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THE
CLASSICAL LIBERAL TRADITION dmhart@mac.com © 2003 |
THE
RADICAL LIBERALISM OF CHARLES COMTE AND CHARLES
DUNOYER 4. CHARLES DUNOYER AND THE THEORY OF INDUSTRIALISM |
Updated:
October 28, 2003 |
Whilst Comte was forced into exile to escape paying a hefty fine and serving a prison sentence for his violation of the censorship laws, Dunoyer also had to give up his career as an opposition journalist and seek an alternative occupation. The path he chose was strikingly similar to that chosen by Comte and even after they went their separate ways after 1820 their lives were very much in parallel. Whilst Comte was teaching law in Lausanne Dunoyer lectured on moral philosophy and industry in Paris. Later, they both held a variety of legal and political posts under the July Monarchy and, in the case of Dunoyer who survived into the Second Empire, also under Napoleon III. Both became disillusioned with political office and resigned or retired. Both were appointed members of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences when it was revived by Guizot during the July Monarchy and both continued to work on their magna opera. Yet, in addition to their scholarly activity, they both continued to write pamphlets on matters of current political concern. For a while in the early 1820s Dunoyer continued to be active in liberal political circles (which included La Fayette, the duc de Broglie and Auguste de Staël), writing pamphlets to the restricted electorate on the need for them to return liberal deputies to the Chamber[250] and agitating for the abolition of slavery. However, he was soon diverted from this activity by the opportunity to take up an academic career.
While Comte was working on his project on legislation and property (in which much thought was given to questions of class, the mode of production, and historical development), Dunoyer was at work on a slightly different task - the creation of a liberal theory of "industrialism" which was the name he gave to his theory of class and the evolution of different modes of production throughout history. After the closure of the daily paper, Le Censeur européen in June 1820, Dunoyer was most fortunate to be able to secure a teaching post at the Athénée Saint-Germain in Paris. In the winter of 1825 he gave a series of lectures on a topic he had been formulating ever since he had first come into contact with Jean-Baptiste Say's economic theories, namely the theory of industrialism. These lectures set down the basic framework of his class analysis which Dunoyer retained for the rest of his life and which was elaborated in increasing levels of detail in three important books published in 1825, 1830 and 1845.[251] It was appropriate that Dunoyer gave his lectures at the Athénée because it was at this institution that both Say and Constant previously had given their lectures on political economy and political thought respectively.[252] In his lectures Dunoyer presented a schema of economic evolution from one stage of production to another, each stage having a peculiar class structure and method of exploitation which depended upon the mode of production specific to that society. His analysis began with the state of savagery, then progressed through nomadism, slavery, the system of political privilege under feudalism and mercantilism under the old regime, what Dunoyer called the system of political "place-seeking" under the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, and which ended with the ultimate stage of industrialism. Although the content of Dunoyer's lectures mainly concerns the sociological structure of the emerging industrial society and the various historical forms it has assumed in its trajectory into the present, Dunoyer admits that the hidden agenda for his work is the much broader problem of the nature of individual liberty, neatly summed up in the motto appended to the title-page: "We can only become free by becoming industrious and moral." Another concern, as the full title of the book suggests, is the "morals" or political culture which arises from each different mode of production. Dunoyer believed that the mode of production which existed at any given time had a profound effect on the intellectual, religious, cultural and moral development of individuals and that much of human behaviour could be explained or understood by a close examination of the economic forces which were at work in every society. At least twenty years before Marx made a similar attempt it will become clear that liberal writers were exploring much the same territory, albeit with a vastly different purpose in mind.
Before discussing Dunoyer's liberal version of the theory of industrialism and the debate it engendered both within and without liberal circles, it is necessary to give a brief outline of the intellectual origins of his liberal theory of class and the evolution of society through stages, culminating in the pure liberal society of "industrialism." It should be noted that there were at least five schools of thought which contributed in some way to Comte's and Dunoyer's theory of class and industry, although the precise degree of influence is often difficult to gauge in some instances.[253] These schools of thought include the seventeenth century theorists of natural law Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, the Physiocrats, the Scottish Enlightenment, the philosophes, and the Idéologues who bridged the gap between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Having been trained as lawyers in the early years of the nineteenth century Comte and Dunoyer no doubt read the works of Hugo Grotius and Samuel von Pufendorf on natural law. The scattered though quite numerous references to their work clearly indicates that the impact of Grotius and Pufendorf was one which lasted well beyond their years as law students. The influence of these seventeenth century philosophers on early nineteenth century French attitudes to legal theory, property rights, social and economic structure and evolution has yet to be determined. Comte and Dunoyer, in addition to their own legal training, may have indirectly come across the Grotian tradition either by reading the works of Condorcet or by their personal contact with radical liberals in the Condorcet camp. For example, one historian who has written on Condorcet believes that Grotius and Pufendorf influenced Condorcet's social theory, perhaps via Montesquieu, and provided him with grounds for rejecting the Hobbesian and Rousseauian tradition of natural jurisprudence.[254] More direct evidence of an influence of Grotius on Comte comes from occasional direct references to Grotius and other members of the school of natural law in his magnum opus, the Traité de législation, in which Comte explicitly mentions Wolff, Burlamanqui, Guillaume Pestel, and Grotius.[255] In part two of his magnum opus, the Traité de la propriété, Comte also directly cites Pufendorf and Blackstone in his discussion on the origin of property. Overall, Comte prefers the approach of Bentham to "les juriconsultes" in legislation but nevertheless his concept of natural law and property owes something to the Grotian tradition.[256] For Dunoyer, Pufendorf and the natural law theory of property and social development contributed to the elaboration of his grand theory of "industrialism" which will be discussed in more detail below. Dunoyer's contribution was to update and modernise the final stage of the traditional four stage theory of history from "commerce" to "industry" in order to make the theory more relevant to the changes which had occurred during the upheavals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods.[257]
A more direct source of influence on Comte and Dunoyer's idea of class than the school of natural jurisprudence are the Physiocrats. There is a striking similarity between the industrialist distinction between the productive class of the "industrials" and the unproductive, exploitative class of the politically privileged and the Physiocratic notion of the productive and sterile classes. Quesnay and Mirabeau developed the view that agriculturalists comprised a "classe productive" whilst all other participants in the market economy (manufacturers, merchants, and all those making up the secondary and service sectors) comprised the "classe sterile".[258] If one replaced the word "industry" with "agriculture" Dunoyer's claim that "industry is the vital principle and ought to be the end of the activity of society"[259] could have been the slogan of the Physiocrats. Like the nineteenth-century liberal political economists the Physiocrats advocated minimal government interference in the economy, even coining the term "laissez-faire," and realised the central importance of the leading economic sector, agriculture, to the structure of government. They differed from the early nineteenth-century theorists of "industrialism" in two essential areas: their one-sided view of the importance of agriculture at the expense of the manufacturing and tertiary sectors, and their belief (perhaps tactical and understandable given the nature of ancien régime society) in enlightened despotism. In spite of the common ground between Comte and Dunoyer and the Physiocratic school on so many issues such as laissez-faire, the importance of the mode of production to political structure, class analysis (productive class versus the sterile class) neither Comte nor Dunoyer claimed them as intellectual forebears. The Physiocrats are notable for their absence in Dunoyer's essay on the history of the industrialist ideal. The most likely reason for this might be that Dunoyer's discovery of economics via the writings of Jean-Baptiste Say and perhaps Adam Smith who believed that economic science had moved beyond the limited horizons of Physiocracy. Under the influence of Jean-Baptiste Say's economic writings Comte and Dunoyer realised the importance and productivity of the new manufacturers, entrepreneurs, and technologists (engineers) yet their definition of the productive class has much in common with that of the Physiocrats. One might say that their view is merely an enlarged form of the Physiocratic notion only slightly modified to include manufacturers and members of the "service" class of intellectuals, professionals and engineers as members of the productive class. Some of the Physiocrats tried to apply their class theory to an analysis of French history in an attempt to understand the origins of the problems in the French economy. One of the more interesting attempts at a physiocratic interpretation of history is provided by G-F Letrosne who deals with the class nature of feudalism in a Dissertation sur la féodalité which appeared in 1779. Mackrell describes Letronse's three stage account of the history of feudalism beginning with its usefulness as a means of administration in an era when military service to the king was required. In the second stage feudalism became corrupted when fiefs took on a life of their own independent of the crown. In the third stage feudalism no longer served any political function but was merely a mechanism for economic exploitation of one class by another. Mackrell also discusses the writings of S.N.H. Linguet on the origins of class society in the conquest of agriculturalists by hunters.[260] There are aspects of this class analysis which are similar to that of Augustin Thierry's history of the middle ages and the third estate, which is very suggestive since Thierry was a collaborator on Le Censeur européen, for which he wrote a number of seminal articles on medieval French history.
