coerced into purchasing the product. Their special powers of coercively taxing their customers to cover costs and their monopoly powers, which prevented customers seeking an alternative supply of the good or service, would no longer exist as all associations in the industrial era would be competitive. The state in the industrial mode of production would be nothing more than a voluntary association like any other, "une compagnie commerciale" [30] or "une entreprise d'industrie"31] like thousands of others, but charged by the public only with the responsibility of maintaining peace and order. It would not be aggressive, it would not be the private preserve of a particular social class. Those who were in its employ could not behave like political masters. They could not exercise domination over others and could not use taxes as a form of private tribute.

L'association chargée du service public n'a pas dans le régime industriel un caractère plus agressif que les autres. Le pouvoir n'y est pas un patrimoine; ceux qui le possèdent ne le tiennent pas de leur épée; ils ne règnent pas à titre de maîtres; ils n'exercent pas une domination; l'impôt n'est pas un tribut qu'on leur paie. Loin que la communauté leur appartienne, ils appatiennent à la communauté; ils dépendent d'elle qu'ils ont reçu ce pouvoir. Le gouvernement, dans l'industrie, n'est en réalité qu'un compagnie commerciale, commandité par la communauté et préposée par elle à la garde de l'ordre public. [32]

In other words, although the commercial company would be charged with maintaining public order, it would have exactly the same rights which every other citizen or private voluntary association has. It would only have the right to act against criminals who had committed acts against private property and public order. The life, liberty and property of citizens who have not acted in a criminal manner towards their fellows must not ever be interfered with by the officers of the company. In other words, Dunoyer believes that the public does not cede any of its rights concerning its liberty or property to the company in exchange for protection. It makes no compact with the state, as the Lockean tradition would have it, to give up some of its rights for public security.

La communauté, en le créant, ne se donne pas à lui; elle ne lui donne pas l'autorité sur elle; elle ne lui confère pas sur les personnes et les propriétés un pouvoir qu'elle-même n'a point: elle ne lui donne le pouvoir que contre les volontés malfaisantes, manifestées par des actes offensifs; elle ne lui permet d'agir contre les malfaiteurs qu'à raison de ces volontés et de ces actes. Du reste, chaque homme est maître absolu de sa personne, de sa chose, de ses actions, et le magistrat n'a le droit de se mêler en rien de la vie d'un citoyen tant qu'il ne trouble par aucun acte injuste l'existence d'aucun autre. [33]

The industrial state would behave differently to other states in previous modes of production in that it would no longer be an avenue for the ambitious to pursue a career. Strict controls on any increase in taxes or in the number of personnel would be placed upon it by a public jealous of its liberties. Only the barest minimum of money and man-power would be granted to the state to carry out its very limited functions and even this nominal amount of capital would be regretted. Resources would be reluctantly diverted from productive industrial use because of the unfortunate necessity to protect life and property from attack by those few unscrupulous individuals who lacked productive employment or who maintained pre-industrial morals. Much like Herbert Spencer, Dunoyer expected that as industrial morals became more widespread and as the prosperity of the industrial mode of production became increasingly apparent to all, then even this modest size of the state could be further decreased.

Comme le pouvoir n'est pas instituté en vue d'ouvrir une carrière aux ambitieux, et seulement pour créer une industrie à ceux qui n'en ont aucune, la société ne lui permet pas de s'étendre sans motifs, et d'agrandir la sphère de son activité pour pouvoir multiplier le nombre de ses créatures; elle veille attentivement à ce qu'il se renferme dans son objet. D'une autre part, elle ne lui donne en hommes et en argent que les secours dont il a besoin pour remplir convenablement sa tâche. Elle regrette même d'avoir à faire un tel emploi de ses capitaux et de son activité; non que cette dépense, tant qu'il y a d'injustes prétensions à réduire, des ambitions à contenir ou des méfaits à réprimer, ne lui paraisse très utile et même très productives; mais parce qu'il vaudrait encore mieux pour elle qu'elle ne fût pas nécessaire, et qu'elle pût employer à agir sur les choses le temps et les ressources qu'elle consume à se défendre contre certains hommes. Aussi, à mesure que tous ses membres apprennent à faire un usage plus inoffensif de leurs forces, diminue-t-elle par degrés celles de son gouvernement, et ne lui laisse-t-elle jamais que celles dont il a besoin pour la préserver de tout trouble. [34]

