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Re-evaluating Benjamin Constant's liberalism: industrialism, Saint-Simonianism and the Restoration years

2004; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2003.08.007

1873-541X

Helena Rosenblatt,

Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought

Abstract This essay contests the notion that there was a necessary and fundamental opposition between republicanism and liberalism during the post-Revolutionary period in France. Constant's writings of the Restoration years show his abiding interest in both the construction of viable political institutions and the promotion of a vibrant political life. Worried about what he saw as growing authoritarian trends within the liberal camp, Constant wrote about the need to keep political liberty alive in commercial republics. His refutations of Auguste Comte and the Saint-Simonians, and his writings on religion, should be seen as offering pointed lessons to fellow liberals about the crucial importance of both politics and the moral values promoted by religious freedom. Notes 1 The "commercial" republicanism referred to by James Livesey and Richard Whatmore (cited below), for example, sounds to me more like modern liberalism than "classical" or "neo-Roman" (Quentin Skinner) republicanism. 2 Stephen Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 1. 3 The classic statement of this point of view on Constant is Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty," in Four Essays on Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press 1969), pp. 118–172. 4 Benjamin Constant "De la liberté des anciens comparée avec celle des modernes," in Ecrits politiques, Marcel Gauchet ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), pp. 593–600. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are my own. 5 See, for example, Libéralisme et républicanisme, Stéphane Chavier, ed. (Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2000); Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Richard Whatmore, Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say's Political Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); James Livesey, Making Democracy in the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001). Conservative criticisms of liberalism are surveyed by Stephen Holmes in "The Permanent Structure of Antiliberal Thought," Liberalism and the Moral Life, Nancy Rosenblum ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989). 6 Current admirers of republicanism commit many of the "communitarian" errors described in Jeffrey Isaac, "Republicanism vs. Liberalism," History of Political Thought, vol IX, no. 2, Summer 1988—they caricaturize liberalism so as to better denounce it. There is a growing number of scholars dissatisfied with this characterization of Constant. See, most recently, James Mitchell Lee, "Doux Commerce, Social Organization, and Modern Liberty in the Thought of Benjamin Constant," Annales Benjamin Constant, 25 (2002). 7 Etienne Hofmann, Les "Principes de politique"de Benjamin Constant: la genèse d'une œuvre et l'évolution de la pensée de leur auteur, 1789–1806 (Geneva: Droz, 1980). 8 Marcel Gauchet, "Constant," in Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution francaise, François Furet and Mona Ozouf eds. (Paris: Flammarion, 1988), p. 951. 9 K. Steven Vincent, "Benjamin Constant, The French Revolution, and the Origins of French Romantic Liberalism," French Historical Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 2000, pp. 607–637. 10 Mélanges de littérature et politique, in Ecrits politiques, op. cit., p. 623. 11 Paul Bastid, Benjamin Constant et sa doctrine, 2 vols. (Paris: A. Colin, 1966); "L'épanouissement" is the title of chapter vi on Constant's Restoration years. 12 Tocqueville's indebtedness to these debates—and in particular to the ideas of the Doctrinaire liberal François Guizot is at present a subject of intense discussion—On this, see Larry Siedentop's introduction to his edition of François Guizot's The History of Civilization in Europe; Aurelian Craiutu, "The Difficult Apprenticeship of Liberty: Reflections on the Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires," Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2000; and Melvin Richter's essay review of Sheldon Wolin's Tocqueville Between Two Worlds. The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life, in La revue Tocqueville, forthcoming. 