A figure closer to Comte and Dunoyer's view of the productiveness of industry and the service industry is Turgot who challenged the physiocratic theory of the sterility of industry and commerce from within the physiocratic movement itself. He and his mentor Vincent de Gournay attacked the orthodox view of Quesnay and Mirabeau and argued that all endeavours which satisfied the needs of consumers were "productive," a view which is much closer to that of Say and his followers.[261] Turgot also contributed to the formation of the so-called "four stage theory" of social evolution which more than likely contributed to the development of Dunoyer's more elaborate six-stage theory culminating in "industrial" society.[262] Dunoyer's stages were savagery, nomadism, slavery, political privilege, place-seeking, and pure industrialism. Although there is an interesting similarity between the physiocratic notion of class and that of Comte and Dunoyer there is little direct evidence to link the two groups. It is possible that they might have absorbed some Physiocratic ideas indirectly through Say but this is difficult to establish. The Physiocrats were not rediscovered until some scholars associated with the Society of Political Economy, the Journal des Économistes and the publishing firm Guillaumin began to republish the works of Du Pont de Nemours, Turgot and others with lengthy introductions in the 1840s, a little late to have influenced Comte and Dunoyer. Nevertheless the similarities between the two schools are so great that one suspects some influence even if it is not yet possible to prove it directly.[263]
The Scottish Enlightenment is probably a more fruitful direction in which to look to find direct influences on Comte and Dunoyer's theory of class and the stage theory of history. Both referred to William Robertson's History of America (1777) for their knowledge of the social and economic structure of the North American Indians and the early European settlers in North and Central America. They also occasionally referred to his History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V, with a view of the progress of society in Europe (1769) on more general matters dealing with the emergence of modern economic and political institutions. Other members of the Scottish Enlightenment they directly used in their works include Adam Ferguson, especially his Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776). What is perhaps more important than any single member of the Scottish Enlightenment is the general social, economic and historical perspective absorbed by reading the main works of the Scots. Scottish notions of "class" and the recognition of the significance of the newly emerging commercial or even industrial society were absorbed by Comte and Dunoyer in a general way without them having to cite any particular author as a source.[264] If a more direct link is required it may be provided by Benjamin Constant who spent some time in Scotland studying at the University of Edinburgh during 1783-4 before returning to France to make his enormous contribution to the development of liberal political and social theory in the late Imperial and early Restoration periods. Dunoyer and Comte both explicitly acknowledged their intellectual debt to Constant and it is possibly through reading him that they were introduced to the work of David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and William Robertson.[265]
Another important source of Comte and Dunoyer's theory of class and historical development is the Philosophe tradition and its carry-over into the Revolutionary and Imperial period - the school of thought known as Idéologie. It is quite possible that Diderot, Volny, Raynal and Condorcet, to mention only the most important, influenced Comte and Dunoyer. In particular Diderot and Raynal's work on slavery in the colonies; Volny's histories of the middle east, and Condorcet's optimistic picture of the future contributed to Comte's and Dunoyer's concept of historical change, their hostility to slavery and their view of the future liberal society.[266] In a negative sense so much of what Rousseau wrote and thought repelled Comte and Dunoyer and this means that he too is important as a source. Other philosophes who might have influenced Comte and Dunoyer include Barnave and Sieyès.[267] But it is Condorcet whose views require the closest attention for their possible impact on Comte and Dunoyer. Although Condorcet's theory of progress has a number of substantial differences with that of Dunoyer there are also a number of interesting convergences. The most important difference between the two is Condorcet's insistence that the motor of progress is mental or psychological, viz. the increasing capacity of the human mind to understand the world and in turn to improve it.[268] Thus the invention of printing is for Condorcet one of the great moments in the development of man's reason and freedom. This should be contrasted with Dunoyer's very different conception of historical progress which is thoroughly grounded in economics. For Dunoyer the motor of progress is the increasing capacity of humans to transform themselves and their world through economic production, through trade and industry. Once again the importance of the liberal political economy of Say should be noted in the transformation of Dunoyer's liberalism.
In spite of this fundamental difference in conception Dunoyer did seem to have a number of things in common with Condorcet and late eighteenth century liberal notions of progress and historical development. Perhaps most apparent is what Keith Michael Baker correctly calls the "rhapsodic picture of the future age."[269] Condorcet's "Tenth Epoch," when reason and liberty have achieved a state of near perfection, could be compared to the equally "rhapsodic" stage of "industrialism" in Dunoyer's theory. As will be shown in more detail below, Dunoyer's stage of industry was one where the purely voluntary activity of the free market has completely replaced the interventionism and regulation of the state, thus bringing to an end the power of any group to impose its class domination on others. In addition to sharing this "rhapsodic" view of historical development Condorcet and Dunoyer also share a class theory of history. Dunoyer closely tied his theory of the ruling or exploiting class to the particular stage of economic development a society had entered - thus slave owners were the ruling elite during the slave stage of economic development. Condorcet's class theory was less one of economic exploitation than political power made possible by the perpetuation of intellectual error. According to the theory elaborated in the "Esquisse" the credulity of "the dupes" was matched by the cunning of "the imposters" who used the power of "prejudice" to maintain their power. As an anti-clerical philosophe Condorcet naturally concentrated most attention on the class of the "priesthood" in earlier societies as the example par excellence of his conception of a ruling class.[270] As Keith Michael Baker ironically notes, Condorcet's conviction that the sacerdotal elite had engineered a conscious conspiracy to hinder the spread of enlightenment in order to maintain their "sinister interests" prevented him from turning his theory of class into a more general theory of history.
Condorcet was here on the verge of real (if crude) historical insight in suggesting an explanation of religious development and the growing power of the sacerdotal elite in terms of the gradual evolution of language systems... Condorcet was too concerned to insist upon the sinister interests of the sacerdotal elite to be satisfied with an explanation of the double-truth doctrine in such historicist terms. While he later took a grim pleasure in showing the priests caught in the trap of their own making - forgetting the truth behind their symbols and becoming the dupes of their own myths - he was never willing to relinquish the idea of the conscious conspiracy of the sacerdotal elite to pervert the truth in their own interests. He was never able to take the step that Saint-Simon unambiguously took when he reformulated the Tableau historique: that of viewing history as a natural sequence of social systems, each dominated by a particular intellectual elite and organised on the basis of an idea-system appropriately expressing the relative development of the human mind at a given moment of its progress. Here, as elsewhere, Condorcet's rabid anticlericalism remained a barrier to true historical understanding.[271]
Baker is correct to see Saint-Simon's stage theory of history as a continuation of Condorcet's theory of "intellectual elites" but he seems to be unaware of the use Dunoyer was to make of it. With the economic underpinning provided by Say Dunoyer was able to universalise Condorcet's idea of class, replacing the notion of political and religious domination with a more general idea of economic exploitation by one group of another.