Concerning the possibilities of gradually reducing the size, scope, and cost of government as societies industrialised, Dunoyer took issue with the conservative Friedrich Gentz who argued the very opposite, that the costs of government would necessarily rise  as civilisation progressed.35] Dunoyer's confident prediction about the future costs of the government could be compared to the early works of Herbert Spencer, who predicted the elimination of the state on much the same grounds as Dunoyer did. Spencer believed the world was evolving from "militant" to "industrial" forms of organisation in which there would be little for the state to do, apart from protect property rights. He even granted that individuals had the "right to ignore the state" if they themselves were law-abiding. However, as he got older and the prospects for "industrial" society became worse, Spencer gave up his liberal anarchist beliefs and admitted that a long "transitional" stage, during which the state was necessary, was required. [36] Although there are striking similarities between Dunoyer's theory of industrialism and Spencer's idea of a militant and industrial types of societies, there is no evidence that Spencer was aware of Dunoyer's work. It appears that Dunoyer came to the anarchist position as a result of his belief in the harmony of economic interests and his liberal theory of class and history.

The same forces which were acting to reduce the need for the state in domestic matters were at work in the relations between states. As more people gradually turned to industrial activities, the impulses to wage war against other nations (such as the desire of monarchs to seize neighbouring territory, or to create exclusive trading zones for privileged domestic producers) would also gradually disappear. Each nation would come to realise that its own best interests would be served by having prosperous and civilised neighbours with whom one could trade and visit. The military forces of an industrial state would be used solely for defence and even then only with considerable regret and reluctance. As with the costs of internal policing, the costs of defense are regretted because it drains off capital which could be used to increase production. Even in a just, defensive war the industrial state would be most reluctant to use its military forces as it would realise how disastrous the consequences of any war are. The "passion of industrious people for peace" would be so strong that they could not wait for the moment when industrial values had spread sufficiently for them to disarm completely, to abandon all their armed fortresses, to cut military spending, and to see all resources entirely directed to productive industrial activity. [37] Once again it was the United States which Dunoyer used to show what was in store for European nations that took the path towards an industrial society. Internally its economic system resulted in an absence of a ruling class and externally it posed no threat to other nations by invasion or the conquest of colonies. Each state's militia and armed forces were subordinated to the federal government with the purely industrial purpose of self defence. The only reservation Dunoyer had about the size and cost of the American military was that it was still higher than it would be if European nations too were industrial. The major reason why the United States did not altogether abolish its military was the threat posed by aggressive European states, who still clung to pre-industrial modes of behaviour. In fact, he thought that it was only because of the threat posed by "l'esprit dominateur des gouvernements d'Europe" that the American states felt the need to form a federation and have a national defence force in the first place. Dunoyer confidently predicted that as soon as the major European nations entered the industrial stage of economic evolution America would no longer be forced to maintain even this low level of defence spending and could therefore introduce the necessary cuts in military spending, which would make it a truly pacifist and industrial nation. [38]

The Withering Away of the State, or the Municipalisation of the World

What then can we conclude about Dunoyer's attitude concerning the role of the state in the future industrial society? There are three possibilities all of which he advocated at various places in L'Industrie et la morale - the liberal anarchist position where the state gradually withers away to the point where only voluntary private associations of free individuals existed; [39] a more liberal constitutionalist position of a severely limited state whose only functions would be the protection of individual liberty and property by the police and armed forces; and a position part way between free market anarchism and limited government where nation states are broken up and the world is "municipalised" into small communities based upon economic and cultural ties.

Occasionally Dunoyer seems to go as far as Molinari was to in 1849 with his startling proposal to view the defense and police functions of the state as just another business venture which would charge for its services to individual customers. [40] His use of the description of the state as only "une compagnie commerciale" or "une enterprise d'industrie" seems to support this interpretation but, like Spencer, he offers no detailed plan as to how commercial associations could provide the essential functions of law and order and national defence without collapsing into chaos. On the other hand, there are times when Dunoyer appears more conventional in his advocacy of a strictly limited state, limited to protecting individuals and their property from the aggression of others. If Dunoyer is a defender of the limited state he is so reluctantly, because he is aware of the state's inner momentum to always expand its sphere of operation, to increase the burden of its taxes and charges, to increase the number of those who are employed by it, and to favour certain individuals and even entire industries with special legal and economic privileges. What little power and funding Dunoyer might grant the state is done so very reluctantly and very cautiously.