13 Henri Gouhier, La jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, 3 vols. (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1933–41), vol. 3, p. 1. 14 Charles Dunoyer, "Esquisse historique des doctrines auxquelles on a donné le nom d'Industrialisme, c'est-à-dire, des doctrines qui fondent la société sur l'Industrie," Revue encyclopédique, t. 33 (1827), p. 378. 15 On the Idéologues, see Cheryl Welch, Liberty and Utility: The French Idéologues and the Transformation of Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); Thomas Kaiser, "Politics and Political Economy in the Thought of the Ideologues," History of Political Economy 12:2 (1980), pp. 141–160; see also James Mitchell Lee, art.cit. 16 Auguste Comte. An Intellectual Biography vol. I, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 96; see also Ephraim Harpaz, Le Censeur. Le Censeur européen. Histoire d'un journal libéral et industrialiste (Geneva: Slatkine: 2000); Elie Halévy, L'Ere des tyrannies (Paris: Gallimard, c. 1938). 17 Benjamin Constant, "The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation and their Relation to European Civilization," in Political Writings, Biancamaria Fontana, transl. and ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 53–54. Constant's relationship to the doux commerce tradition is explored in Helena Rosenblatt, "Commerce et religion dans le libéralisme de Benjamin Constant" Commentaire 102 (Summer, 2003). 18 Ch. Dunoyer, art.cit., pp. 374, 375, 370. 19 Le Censeur européen (Paris: Renaudière, 1817), t. 1, pp. llj, 5, 71 and passim. 20 Le Censeur européen (Paris: Renaudière, 1817), t. 2, pp. 1, 102. 21 "L'Industrie," in Oeuvres de Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon (Paris: Anthropolos, 1966), t. 1, p. 185. 22 Liberty, Saint-Simon held, means "not to be disturbed in the work of production, not to be hampered in the enjoyment of what [men] have produced." "L'Industrie," in Oeuvres, op. cit., p. 128. 23 H. Gouhier, op. cit., p. 224; see also M. Pickering, op. cit., p. 219. 24 L'Industrie, mai 1817, in Oeuvres, op. cit., p. 174. 25 Du système industriel, in Oeuvres, op. cit., t. 3, p. 10 26 Ibid., p. 15 and passim. 27 Here I borrow the words of Georg Iggers, The Cult of Authority; the Political Philosophy of the Saint-Simonians, a Chapter in the Intellectual History of Totalitarianism (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1958), p. 20. 28 Catéchisme des industriels, in Oeuvres, op. cit., t. 4, pp. 82, 91. 29 Catéchisme des industriels, Oeuvres, op. cit., t. 4, p.82. 30 Catéchisme des industriels, Oeuvres, op. cit., t. 4, pp. 178–203. 31 M.Gauchet, art. cit. 32 Ch. Dunoyer, "Esquisse," art. cit., pp. 373–374. 33 Du Système industriel, in Oeuvres, op. cit., t. 3, p. 15. 34 Some scholars treat the Commentaire as if it were mainly about Filangieri, as opposed to a certain French use of Filangieri, and thereby miss its essential message. See, for example, Clorinda Donato "Benjamin Constant and the Italian Enlightenment in the Commentaire sur l'ouvrage de Filangieri: Notes for an Intercultural Reading," in Historical Reflections/Refléxions historiques, vol. 28, no. 3 (Fall, 2002), pp. 439–452. Donato mentions the work of Vittorio Frosini (in footnote #3), who seems to commit the same error. 35 Commentaire sur l'ouvrage de Filangieri, Paris, 1822 and 1824, p. 73. 36 Ibid., p. 3. 37 Ibid., p. 66. 38 Ibid., p. 34. 39 Ibid., p. 87. 40 The political dimensions of lamenting (or praising) a people's moral character is insightfully explored in Roberto Romani, National Character and Public Spirit in Britain and France, 1750–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 41 "De M. Dunoyer et de quelques-uns de ses ouvrages, in Benjamin Constant," Ecrits politiques, Marcel Gauchet, ed., Paris, 1997, pp. 663, 661, 662. 42 Ibid., p. 663. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid., p. 659. 45 Ibid. 46 Mary Pickering, op. cit., p. 141. 47 Essay 3: "Plan of the Scientific Work Necessary for the Reorganization of Society" (orig. 1822–24), in Early Political Writings, H. Jones, ed., Cambridge, 1998, p. 72. 48 Ibid., p. 85. 49 Ibid., p. 49. 50 Essay 1: "General Separation between Opinions and Desires" (orig. Submitted to Le Censeur in July 1819, but not published), in Early Political Writings, op. cit., p. 1. 51 Essay 3, op. cit., p. 72. 52 Ibid., p. 62. 53 Ibid., p. 65. 54 Ibid., p. 55. 