The Idéologues too are important for providing the link between the eighteenth century Philosophes and the early nineteenth century liberals. I agree with Cheryl Welch's conclusion that "(i)n the Censeur européen (published from 1817 to 1819) and in separate works published in the 1820s, Dunoyer and Comte directly continued the ideas of the Idéologues."[272] We have already seen how important Jean-Baptiste Say was to the development of Comte and Dunoyer's economic ideas and Say was linked directly to the Idéologues through his participation in the journal La Décade. Destutt de Tracy is also important in this regard, furnishing another example of the linkages which bind the different generations of liberals in the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic periods. Each group admired the work and activity of the other. Tracy apparently read the issues of Le Censeur européen with considerable interest and joined in the organised liberal protest at the time of Comte's and Dunoyer's imprisonment for violating the censorship laws in August 1817. Tracy even offered to post bail for their release from custody.[273] The "naive" admiration of Dunoyer for Tracy and Dunoyer's earnestness and humourlessness is documented by Stendhal and has been quoted in an earlier chapter.[274] What the editors of Le Censeur européen admired about the work of the Idéologues, most notably Say's Treatise on Political Economy and Destutt de Tracy's Commentary and Review of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws (1811) (which was glowingly reviewed by Augustin Thierry in 1818), was that the laws of political economy and the evolution of society provided a non-revolutionary means to achieve liberal ends. This meant that it was no longer necessary for liberals to seize control of the state through revolution. The inexorable laws of the market would push governments of all political stripes towards deregulation and the fostering of "industry." Thierry believed (a belief certainly shared by Comte and Dunoyer at this time) that the great contribution of Say and Tracy was to show how this could be achieved - to provide a defence of "liberty without violence, as the specious doctrines of the past century led us to violence without liberty."[275] As Welch rightly concludes her section dealing with the impact of the Idéologies on later liberals like Comte and Dunoyer
... through the school of the Censeur, the theories of the Idéologues began to be fused with some of the new strands of historical thinking. Charles Comte looked at European history from the beginnings of the city of Rome to the nineteenth century as a gradual unfolding of the true principles of industry. Augustin Thierry also approached history with the preconceptions of an Idéologue, desiring to follow Daunou's advice on the study of history through "facts." Above all, he wanted to explore the struggle between idlers and workers - oppressors and oppressed - in its historical dimension. The theories of the Idéologues, then, helped to inform the militant economic liberalism that emerged in France in the 1820s.[276]
Comte and Dunoyer were very much part of the "militant economic liberalism" of the late 1810s and early 1820s, a liberalism which drew from numerous currents of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century thought as the above discussion indicates. The more immediate early nineteenth century influences on Comte and Dunoyer's theory of class and history, namely Jean-Baptiste Say, Benjamin Constant and François Montlosier,[277] have already been discussed in an earlier chapter. These and a number of other works were reviewed in their journal Le Censeur européen and, along with the important article by Dunoyer written some ten years after his initial discovery of Say, provide evidence of the sources of his theory of industrialism. In the 1827 article he explicitly acknowledged some intellectual debts but strangely avoided any mention of the contribution of Augustin Thierry. This is surprising because Thierry had been an editor and major contributor to Le Censeur européen after his split with Saint-Simon and had written path-breaking essays on an "industrialist" interpretation of history for Comte's and Dunoyer's magazine. Dunoyer must have been aware of Thierry's important essay "Des nations et de leurs rapports mutuels," one of the first explicit liberal accounts of an industrial interpretation of history.[278] Another author whose work Dunoyer might have mentioned as a source of his ideas but did not is Pierre-Louis Roederer.[279] Thus, any assessment of the origin of Comte's and Dunoyer's social theory must take into account the explicitly acknowledged intellectual debts, as well as others, who influenced Comte and Dunoyer but, for whatever reason, did not receive due recognition by them.
There are two possible explanations for Dunoyer's neglect of Thierry. Perhaps it was a deliberate slight on the part of Dunoyer as Thierry was well known to him and had in fact collaborated in editing Le Censeur européen. Or perhaps Thierry's work was written too late to have had the same impact as Montlosier's book published in 1814. Nevertheless Thierry may well have been as important as Montlosier in providing Dunoyer with an historical perspective on the rise of the industrial class and its conflicts with the state. Eventually Thierry became one of the leading exponents of liberal class analysis in the study of history, especially in his multi-volume studies of the Norman Conquest, the English Revolution, and the rise of the Third Estate most of which originated as essays in Le Censeur européen. In Thierry's histories the productive "industrial" class is identified with the "third estate" and its gradual emergence in the twelfth century and its struggle for liberation from exploitation by the unproductive "feudal" class is the key event in modern European history. Thus Thierry's attempts to develop a liberal theory of class and history which appeared for the first time in Comte's and Dunoyer's journal must have had some influence on the development of their theory of class and history, although they did not acknowledge this openly.[280]
Whatever the exact influences on Dunoyer might have been, in his 1827 essay on the origins of his theory of industrialism he described the effect of his reading as a veritable personal intellectual "revolution." Having avidly absorbed a number of ideas from these diverse writers, Comte and Dunoyer proceeded to apply these ideas in a series of articles in Le Censeur européen. One historian has accurately described their journal as "un journal industrialiste," where the new theory was tested for its explanatory power against the political events of the late 1810s and as a theory of history in numerous speculative and interpretative articles dealing with French, British, and European history.[281] The issue which particularly concerned them was the very nature of liberalism itself and the strategy of the liberal opposition in the Restoration period. They asked themselves whether or not the liberal opposition had in fact a clear conception of what it was trying to achieve. The main aim of the liberals, under the influence of Constant, had been to create a version of British constitutional monarchism in France with Constant's Constitutional Charter of 1814 being the means to achieve this. This was good as far as it went, but Comte and Dunoyer now believed that political and constitutional reform was not enough to bring about the kind of liberal society they wanted. There were more powerful and important forces at work, such as the exploitation of one class by another, the class structure to which this exploitation gave rise, and the relationship between the mode of production and the political ideas and culture of a society, which traditional liberal theory did not fully appreciate. Unless liberalism could come to terms with these forces, it would be impossible to change French society in a lasting manner. What good would it be to change the constitution if the underlying mode of production (at the time of the late 1810s it was the stage of "political place-seeking" according to Dunoyer's theory of class) created a class structure and a political culture which was illiberal? No amount of mere paper reforms would alter this fact. Until there was a large class of "industrials," who were interested in limiting the power of the state and in ending the privileges of the political class of "place-seekers," and upon whom a new political culture could be based, there could be no permanent change in the nature of French politics and society. As Dunoyer reflected on the dilemma which he believed French liberalism faced in the early years of the Restoration:
These writers (himself and Comte) had been forced by the reaction of 1815 to suspend their publications. This violent interruption to their work, which lasted for a number of years, allowed them to examine at their leisure the direction they had taken up until that moment. They asked themselves whether the liberal opposition and their policy of constitutionalism had a well determined objective and, without denying that these efforts to establish certain (political) institutions had a high degree of utility, they (Comte and Dunoyer) were forced to admit that in general it didn't and even that (the members of the liberal opposition) did not ask themselves where society ought to be heading or for what general object society should be constituted.[282]
Thus, in the light of these serious deficiencies in liberal theory, Dunoyer and Comte came to the unhappy conclusion that liberalism, with its stress on constitutionalism and the outward form of political institutions, had very little idea of its ultimate aims, in what direction French society ought to be moving, how French society ought to be arranged in order to achieve this goal, and the powerful social structures and culture which lay in its path. After reading Benjamin Constant, François Montlosier and Jean-Baptiste Say, Comte and Dunoyer came to the conclusion that the liberal program was useless if it did not understand the political culture and class structure to which exploitation gave rise, both historically and at the present time. Only when the nature of the forces which were opposed to liberal reform were understood and when the present stage of economic evolution had been determined for its proximity to the final stage of "industrialism," could the chances for liberal reform be assessed. The task they set themselves was to develop the political implications of the theory of industrialism, as Dunoyer put it, to "an infinitely more scientific and elevated degree"[283] than anything hitherto expressed in the work of the three pioneers of industrialism. This was to be the guiding spirit of the new magazine, Le Censeur européen and which would continue over into their theoretical writings in the 1820s.