Perhaps a more accurate interpretation of Dunoyer's theory of the rôle of the state in a future industrial society lies somewhere between these two views. While not a consistent liberal anarchist, as say Molinari, he also should not be seen as just another defender of the traditional "night-watchman" state which, though small, still had a monopoly of political power in a given geographical area. Dunoyer's solution to the problem of the state was to so radically decentralise its power that the entire world would be literally "municipalised." He was so convinced of the benefits of small-scale voluntary associations and the evils of political society that he thought that industry would gradually dissolve most large-scale political associations in a process which would result in what one might call the "municipalisation of the world." What Dunoyer meant by municipalisation was the gradual break up of the nation state into more logical economic units which were united cooperatively by cultural and economic exchanges. He thought there was no logical reason why ten, twenty or thirty million people should be forced to associate within the boundaries of a nation state. Rather, Dunoyer predicted that borders would gradually become invisible and towns and cities hitherto separated by artificial barriers would form their own economic and cultural units voluntarily. This vision of a decentralised industrial world more closely approximated the communitarian anarchism of Gustave de Molinari in his later writings, once he had abandoned his more extreme free market anarchism of private police and defense companies. Molinari later modified his views, under the double pressure of isolation and criticism by his liberal colleagues, to a position in which competition would not be between private companies within a city or town for protection services, but between proprietary communities competing for citizens. [41] Dunoyer explained in a lengthy footnote towards the end of chapter nine of L'Industrie et la morale that his model nation, the United States of America, had been forced into a large-scale political union because of the threat posed by the "dominating spirit" of the various European governments. Without the external threat of hostile European states the United States of America, he thought, would have more naturally evolved into a less structured and centralised political system, more in keeping with his own hopes for a future purely industrial society, rather than a clumsy federation.

Il n'y a point dans l'industrie de motifs à des coalitions aussi vastes; il n'y a point d'entreprise qui réclame l'union de dix, de vingt, de trente millions d'hommes. C'est l'esprit de domination qui a formé ces agrégations monstreuses ou qui les a rendues nécessaires; c'est l'esprit d'industrie qui les dissoudra: un de ses derniers, de ses plus grands et de ses plus salutaires effets paraît devoir être de municipaliser le monde. Sous son influence les peuples commenceront par se gouverner plus naturellement; on ne verra plus réunis sous une même dénomination vingt peuples étrangers l'un à l'autre, disséminés quelquefois dans les quartiers du globe les plus opposés, et moins séparés encore par les distances que par la langage et les moeurs. Les peuples se rapprocheront, s'agglomèreront d'après leurs analogies réelles et suivant leurs véritables intérêts. Ensuite, quoique formés, chacun de leur côtés, d'élémens plus homogènes, ils seront pourtant entre eux infiniment moins opposés. N'ayant plus mutuellement à se craindre, ne tendant plus à s'isoler, ils ne graviteront plus aussi fortement vers leurs centres et ne se repousseront plus aussi violemment par leurs extrémités. Leurs frontières cesseront d'être hérissées de forteresses; elles ne seront plus bordées d'une double ou triple ligne de douaniers et de soldats. Quelques intérêts tiendront encore réunis les membres d'une même agrégation, une communauté plus particulière de langage, une plus grande conformité de moeurs, l'influence de villes capitales d'où l'on a contracté l'habitude de tirer ses idées, ses lois, ses modes, ses usages; mais ses intérêts continueront à distinguer les agrégations sans qu'il reste entre elles d'inimitiés. Il arrivera, dans chaques pays, que les habitants les plus rapprochés des frontières auront plus de communications avec les étrangers voisine qu'avec des compatriotes éloingnés. Il s'opérera d'ailleurs une fusion continuelle des habitants de chaque pays avec ceux des autres. Chacun portera ses capitaux et son activité là où il verra plus de moyens de les faire fructifier. Par là les mêmes arts seront bientôt cultivés avec un égal succès chez tous les peuples; les mêmes idées circuleront dans tous les pays; les différences de moeurs et de langage finiront à la longue par s'effacer. Dans le même temps, une multitudes de localités, acquérant plus d'importance, sentiront moins le besoin de rester unies à leurs capitales; elles deviendront à leur tour des chefs-lieux; les centres d'actions se multiplieront; et finalement les plus vastes contrées finiront par ne présenter qu'un seul peuple, composé d'un nombre infini d'agregations uniformes, agrégations entre lesquelles s'établiront, sans confusions et sans violences, les relations les plus compliquées et tout à la fois les plus faciles, les plus paisible et les plus profitables. [42]

