French Socialists before Marx (review)

Pilbeam, Pamela. French Socialists before Marx. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2000. Pp. 259. ISBN 0-7735-2199-2

To understand the effect of Marxist socialism means, above all, to understand the development of communism. To understand the effect of socialism before Marx means, above all, to understand the development of democracy. Given recent historical events, a study of the latter is, arguably, becoming more pertinent than of the former. Pamela Pilbeam's French Socialists Before Marx contributes to our understanding of pre-Marxist socialism, utopic movements, and their role in the history of democratic governments. Other studies of French socialism, Pilbeam contends, tend to describe the movement either in terms of its proponents' lives and contributions or in terms of its role in other movements, such as utopianism. Pil-beam's book, however, presents socialism as a forceful and influential movement in its own right by analyzing its impact upon post-revolutionary French society: most notably, its significant contributions to educational reform, redefinition of women's roles, and transformation of labor conditions and policies. French Socialists Before Marx pays particular attention to the relationship between the two main early socialist currents, initiated by Fourier and Saint-Simon. At the same time, it does not neglect the contributions of other socialist thinkers, such as Cabet, Blanc, Proudhon, Blanqui, Considérant, nor of the most noteworthy and often ignored female socialists, including Deroin, Niboyet, Tristan, Gay, De Gamond and Roland.

Socialism, Pilbeam maintains, found its roots in post-revolutionary republicanism. forming with it the basis for democracy. Unlike republicanism, however, its main concern was primarily social rather than political: namely, how to address the problems of class conflict and unemployment by means of social associations. While sharing this interest, however, the French socialists disagreed about what constitutes an association and its role in society. Fourier and Cabet desired to set up autonomous and, many argue, utopic communities (les phalanges and Icarie) that were organized primarily around non-economic principles, such as the satisfaction of pleasure and of the imagination. Other, more pragmatic socialists, such as Blanc, Saint-Simon, and Owen, envisioned the socialist community as determined by economic coop-eration and state intervention in the redistribution of wealth.

The first few chapters examine how the main socialist thinkers - namely, Cabet, Fourier, and Saint-Simon - formulated and addressed "the social question." Not surprisingly, Fourier appears as the most original and eccentric theorist of the group. Combining pragmatic hopes for creating actual communities with the wildest pro-ducts of the imagination, Fourier wished to lay the basis of society in terms of the organization of human beings into groups, orphalanges, determined by their pas-sional natures, tastes, and attractions. While his imaginative communities did not capture of the imagination of investors and only led to a few such social experiments, the more rationalist brand of socialism outlined by Saint-Simon made its way more easily into French politics and society. Saint-Simon argued that the root of social problems was political - namely, bad leadership - but viewed their solution as social. As Pilbeam notes, he set up a positivist, rational organization of society that "de-manded a radical reworking of the social framework to address the urgent problems of poverty and social inequality" (17).

Unlike the more scientific brand of socialism proposed by Marx, early socialism was visionary and even mystical in nature. The French socialists regarded their proposals for reform as compatible with, and even dependent upon, religion. The fourth chapter describes the complex interaction between socialist and religious ideals. Pilbearn identifies both the problems that socialist models posed for Catholicism - particularly Fourier's impassioned arguments against monogamy and traditional morality - and socialism's dream to provide an ethical framework, partly inspired by Catholic principles, that would be as strong as that of traditional religions.

Pilbeam then illustrates how socialist thought built upon and transformed the legacy of the Rousseauistic model of education, which understood social development as a cultivation of natural qualities. The author explores very carefully the...