Comte, Dunoyer and Thierry began to develop the new liberal social theory in a series of important articles in Le Censeur européen.[284] In the second volume of their newly relaunched journal Comte began the task of writing a magisterial interpretation of European development from the ancient Greeks to post-revolutionary society in an article called "De l'organisation sociale considérée dans ses rapports avec les moyens de subsistence des peuples." [285] Comte began his essay with an obvious borrowing from Say. He distinguished between three different ways in which wealth could be acquired: either one could use the fruits of nature, one could steal from one's fellows, or one could produce one's own goods by industry. Comte then proceeded to analyse European development, using a modified four stage theory which had been used by Turgot and Millar in the previous century.[286] Unlike Marxian theories of societal development based upon a single mode of production, Comte readily admitted that a mixture of these three modes could exist side by side. What he did observe, and which was the prime aim of his work, was to identify the gradual transformation of the economy from various class dominated and unproductive societies to one where pure industry predominated. The main stages in this transformation from warrior and slave society to pure industrial society were warrior tribal societies, the ancient slave societies of Greece and Rome, feudalism which had existed up until the French Revolution, and the post-revolutionary "age of peace and industry." In all these societies bar the last, there existed a conflict between what he termed "la classe oisive et dévorante" and "la classe industrieuse." The precise nature of the productive work which the industrious class did is not important - whether agriculture, manufacturing or services. The vital aspect was that the products of their labour was coercively exploited by those who did not so labour. The following is only one of many examples one could select from Comte's essay to illustrate this interpretation of class conflict and exploitation:
It was natural that the Franks, who were incapable of existing other than by exploiting the industrious men which they had enslaved, despised those amongst themselves who turned to industrial activity. Those who abandoned the trade of pillage in order to become an industrious man renounced the state of barbarism and entered the state of civilisation. He abdicated his title of conqueror by joining the conquered class. This was called in the original French "déroger." On the other hand, a man was ennobled when he left the class of industrious or civilised men to enter the idle and parasitic class (dévorant) in other words the class of barbarians. A social organisation as vicious as the Frank's carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. As soon as men who do not belong to the dominant caste discover the secret of creating wealth by their own industry, and as soon as nobles have lost the power to get wealth other than by giving something of equal value in return, the former who are accustomed to order, to work and to economy increase constantly in numbers, whilst the latter group, not knowing how to produce anything and basing their glory on magnificent consumption, will be reduced in a short time to complete decadence.[287]
There are many surprising parallels between Comte's view and the Marxist idea of economic development of class societies through stages. There is the insight that the mode or modes of production had a decisive influence on culture and politics. One can also find the idea that contradictions within each mode of production leads to a crisis and the transformation of that mode of production into a mode closer to that of pure industry. This theory of class and conquest was taken up most notably by Augustin Thierry, and to a lesser extent by Guizot, in their histories of the Norman Conquest, the emergence of the Third Estate, and the rise of European civilisation.[288] Neither Thierry nor Guizot developed an economic theory to explain the forces at work in the historical evolution of European society, the absence of which made their work less compelling and powerful than Comte's and Dunoyer's, or even Marx's.
Dunoyer too made an early effort to develop the theory of industrialism in a handful of essays in Le Censeur européen. In one essay in which class analysis played a particularly important rôle, "De l'influence qu'exercent sur le gouvernement les salaires attachés à l'exercise des fonctions publiques," Dunoyer combined a public choice analysis of state employees with an historical analysis of the expansion of the state before, during and after the revolution, showing its seemingly inexorable rise under all manner of régimes.[289] Once again, class analysis was the guiding principle in his analysis and the experience of the revolution and Napoleon suggested a veritable war between the contending classes for control of the state.
It is impossible for a government to levy taxes and distribute large amounts of money without by that very process creating large numbers of enemies of its authority and those jealous of its power. The government creates large numbers of enemies because it becomes terribly onerous for those who pay the taxes. It creates many who are jealous of its power because it becomes extraordinarily profitable to those who receive the money from the state. The government thus creates a state of unavoidable hostility between those groups who eagerly covet the benefits which the state provides and the richer members of the public who try with all their power to avoid the burdens which are placed on them. In order to prevent any weakening of its power or to prevent power passing into someone else's hands, the government is forced to surround itself with spies, to fill the state's prisons with its political adversaries, to erect scaffolds for hanging, and to arm itself with a thousand instruments of oppression and terror.[290]
Scattered and partial statements like the above were quite common in articles by Comte and Dunoyer in Le Censeur européen but it would not be developed into a complete theory of industrialism and liberal class analysis until some years later. The first full-length treatment of their new social theory was Dunoyer's 1825 book L'industrie et la morale.
One of the key concepts in Dunoyer's theory of industrialism was the idea of economic evolution through stages, culminating in an optimistic or "rhapsodic" (to use Baker's rather deprecating term) vision of a pure "industrial" society in which all human relations were 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. According to Dunoyer the economic stages through which European society had evolved were the following:
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. The first four stages of Dunoyer's theory of historical development will be discussed in the remainder of this chapter. The last two stages constituting Dunoyer's most original contribution to the development of a stage theory of history will be discussed in the following chapter, along with a discussion of the debate his work inspired and a comparison with the better known Saint-Simonian theory of industrialism.
Dunoyer had a very bleak and unforgiving view of life in what he called "the first stage of social life,"[292] which no doubt reflects the bias of the sources he used[293] as well as the optimism with which he viewed the advent of industrial and "civilised" society. To Dunoyer, life in the "savage" state was violent, brutal, uncaring and short-sighted and he vigorously attacked those writers like the Abbé Raynal and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who had a more positive view of savage life. It was incredible to Dunoyer that writers like Rousseau, whom he called "the detractor of civilised life", had glorified the existence of the savage and denigrated the "civilised" life of urban living and industry. Much of the chapter on the savage life is an attack on those who sentimentalised a pre-industrial existence by emphasising the supposed high standard of living of tribes people compared to Frenchman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Their idealisation of life in the savage state ignored the brutality, poverty and oppression which Dunoyer thought was endemic to "savagery."[294] Dunoyer disputed their claims that civilised and industrial life caused man's physical strength and moral state to degenerate; that living conditions and mortality rates had become steadily worse as civilisation progressed; and that in general savages were nobler, healthier, more vigorous, and freer than their modern counterparts. The only positive aspect of savagery Dunoyer could find was the absence of a state, but without the opportunities made possible by industry he could not imagine how one could take full advantage of this early form of anarchism.
The brutality, disregard for human life and oppression which Dunoyer thought existed in savage life was partly due to the economic fact that the struggle to survive was a difficult one. Simple hunting and gathering did not provide a guaranteed subsistence which made charity and tolerance towards other people possible. Another reason Dunoyer gave to account for the brutality of savage life was a moral weakness, the inability of savages to control their passions in their relations with other people, even their closest family members.[295] The result of this economic and moral pressure was that those who were physically weak (such as the sick, the old, the young and, of course, women) were likely to be very poorly treated by the tribe because they were a burden to its survival. Unwanted children and sick or elderly people might be abandoned to the elements, while women were universally exploited as beasts of burden by their husbands or fathers simply because they were unable to resist the physical strength of the males. In an interesting passage, Dunoyer discusses the position of women in savage society (the example he uses is Péron's description of aboriginal women in New South Wales), likening them to the slaves or the "working class" of this stage of economic development who did most of the useful work for the tribe and who were beaten for their trouble as well.[296] Dunoyer continues his attack on the condition of women in tribal society in a lengthy footnote, where he explicitly states that it is the violent submission of women to a form of slavery which is an important aspect of the class structure of the savage stage of economic development. It is worth quoting at length in order to appreciate the radical nature of Dunoyer's analysis of the class structure and the system of exploitation which exists even in the earliest stages of economic development.
Women are the slaves of the savage life. They form the working class (la classe ouvrière) of this state. They carry out almost all the useful labour. Everywhere where there is the beginnings of agriculture they are the ones who ordinarily work the land, sow the seed, harvest the grain, grind it, and cook it... The women dry the meat, prepare the skins, and collect the roots to dye them... In addition they go fishing for their husbands... When they travel about they carry the youngest children, the tools and all the mobile property... Everything they produce is the property of their husband... The women do not even have a share in the fruit of their labour...[297]
If within the tribe women provided the equivalent of a slave or working class for the benefit of the senior males, then outside the tribe other tribal groups provided an additional source of exploitation for subsistence as well as booty for the male warriors. Since at this stage of economic development cultivation of the soil was unknown, the tribe had to live from the fruits of hunting and gathering which, Dunoyer thought, was a most inadequate way of providing for the needs of the tribe. In times of need neighbouring tribes would be attacked and their food and other possessions pillaged and their members slaughtered in order that the attacking tribe might survive. Dunoyer believed that "savage" society was too primitive even for the existence of slavery, which at least spared the lives of those who were attacked in war, since tribal people had no concept of the economic importance of forced labour apart from their own women. Slavery or the forced economic use of another human being could only exist in a more economically developed state where there already existed the idea of working for another for wages or board.[298] Since the mode of production in the savage stage was not very productive, men were often forced to resort to violent means of acquiring the wealth they needed to survive. Thus, far from being a period of peace and well-being, Dunoyer thought the life of a savage was the least secure for life and property of any stage of human economic development.