55 Essay 5: "Considerations on the Spiritual Power," (essay first published as a series of three articles in Le Producteur on 24 December 1825 and 11 and 18 February 1826) in Early Political Writings, op. cit., p. 208. 56 M. Pickering, op. cit., pp. 358–9. 57 Essay 5, op. cit., p. 198. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., p. 208. 60 Ibid., p. 219. 61 Ibid., p. 220. 62 Ibid., p. 205. 63 Ibid., p. 203. 64 Ibid., p. 205. 65 Keith Michael Baker, "Closing the French Revolution: Saint-Simon and Comte," in The French Revolution and the Transformation of Modern Political Culture, vol. III, The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848, François Furet and Mona Ozouf, eds. (New York: Pergamon Press, 1989), p. 323. 66 Mary Pickering, op. cit., p. 247; see also Philippe Steiner, "Comment stabiliser l'ordre social moderne? J.-B. Say, l'économie politique et la Révolution," in La pensée économique pendant la Révolution francaise, Gilbert Faccarello and Philippe Steiner eds. (Grenoble: Cahiers de l'ISMEA, 1991), pp. 173–193; Cheryl Welch, De Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 26: "Guizot's perspective–while not completely abandoning politics to mere administration as did Saint-Simon or Comte, nevertheless shares more with Comte's perspective than it does with Tocqueville's." See also Sophie-Anne Leterrier, "La notion du pouvoir spirituel au début du xixe siècle," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, t. xxxv (jan-mars, 1988), pp. 107–122; and Alan Spitzer, The French Generation of 1820 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), who comments also on the complicity between Victor Cousin and Saint-Simon; and H.S. Jones, "Introduction," to Auguste Comte, Early Political Writings, H.S. Jones, transl. and ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. viii. 67 Quoted by Jean-Jacques Goblot, La jeune France libérale: Le Globe et son groupe littéraire (Paris: Plon, 1995), p. 252. 68 George Armstrong Kelly, The Humane Comedy: Constant, Tocqueville and French Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 69 Edward Berenson, "A New Religion of the Left: Christianity and Social Radicalism in France, 1815–1848," in The French Revolution and the Transformation of Modern Political Culture, vol. III, The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848, op. cit. 70 A good introductory discussion can be found in Donald G. Charlton, Secular Religions in France, 1815–1870 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963). 71 "Comment les dogmes finissent," in Le Globe, 24 May 1825. Jouffroy speaks of the younger generation's desire to "découvrir la doctrine nouvelle à laquelle toutes les intelligences aspirent…" and clearly feels he is living at the dawn of a new era: "Enfin les temps sont arrivés, et deux choses sont devenues inévitables: que la foi nouvelle soit publiée, et qu'elle envahisse toute la société." 72 J.-J. Goblot, op.cit., p. 523. 73 Ibid. 74 "De M. Dunoyer," op. cit., p. 674. 75 Ibid., p. 675. 76 Ibid., p. 674. 77 Esprit de Conquête, in Ecrits politiques, op. cit., p. 77. 78 "Du développement progressif des idées religieuses," originally published in the Encyclopédie progressive (1826) and then reproduced in the Mélanges (1829), in Ecrits politiques, op. cit., p. 653; and De la religion. 79 Principes de politique, in Ecrits politiques, op.cit. p. 286. 80 "Du développement progressif des idées religieuses," in Ecrits politiques, op.cit., pp. 639–640. 81 Ibid., p. 652. 82 Tzvetan Todorov, the title of his introductory remarks to the modern reprint of De la religion at Actes Sud, 1999. 83 S. Holmes, op. cit., p. 15. 84 See for example in his preface, p. 33 and again p. 34 (of De la religion considérée dans sa source, ses formes et ses développements, Tzvetan Todorov and Etienne Hofmann eds., Actes Sud, 1999). 85 On this, see Helena Rosenblatt, "Nouvelles perspectives sur De la religion: Benjamin Constant et la franc-maçonnerie," Annales Benjamin Constant, No. 23–24, 2000. 86 De M. Dunoyer, op. cit., p. 676. 87 Ibid., p. 651 where he addresses himself to "the generation that is rising." See also the eulogy of Constant published just after his death (Le Constitutionnel, 13 December 1830, reproduced in Recueil d'articles 1829–1830, Ephraim Harpaz, ed. (Paris: Champion, 1992), p. 588, which refers to his sincere attachment to, and concern for, young students most of all. 88 Ibid., p. 662, my italics.