Using the experience of the United States as an historical case study and his theory of industrialism as a guide for the future evolution of modern society, Dunoyer endeavoured to predict what his ideal industrial society of the future might be like. Since the "spirit of domination" had created vaste nation states or "agrégations monstreuses," the spirit of industry would inevitably break them down into smaller communities in a process of "municipalisation" of the entire world. Associations among people would now follow the "natural" inclination encouraged by language, religion, shared political values, or trade and armed frontiers would dissolve as individuals moved about the globe trading with each other. Without the need to enforce trading monopolies and protect privileged political classes, there would no longer be any need for customs officials or soldiers. Capital, goods and people would then be free to travel wherever they wanted. By a process of the fusion of people brought together by the free market and a process of the breakup of the centralised nation state, the world would now approach the ideal of myriads of trading communities bound together only by economic self-interest and culture and no longer by military, political or religious compulsion.

Conclusion

Marx read most of the 18th and 19thC liberal writers I have mentioned in this paper and borrowed heavily from them in the development of his own ideas about the evolution of society through stages and class analysis. Just as liberals like Dunoyer modified the classic 18thC "four stage theory" to suit the changed conditions of restoration France, so too did Marx make changes to suit his own needs and interests. However, the political and economic failure of Marxist societies and the moral bankruptcy of Marxism as a political ideology should not hide the fact that some of Marx's ideas are still worthy of analysis and discussion. The danger is that many historians will abandon stage theories of history and class analysis as tainted with the disaster which was Marxism. This would be a mistake as I believe much of value in historical analysis can be had from a continued interest in a theory of history which takes into account the evolution of societies through stages of economic development and the idea of class analysis, if not in the form adapted and used by Marx himself, but at least the original and better (but noiw largely ignored) clasical liberal form.

Endnotes

[1] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 313-4.

[2] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 322-3.

[3] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 323.

[4] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 371, footnote.

[5] "Les états de l'Union Anglo-Américaine nous offrent un modèle à ce qu'il semble assez exact d'une société qui a fondé son existence sur l'industrie et qui s'est organisée en conséquence." Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 324.

[6] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 327, footnote.

[7] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 330-1.

[8] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 332.

[9] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 334-5.

[10] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 337.

[11] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 341, footnote.

[12] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 340.

[13] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 342.

[14] The best known exponent of this view in the mid-nineteenth century was the free trade activist, member of the Chamber of Deputies and anti-socialist, Frédéric Bastiat, whose incomplete collection of popular essays appropriately named Economic Harmonies appeared posthumously in 1850. Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, transl W. Hayden Boyers, ed. George B. de Huszar (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Foundation for Economic Freedom, 1968).

[15] de Bonald, Réflexions sur l'intérêt général de l'Europe quoted in Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 328.

[16] Michel de Montaigne, Complete Essays, ed. Donald Frame (Stanford University Press, 1958), from Book 1, ch. 21.

[17] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité, trans. Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), note I, pp. 146-54, especially pp. 147-8.

[18] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 351, footnote.

[19] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 353, footnote.

[20] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 329, footnote.

[21] "Certains politiques de nos jours (des écrivains monarchiques) posent d'abord en fait que toutes les classes d'hommes ont des intérêts nécessairement opposés; que, par la nature même des choses, il n'en est pas une qui ne fonde sa prospérité sur des priviléges ou des monopoles contraires à la prospérité des autres, et ensuite il prétendent par leur art faire vivre en paix toutes les classes ennemies." Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 342-3. In a lengthy footnote Dunoyer rejects in typical fashion the similar argument put forward in an article in the Journal des Débats on 9 December 1820: "Le remède que l'auteur de ces paroles propose à cette opposition, c'est d'enrégimenter tous les intérêts analogues, de les armer et de leur donner le moyen de défendre leurs prétentions exclusives, qu'il appelle les intérêts permanens et généraux de la société. Il prétend fonder l'ordre en constituant, en rendant permanent et indestructible l'anarchie que lui-même vient de signaler."

[22] "... ils (les libéraux) ne disconviennent pas qu'il n'y ait dans la société beaucoup de prétentions injustes, beaucoup de gens qui veulent aller à la fortune par des mauvais moyens; mais ils pensent qu'une habile orgaisation du pouvoir pourrrait neutraliser tous les vices et faire aller les choses comme s'ils n'existaient pas." Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 344. See also Dunoyer's remarks about the inadequacies of traditional political philosophy in the early Restoration due to the neglect of the new science of political economy in "Esquisse," Revue encyclopédique.

[23] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 344.

[24] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 345.

[25] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 347.

[26] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 348-9.