In spite of his denunciation of savage life, Dunoyer believes that there were some admirable features of tribal society at the hunter-gatherer stage of production, even if they were only "elements" of a truly free and industrious life. If a tribe was not engaged in war or raiding parties against other tribes, it was most likely engaged in "peaceful and productive labour"[299] (or rather the women were so engaged), such as building a shelter, shaping some simple tools and furniture, cultivating a small area around the hut, and exchanging these things with others. These simple economic activities had a profound affect on the attitudes and behaviour of the individuals involved. To the extent that they engaged in these activities, the members of the tribe became more thoughtful and inventive, their passions became more moderate, the hardships of making a living became less, and the need to be violent to one's neighbours or one's own family became much less. In other words, life became more peaceful, productive and free as industrious activity replaced war and famine, and all these good moral virtues Dunoyer believed were the direct result of the mode of production, that is of production and trade.[300]
There is also Dunoyer's admiration for the spirit of independence shown by many savages. He believes their mode of production endows them with what he calls "an impatience of all artificial superiority and all unjust domination," a "passion for individual independence" and a "disposition to resist" unjust authority.[301] In places Dunoyer seems to view some aspects of savage life, especially in its peaceful, productive and fiercely independent aspects, as a type of "primitive anarchism." What authority is submitted to, such as a chief, is often voluntary in nature. Submission is voluntarily given to a widely respected chief who is skilled in warfare or leading the hunt undertaken in common or who is particularly wise in solving disputes. This is quite unlike the submission given to a mere individual who wishes to exert power over others for his own personal ends, such as a warrior chief or a priest. This latter kind of submission is rejected by the savage. Authority which is not voluntarily submitted to is strongly resented and the skill learnt in hunting and warfare can easily be used to resist an unwanted authority. Dunoyer was impressed with the resistance shown by some North American Indian tribes to the conquest by the Spanish, some choosing suicide rather than submit to the authority of the conqueror and give up their independence.[302] Similarly, Jean-Baptiste Say was also sympathetic to aspects of savage and nomadic life. For example, he sympathised with those who wished to escape the clutches of the states of Europe by fleeing to join the anarchistic Indians in North America. Say reasoned that, although such a refugee from the state would give up much of value which organised society had to offer, sometimes the price of living in a highly regulated and restrictive society was too high to pay.[303]
Dunoyer's view of the "savage" stage of economic development is important because he establishes the beginning of class domination by males in a combined process of subjection of women, as "beasts of burden" and a virtual "working class," and the violent subjection of other tribes by the warriors. Yet he also identifies the beginnings of productive, peaceful industrial activity, probably by women at first, but also including the non-warrior male members of the tribe. This productive activity begins to alter the political culture or "morals" of savage tribal society and initiates the long process of "civilisation" and humanisation of society which culminates in the pacifism and anarchism of industrialism.
When it came to discussing the next stage of economic development, the subjects of Dunoyer's attack on defenders of nomadism were Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois, Mably's Observations sur l'histoire de France, and Ferguson's History of Civil Society and the societies studied included the Tartars, the Bedouin Arabs and the ancient Germans. He accused them of making the same mistake as Rousseau and Raynal had made with the stage of savagery, namely believing nomadic society to be an essentially free society because nomads could exercise what Dunoyer dismissively described as "cette triste faculté de fuir."[305] Montesquieu, like Rousseau, argued that because nomads like the Tartars had a ready means of escape from would be oppressors they were in some sense free.
Dunoyer rejected this interpretation of nomadic life for two reasons. Firstly, because it conflicted with his theory of what true liberty consisted. In his view liberty consisted in the ever increasing capacity to do more complex things, including in this case the capacity to come and go as one pleased.[306] Dunoyer's second reason for rejecting the traditional account of nomadic societies was that it fundamentally misunderstood the defining characteristic of nomadism which was not the "mobility" of nomads so much as their distinctive mode of production, namely pasturing.[307] Dunoyer believed that the greater economic surpluses available to nomadic people compared to "savages" meant that nomads were slightly "freer" than savages, although the greater wealth led them into the classic Malthusian trap of increasing population pressure on food supplies. Since herding required different skills than those needed by hunters, in particular less emphasis on stalking and killing prey, nomads were less warlike than savages, although they remained quite violent compared to the pacific industrials or those who produced exclusively for the market in a modern industrial society. Nomads also had a greater appreciation of other individuals as economically valuable entities and were, to use Dunoyer's expression, more "calculating" in their relations towards others. One aspect of this "calculating" economic attitude meant that the enslavement of others become conceivable. Curiously, Dunoyer believed this was an important stage on the road towards liberty and industry, primarily because he believed it resulted in a crucial amelioration in the conduct of war, replacing the massacre of those defeated in a conflict by their enslavement and use as forced labourers.[308] Although nomadic life provided a greater degree of freedom and wealth than savagery it was still dominated by a class of powerful warrior males, aided by a new class of priests, over a subject class made up of women, children and a few domestic slaves. The relationships between individuals in nomadic society remained "un tissu d'horrible violences."[309] Women in particular remain the backbone of the nomad economy, living "dans un profond état de dépendance et d'avilissement,"[310] where they are rigidly controlled in marriage and do most of the domestic work, thereby filling "the office of a slave," as Dunoyer put it.[311]
However, what distinguishes the pastoral or nomadic mode of production from all others, including surprisingly the highest stage of industrialism, is the relative ease with which a surplus can be acquired. Hunting and agriculture require considerable effort, whereas Dunoyer believes tending a flock or herd is less fatiguing (one assumes he had no personal experience of either hunting or shepherding). Unfortunately, nomadic society cannot long enjoy their easily produced surpluses before the Malthusian population trap is sprung upon them.[312] The pressure of population growth on the limited productive capacity of their herds forces the nomads to resort periodically to brigandage and the conquest of others to stave off famine and crisis. They form "entreprises guerrières"[313] of the excess population to raid or conquer their neighbours in order to survive. The economic and demographic need to hive off the excess population and raid or conquer others gives rise to a different but still potent form of the warlike spirit which affected the "morals" of the savage stage of economic development. Perhaps borrowing Benjamin Constant's expression, which he used to denounce Napoleon's militarisation of France and conquest of Europe, Dunoyer describes the morals of the nomadic society as dominated by "cet esprit de conquête et d'émigration"[314] which, along with the economic pressures of famine, push nomadic societies irresistibly towards "brigandage, war and invasions."[315] These waves of conquest and invasions continue until such time as there is no more land available or until a stronger neighbour is met who can resist the nomadic invaders. Along with Malthus, Dunoyer believes this underlying economic analysis of nomadic society adequately explains the barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire and the end of the period of Norman invasions during the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries. When faced with such a barrier to expansion nomadic tribes are either forced to inhabit peripheral barren desert or arctic areas or to gradually adopt more peaceful and productive pursuits such as agriculture. As long as they continue to follow a nomadic pastoral way of life the class structure and morals of a warrior society will always be present among them. Dunoyer concludes that "war is thus the inevitable consequence of the imperfect means of subsistance adopted by pasturing people."
We have already seen in a previous chapter the importance slavery played in the development of Comte's and Dunoyer's liberalism in particular and French political economy in general. Although Dunoyer did not take part directly in the debate about the economics of slave labour, he wrote about it at some length in Le Censeur européen and his books, and had considerable influence on the liberals who came after him.[317] For both Comte and Dunoyer slavery was important, both as the diametric opposite of what they were striving for in Restoration France and as an integral part of their social theory. In Dunoyer's case (as for Karl Marx) the slave mode of production provided the important link and foundation stone for the evolution of the modern industrial economy.
The transition from one mode of production to another was a slow and difficult process, as the historical example of the evolution from hunting wild animals and gathering fruit and vegetables, to the use of milk and meat from domesticated animals, to the harvesting of planted crops, showed. At each stage the mode of production determined the need of that society for slaves, the "guerrier sauvage" having no need of them, the "guerrier nomade" needing only enough to sell or to guard his flocks and perhaps tend his garden. However, once the stage of settled agriculture had been reached, the need for slaves by "agricultural warriors" was considerable, as the amount of labour required by the mode of production was much greater than in previous stages. Dunoyer believed that as long as the supply of captives from wars remained high there would always be a ready market for slaves in agricultural societies and that some individuals' wealth would be reckoned almost entirely in the number of slaves they had working the land.[318] The use of slaves for agricultural labour was a universal phenomenon and Dunoyer could not think of a society which had not made the transition from nomadism to agriculture without going through this stage. It was certainly the case in ancient Greece and Rome, which Dunoyer claimed had known no other mode of production, in contemporary Russia and Poland, as well as the colonies in America and the Caribbean.[319]
The degree of civilisation and liberty had been increased in the slave mode of production because of a number of factors, including the much greater productivity of agriculture over hunting and gathering and pasturing, the increase in the division of labour, and the reduction in violence and the destructiveness of war. The latter claim may sound surprising, but Dunoyer took the traditional view that savages and nomads took no prisoners and destroyed as much property as they could in war, whereas in slave societies property in the form of booty and captives was highly prized and kept for later enjoyment.[320] The greater surpluses made available by agriculture and the spoils of war were used to create a higher level of civilisation than had existed before. Monuments and public buildings were erected, the slave owning class had time to cultivate art, literature, and philosophy, and some of the surplus was ploughed back into production in order to improve its output.
As impressive as some aspects of Greek and Roman civilisation no doubt were, Dunoyer took great pains to argue against those who, like Rousseau in the Contrat Social, believed that the ancient world under slavery had reached a pinnacle of culture and political liberty.[321] Neither Comte nor Dunoyer could forget nor forgive that ancient society rested upon the exploitation of slave labour by a small class of owners and that any achievements of the Greek and Roman ruling élite had to be weighed against the fact that slave labour had made this possible.[322] His praise was reserved instead for the slave labourers of Rome who had built the monuments and public buildings and without whom the ancient economy would have ground to a halt. Several virulently anti-classical outbursts in this chapter reveals much about Dunoyer's attitudes towards the classical world, industry and the common people who carried out "industrial" activities. A typical passage which shows the strength of Dunoyer's venom towards the classical world is the following:
... it appears that it would be more appropriate to attribute glory to the slaves rather than to (Roman citizens). Did the Roman people build these numerous architectural monuments, these sewers, these roads, these aqueducts which are attributed to Roman civilisation? No. It was for the most part the captives, the slaves and not the Roman people. It was with the industry and capital of the conquered nations that the Romans carried out their magnificent works. Under the Empire, there was practically nothing truly useful which was not carried out by enslaved men. The law of Romulus had forbidden any industrial profession to a Roman citizen. The liberal arts were under the same proscription for a long time. It was the slaves who practised medicine. Grammar, rhetoric, philosophy were taught by slaves. Everything which belonged to true civilisation, everything which was able to escape (Roman) violence was relegated to beyond the pale (hors de l'état). Roman industry was war, its work was pillage and massacre. The monuments which it left behind were ruins, impoverishment and depopulation of the known world. Perhaps without the Romans we would probably not have had the debris of the Parthenon or the Colosseum, but who knows what the free and productive industry of the conquered nations who constructed these fabulous buildings would have left to posterity. There is every reason to believe that without these people (the Romans) western civilisation would have been better placed to defend itself against the barbarians when the errant hordes of northern Europe inflicted their terrible devastation on southern Europe. One could justly attribute to the brigandage of the Romans the long halt to the progress of the human species brought about by the other brigands.[323]
As an ardent admirer of "industry," it was not difficult for Dunoyer to point up the weaknesses of the ancient Roman economy. It lacked scientific knowledge and engineering skills, its agriculture was less productive than modern French methods, Roman buildings lacked glass windows, chimneys, there was no post office, printing and so on. Dunoyer's conclusion was that, for all the vaunted greatness of the ancient world, "the simplest inhabitant (bourgeois) of London or Paris" in the nineteenth century should be thankful for the benefits of "progress" such as science, technology, modern agriculture and the much higher standard of living these things made possible, which most Romans had entirely lacked.[324] Perhaps worse, in Dunoyer's view, was the continued practice of the wars of expansion and the concomitant capture of slaves which condemned the ancient world in his eyes, thus leading him to declare that the ancient Romans had less "true civilisation" and less "true liberty" than defenders of the classics would care to admit.[325]
War was certainly the sticking point in the development of Roman industry. It could not develop any further than it had because of the rôle war and the slave mode of production played in Roman society.[326] Economically, slavery was the mainstay of the ancient economy and this in turn depended upon "une guerre perpétuelle," in order to maintain the supply of labour, and the disdain the aristocratic class showed to all "professions industrielles." As Livy noted, in the 700 years between Numa and Augustus the gates of the temple of Janus had only been closed twice for peace. Socially, Rome was a militaristic society with a social structure of tribes, curies, and decuries which were based upon military models. Patronage and deference to military leaders resulted in a social form of military subordination, and the function of the censors was to maintain numbers in the army and respect for discipline and moral behaviour. Discipline in the military was so strict that a refusal to serve in the army (which any self-respecting industrial would do) resulted in the deprivation of one's possessions, a beating and possibly being sold into slavery.[327] The inevitable consequence of this social and economic dependence on war, military "morals" and slavery was a political constitution and institutions suited to warriors.
The desire to be militarily strong and the willingness to structure the legal, social and economic arrangements of Roman society to achieve this military strength made it impossible, in Dunoyer's opinion, for the Romans to be truly politically and economically free at the same time. "The more they wanted to be strong in order to dominate others, the less they were able to have liberty." The irony was that their desire to reduce others to servitude led the Romans to become subservient themselves to the regimentation and control, "the necessity of discipline" which a military state required to function effectively. In the name of war and the security of the empire, individual liberty, freedom of speech and property were often sacrificed. Thus the Romans in effect "enslaved themselves." It was no accident, Dunoyer believed, that the much touted Roman liberties ended in the tyranny of the absolute emperors.[328]
Dunoyer took issue with historians of Roman republicanism like as Montesquieu, who thought that many Roman institutions such as the agrarian laws, censorship and ostracism were essential aspects of republicanism per se. For Dunoyer, these had little to do with the theory or practice of republicanism, rather they were the natural and inevitable consequence of a warrior people attempting to forge institutions suitable for this way of life. Other writers such as Condorcet, Sismondi and Benjamin Constant interpreted these laws and institutions as the result of the Romans' ardent love for citizenship, for which they would readily sacrifice their own privacy and independence. Dunoyer rejected this line of argument as well. He could not accept that the Romans would suffer such restrictions on their liberty for the sake of being a republic or participating in the exercise of collective power. Once again, he maintained that these harsh laws were adhered to because they conformed to the needs of a warrior life. Civic discipline and the strong control of individuals was necessary to ensure discipline and success in the field. The only critic who fully appreciated the underlying militarism of Roman society and the effect this had on their institutions and culture was, not surpisingly, his colleague Charles Comte.[329]
Dunoyer next turns to the issue of luxury and its corrupting effect on Roman morals. The claim that "luxury" had damaging effects on a nation's morals was a powerful argument in the anti-industrialist campaign. The pursuit and enjoyment of luxury was claimed to detract from one's attention to civic duty, to encourage selfishness in both private and public life and to foster corruption. Bernard Mandeville's argument that the private pursuit of vice (of which luxury was only one) could have beneficial public benefits was unconvincing to those who saw something wrong in the possession of wealth itself, in particular the kind of wealth made possible by the industrial system.[330] Dunoyer turned this old debate on its head by arguing along two lines. Firstly, that the only truly moral society was an industrial one. In fact Dunoyer went so far as to argue that the degree to which a society accepted and practiced industrial values determined the degree to which it was moral, civilised, progressive, peaceful and free. The second line of argument was that the defenders of the argument that luxury was corrupting had made a fundamental error in not inquiring how that wealth or luxury had been acquired. Those who had acquired their wealth through peaceful trade or industriousness also acquired important moral virtues, such as thrift, hard work, the habit of offering one value for another, respect for others and so on. Dunoyer claimed that men only enjoy in moderation that wealth which has been acquired with honour, or in other words by peaceful and voluntary exchange. Those who acquired their wealth by war and pillage, like the Romans, naturally did not. The morals of the warrior were carried over into peace-time and wealth was enjoyed as a warrior would enjoy it, "shamefully." Thus Dunoyer argues for an intimate connection between the corrupting effects of wealth and the means by which it was acquired and dismisses the traditional debate about luxury as ill-conceived and somewhat beside the point.[331]
The class structure of slave society also came under Dunoyer's scrutiny. The aristocracy and the upper levels of the army ruthlessly exploited their position of power to control the distribution of war booty for their own benefit, whilst the vast bulk of the enlisted men and the nominally non-slave population, the proletariat, received scarcely enough to survive. Dunoyer argued that
... by submitting themselves to this harsh regime the bulk of the army drew practically no benefit . In this (system of) domination, as in all, the lower levels (les agens subalternes) only obtained a very small part of the wealth and authority. The booty from the conquered enemies was distributed like all taxes (contributions) levied on the people: the largest portions went to the generals of the army, to the consuls, the senate, the patricians. The people and the soldiers received scarcely enough to live on. One would have been justified in worrying that in enriching themselves in this manner they would have weakened this useful love of conquest and pillage on which depended the fortune of the upper classes (des classes élevées). Never has an aristocracy based its ascendancy on such a harsh, iniquitous and haughty basis as the Roman aristocracy.[332]
Social distinctions between noble and commoner were strong and marks of deference and respect were enforced. But the two greatest class differences lay between slave and non-slave, and land-owners and the propertyless "proletariat," who formed "deux classes d'ennemis."[333] Dunoyer maintained that class warfare always lay just beneath the surface of Roman society. The threats to social order came from both within and without, within from the threat of slave rebellions and food riots from the urban proletariat, and from without by the threat of non-Roman enemies. The former problem was kept within bounds by harsh laws and a system of legal terror to maintain the slaves in submission. The latter was solved by constant warfare, which had the added bonus of also providing booty which could be used to subsidise the grain needed to feed the urban proletariat. The urban proletariat was a special problem because it is this class which could have risen out of its poverty by means of "industry" if land ownership had been more equitable and if slave labour had not undercut them economically.[334] This was one of the great tragedies of Roman civilisation. In Dunoyer's view, the system based on war and slave labour prevented the emergence of industry and the progress in job opportunities and living standards which it would have brought to the poorest classes in the Roman Empire.