[27] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 355-6.

[28] Contrasting industrial associations with associations in the régime of privilége Dunoyer concluded: "Il n'en est pas ainsi dans l'industrie: on y est également associé, mais c'est pour agir sur les choses et non pour dépouiller les hommes; c'est encore pour se défendre, ce n'est plus du tout pour opprimer. Il n'y a pas une association dont l'objet soit hostile. On est uni pour la propagation d'une doctrine, pour l'extension d'une méthode, pour l'ouverture d'un canal, pour la construction d'une route, on est ligué contre les fléaux de la nature, contre les risques de mer, contre les dangers de l'incendie ou les ravages de la grêle; mais il n'y a visiblement rien d'oppressif dans tout cela. Il ne s'agit pas ici, comme dans les anciennes corporations, d'accaparer, de prohiber, d'empêcher les autres de faire: loin que des coalitions ainsi dirigées limitent les facultés de personne, elles ajoutent à la puissance de tout le monde, et il n'est pas un individu qui ne soit plus fort par le fait de leur existence qu'il ne le serait si elles n'existaient pas." Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 357.

[29] The clearest examples of this tendency are Gustave de Molinari, Thomas Hodgskin and Herbert Spencer.

[30] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 358.

[31] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 323. Dunoyer had already hinted at this idea in an essay in Le Censeur européen. In this essay Dunoyer argued 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." Le Censeur européen, vol. 2, p.102.

[32] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 358.

[33] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 359.

[34] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 359-60.

[35] Dunoyer, L'industrie et la morale, p. 297-8, footnote.

[36] Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: The Conditions essential to Human Happiness specified, and the first of them developed (New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1970), chapter XIX, "The Right to Ignore the State", pp. 185-94 which Spencer left out in later editions of Social Statics. David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, 1978), chapter 6, "The Limits of State Intervention", pp. 135-64. J.D.Y. Peel, Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (London: Heinemann, 1971), "Anti-Politics of the 1840s" pp. 56-81. Spencer develops his arguments about industrial types of society in Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, ed. Stanislav Andreski (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1969).

[37] "... elles (les nations) savent combien sont encore funestes les guerres les plus légitimes et les plus heureuses, et combien il serait préférable pour elles et pour le monde qu'elles pussent employer à des travaux utiles le temps et les ressources que la barbarie de leurs ennemis les oblige de sacrifier à leur sûreté. Aussi, n'auraient-elles pas, malgré la supériorité de leur puisssance, de plus grand désir que de pouvoir poser les armes, abandonner leurs fortresses, relâcher les liens que la nécessité de la défense a formés, laisser agir en liberté l'esprit local et l'indépendance individuelle, et consacrer en paix toutes leurs forces à ouvrir au monde de nouvelles sources de prospérité." Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 361-2.

[38] "Et quoique, dans ce déploiement de forces purement défensives, l'Amérique reste forte arrière de ce qu'elle pourrait, elle va encore fort au-delà de ce qu'elle voudrait. Son désir le plus ardent serait de pouvoir être tout entière à ses affaires, à ses travaux, au soin de sa culture intellectuelle et de son perfectionnement moral; et lorsqu'un jour l'activité industrielle, devenue prédominante en Europe, y aura détruit enfin les ligues de l'ambition, elle sera heureuse sans doute de rompre celles que nous la contraignons de former pour sa défense, et de pouvoir offrir au monde le spectacle de populations innombrables, livrées sans partage aux arts de la paix." Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, pp. 365-6.

[39] Interestingly the Saint-Simonian type of industrialism also envisaged a withering away of the state. In the case of Auguste Comte it is not the ties of the market which make the state redundant but the ties of civic responsibility in the city and the morality of the church. See the interesting article by Richard Vernon, "Auguste Comte and the Withering-Away of the State," Journal of the History of Ideas, October-December 1984, vol. XLV, no. 4, pp. 549-66.

[40] Gustave de Molinari, "De la production de la sécurité," Journal des Économistes, 1849, vol. 22, pp. 277-290, and a little later in Les soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare: entretiens sur les lois économique et défense de la propriété (Paris: Guillaumin, 1849), "Onzième soirée," pp. 303-337.

[41] The evolution of Molinari's views are discussed in David M. Hart, "Molinari, Gustave de and the Anti-statist Liberal Tradition: Part I," Journal of Libertarian Studies, Summer 1981, vol. V, no. 3, pp. 263-290.

[42] Dunoyer, L'Industrie et la morale, p. 366-7, fn 1.