Although Dunoyer devotes most of his attention to slavery in the ancient world, primarily because he believes it is literally the classic case of a society dependent on slave labour, he also examines in less detail the modern slave societies in America and the Caribbean. The basic difference he finds is that the slave owners are not warriors with warrior "morals," but planters who are to some extent "entrepreneurs d'industrie" who therefore have some of the moral qualities of an industrial.[335] Although the American slave owners did not personally make war to get their slaves, and thus escaped the corrupting influence of war on their morals, they nevertheless still suffered from other sources of corruption, such as the exercise of arbitrary power over another human being, the refusal to permit the education or training of slaves for more skilled industrial jobs, the use of violence to control slave labour, and the persistence of anti-industrial attitudes among the planter class. "In sum, ignorance, incapacity, softness, luxury, iniquity, violence, this is what slavery naturally produces in populations who make it their (primary) resource."[336]
Dunoyer's overall assessment of slavery in the course of human history is that it was an improvement on what had gone before. He called it "une innovation heureuse" principally because it ended the practice of killing prisoners of war and, however indirectly, encouraged the development of industry.[337] Thanks to slavery, which Dunoyer maintained was an important and perhaps inevitable stage of development between the stage of nomadism and settled agriculture, men were given useful occupations and the long and slow process of accumulation of property could begin. Dunoyer was optimistic that once this process had begun it was inevitable that the worst aspects of slavery would gradually disappear and that both slave owners and slaves would learn the benefits of both working for their own reward. Whereas Comte rejected Storch's idea of a "half-way house" between slave and free labour, Dunoyer apparently sided with Storch in the matter of how best slavery could be brought to an end. Dunoyer argued that in the process of economic evolution from one mode of production to another, the granting of economic incentives to the slaves would be a small step on the way towards the eventual liberation of the entire society, first through serfdom, then citizens of free communes, then the third estate and finally a free society.
These slaves who originally only worked for the benefit of another will one day work for themselves. They are now weak but they will become strong. They are at the very beginning of life, enlightenment, wealth and power -it is only necessary to inspire them with the desire to take them and the masters themselves will one day feel the need to inspire them in this desire. Wishing to stimulate the activity (of their slaves) the masters will relax their chains a little. They will leave their slaves a part of the wealth which they will create. The slaves will be able to keep this meagre product which they will increase by work and saving, and one day the fruits (of their labour) slowly accumulated through their economy will overwhelm (étoufferont) (the fruits) of violence and usurpation. The slaves of antiquity, the men of industry will become no more than serfs in the middle ages, then they will become the freed men of the communes, then the third estate, then all of society. It is here, among the people maintained by slaves, in the very heart of slavery itself that really begins industrial life, the only life (as we will see in a moment) where men are able to give flight to their faculties, acquire good moral habits, prosper without doing themselves mutual harm, the only way of life, therefore, where they can become truly free.[338]
The transition to the next stage of economic development came about with the military and economic collapse of the Roman Empire. Without wars of conquest to keep up the supply of cheap slaves, or in the case of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Caribbean planters, when the price of slaves went up, land owners were forced by economic necessity to treat their increasingly scarce slaves better.[340] Dunoyer is adamant that the reason for the improvement in the slave's condition is a result of ineluctable economic forces and not the benign influence of Christianity or the greater generosity of the Germanic invaders for example. The influence of Christianity was dismissed as a philosophy which could be used to justify any kind of iniquity and which had been used by slave owners and priests to justify slavery for centuries. Rather, in Dunoyer's view it was the change in political culture ("morale") brought about by industry which had "purified" Christianity of its barbaric practices and beliefs.[341]
The earliest period of the feudal stage was a form of "demi-servitude" in which some of the practices and burdens of slavery continued. However, as the slaves became more closely tied to the land and as more and more obligations were imposed on the land owner, eventually they became serfs rather than slaves and the form of exploitation was gradually lessened to a form of tribute or taxation. This amelioration process eventually brought an end to the slave mode of production and a new mode of production emerged in the twelfth century. Dunoyer calls this new mode of production the "régime of priviléges," by which he means the creation of an artificial hierarchy of orders, membership of which determined one's occupation and one's legal rights and duties. The crisis which brought about "this great revolution"[342] was the restlessness and confidence which a small increase in prosperity and security created in the "working classes" (classes laborieuses).[343] This greater confidence in themselves led the working classes to seek protection from their exploiters in civic, community and professional associations and unions. There is a striking similarity between Dunoyer's view of the transition from slavery to a limited form of freedom in the twelth century and that presented by Augustin Thierry in the Essai sur l'histoire de la formation et des progrès du Tiers État (1853). As was mentioned above, Thierry contributed important historical articles to Le Censeur européen on French history and it is quite likely that Thierry was an important influence in the formation of Dunoyer's ideas on the amelioration of slavery and the emergence of the third estate in the feudal period. Interestingly, Thierry also talks about "the slave who had reached a sort of half liberty" in his description of the transition from slave to free labour in this period, thus linking Dunoyer and Thierry to the Storch camp in the debate about the profitability of slave labour and the best means of bringing slavery to end.[344] The reaction of other classes to this positive and bold action on the part of the "working classes" was also to form themselves into corporations and associations. The warrior class reacted by forming the estate of the nobility, the church officials by forming the clergy, and the lawyers, justice officials and merchants formed the third estate.[345] Within these orders were also formed numerous smaller associations or corporations which gave this stage of economic development its distinctive characteristic, namely the "artificial" ("factice" i.e., state imposed) monopoly of occupations according to social class. Dunoyer considered that the creation of bodies with the monopoly of certain occupations resulted in "artificial hierarchies" riven by mutual dislike, rivalry and attempts to seek "odious privileges" and "unjust preferences" at the expense of others.[346] In the scramble for these legal monopolies (or what Dunoyer also called the "universal spirit of exclusion") the monarch saw a useful form of power and revenue in the sale of offices and rights of monopoly.
However, in spite of the considerable injustices and violations of natural rights which Dunoyer observed in this stage of economic development, he also detected a few positive aspects. In all his economic stages Dunoyer believed that each successive stage was more productive, closer to the industrial ideal, less brutal and oppressive, and ultimately freer than each of the previous modes of production. In "the stage of political privileges" for example, the ancient ruling class had become much less warlike and had began to develop their skills in new directions, whilst the ancient oppressed classes were now able to work for themselves and thus worked harder and were able to gain and keep some surplus. But the most important development of this stage was the creation in some numbers of what would become the industrial class properly called.[347] Unfortunately the full development of the industrial and productive capacities of society is impossible under a régime of privilege, because of several vital obstacles which must be reformed before the industrial system proper could be established. One of the very great weaknesses of the economic system of the pre-revolutionary period is the sheer economic waste and inefficiency of such political privileges and monopolies. For instance, the monopoly some groups had to exclude outsiders from employment in a particular occupation and to reserve it for one's sons led to the waste of capacities and skills in the population so excluded. Without the right of free entry into occupations which the free market made possible, there was a misallocation of talent and skill which seriously weakened the productivity of the economy.[348] Another important source of economic waste was the chronic underemployment of the lowest classes, caused by the closing off of many avenues of trade and industry by the monopoly corporations in order to restrict competition and thus push up the wages of those with privileged jobs. Dunoyer believed this was probably the main reason for the impoverishment of the mass of the working class. Even for those with access to a well-paid job, the political costs of getting and maintaining that job dissipated into unproductive areas the surpluses which that job created. One had to pay a hefty entry price to the state or the existing members of the corporation for the privilege of practicing that trade. There were high costs involved in the lengthy period of training or apprenticeship designed to exclude many applicants. And finally, one needed the support of the police powers of the state in order to prevent non-members of the exclusive corporation from practising the trade illicitly, and this support often cost much in terms of donations to the political powers as well the payment of taxes, loans and so on. In all, much needed capital and energy, which could have been used to expand production and thus employ more individuals, was frittered away in unproductive political activities which were essential for the maintenance of their privileges.[349]
A very serious structural weakness in this stage of economic development were the impediments to the development of science and technology. On the one hand, any inventions made outside the corporate monopoly were unlikely to be taken up, whilst those made by members of the corporation were often viewed as "innovations dangereuses" which would upset the status quo.[350] Generally, without freedom of speech and free trade the development of science and technology is badly curtailed. The church with its monopoly of education is hostile to science and technical training and does its best to prevent it, with harmful affects on the economy and people's standard of living. Dunoyer noted that the development of industry in the new factories occurred in small towns in the provinces, such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, precisely because this was where the stifling influence of the guilds and corporations was weakest. The same was true for the city of Paris, where industrial expansion occurred in those parts of the city where the guilds could not exercise their monopolies.[351]
Not only did the régime of privileges harm the development of technology but also the improvement of morals. For the ruling class the most damaging privileges to their moral development were the ban on the nobility from pursuing industrial activities, the law of primogeniture which made it unnecessary for the eldest son to need to learn industrial skills, the law which protected landed property from confiscation by debtors thus enabling inefficient noble landowners to pass their debts onto subsequent generations, and the privileged access of the nobles to the crown which encouraged them to seek favours and monopolies and to waste their capital in the purchase of office and other monopolies. Dunoyer took issue with Montesquieu's claim that the nobility had traditionally refused to be involved in commerce and industry because these pursuits were contrary to the spirit of monarchy.
Montesquieu, who sees correctly on all things concerning the form of government, says that (the nobility) does not engage in commerce because it would be contrary to the spirit of monarchy. This is not the case. The nobility does not engage in commerce for the same reason as the Greeks, the Romans, the Germans and the Turks do not: because it is not in the spirit of military races, because it is repugnant to barbarism, because it weakens the penchant for war and love of domination. The reason for (the nobility's) morals lies in its origin...[352]
A better explanation for the reluctance of the nobility to engage in industrial activities lay in their origins as a military class who believed that peaceful trade and commerce would reduce their capacity to wage war and exercise domination over others. Since Dunoyer believed that there were only two ways in which one could acquired wealth, either by peaceful production and trade with one's fellows or by theft, war, taxation and legal monopoly, if one refused to engage in industry, as the European nobility did, then the only avenue for wealth making which was open to them was unjust confiscation and parasitism on the working classes. Also, since Dunoyer linked the "morals" of a class to its method of producing wealth, with productive industry leading to tolerance, peacefulness, cultivation of culture and science, and with theft and parasitism leading to the opposite, it is not surprising that he thought the "morals" of the ruling class in pre-revolutionary Europe to be severely lacking.[353]
The tragedy for Dunoyer was that not only did the restrictions of industry and political privileges have a corrupting effect on the ruling class of nobles, but it also penetrated deeply into the lower and middle classes. The most numerous lower class was degraded and corrupted by the lack of employment opportunities caused by the monopoly of occupations held by the guilds and corporations and the general inefficiencies of a restricted economy. The net result was that many were forced to beg, to attach themselves to the privileged and wealthy for what little they could get, and to fritter away their lives with the boredom of underemployment. As for the middle class their morals were corrupted because it was impossible for them to earn a living by purely industrial means. Because of the widespread nature of the system of legal privileges and monopolies all their economic activity was inevitably a mixture of the fruits of their own labour and peaceful exchange, and the illegitimate profits gained from legal monopolies, restrictions on free trade and other appeals to the state. In such a state of confusion, Dunoyer believed, it was impossible for the industrial middle class to develop the "morals" appropriate to a purely industrial class. The nature of their work thus created a mixture of aristocratic and industrial morals and clearly shows the moral ambiguity Dunoyer considered the industrial class suffered under when working in an aristocratic and privileged society.[354] Even in more enlightened and "industrial" societies such as Restoration France Dunoyer believed that the pervasiveness of political privileges tainted much voluntary economic activity which could only be "purified" by a policy of total laissez-faire and free trade.
Even in the most civilised countries of Europe what class of men does not profit , directly or indirectly, from some privilege, some monopoly, some unjust prohibition? Who can deny that violence contributes nothing to the revenue of their productively invested funds? That would only be possible in a society where nothing limited competition, and we are surely a long way away from such a state.[355]
As in the previous stage of slavery, in the stage of privilege a perpetual state of war existed between the classes. The most obvious conflict took place between those who were members of the corporations with a monopoly of certain occupations and those who were outside this privileged community. The latter resented the former for taking away what they considered their right to practice whatever occupation towards which their own skills and interests inclined them, resulting in what Dunoyer called "a veritable state of war, and of universal war."[356] Even within the system of orders and privileged corporations there was fierce conflict and rivalry over power, money, privilege and access to the crown. The class war within the privileged guilds, orders and corporations is not a war which leads to deaths, the spilling of blood and physical injury and the weapons used are not swords, muskets or cannons of traditional warfare. Instead the war is waged with weapons created by the state, such as the power of the police and the courts. Normally the desire of the lower orders for power and privilege is contained by the authority and strength of the higher orders, such as the nobility, the clergy and the superior courts. However, ambition being what it is, it is able to find "legal" avenues to pursue its quest for monopoly and the exclusion of competitors. For example, the guilds of the tailors and second-hand clothing dealers do "mutual violence" to each other in their legal challenges to each other's monopolies of trade, in what one might call a kind of union demarcation dispute.[357] If the legal challenge fails to achieve their purpose the lower guilds and corporations then appeal to the higher bodies of the state to outlaw their competitors entirely, in exchange for which they will gladly pay taxes, accept some onerous government regulation or other restriction on free trade which they will be able to recoup by passing the added costs onto the consumers of their goods. The final result of these appeals to the state for monopolies is to increase government interference and control in the economy and thus to decrease the overall amount of liberty.[358] Dunoyer is very concerned with the growth in authority of the central state as the final adjudicator of all these special interests. As the power with the final say in who gets what, it is able to play off the special interests against each other and all groups end up exploiting each other and, most importantly, becoming tributaries of the state.[359]
The group which benefits most from the system of privileges is not the lower orders, as we have already seen, but those at the very top. Although the "ordres supérieures" suffer to some extent from the privileges of the lower orders of the guilds and corporations, the benefits they in turn receive from their privileges far outweigh these costs. The profits from seigneurial rights, the exemption from taxation, honours and gifts from the court, and the monopoly of higher jobs in government mean that the nobility is most anxious to maintain the status quo for as long as possible in order to go on enjoying their privileges. For as long as the lower classes are obliged to remain in private occupations of industry and commerce, the nobility is assured of its continuing monopoly of government office and all the financial rewards which this brings.[360] Yet there is a sort of dialectic at work here, as Dunoyer observes, because the greater the power and privileges of the nobility the greater is the envy of the lower classes for the political power which makes this possible. The nobility, clergy and judiciary are therefore increasingly subject to "l'universelle animadversion" of the lower orders as they increase in wealth, confidence, and knowledge. This, of course, is the origin of the rivalry between the nobility and the clergy on the one hand, and the third estate on the other, on the eve of the French Revolution. What might appear on the surface to be order and stability actually hides "une profonde anarchie" in which, from the lowest to the highest order, no one is satisfied with their appointed place, where men are divided because they resent their "arbitrary" and "artificial" classification, where jealousies break out because one's well-being depends so much on political favour rather than on merit, and where the lower ranks despise the higher ranks because the latter have "the means to be unjust towards the lower ranks (subalternes)."[361]
The fourth stage of "political privilege" which emerged during the feudal and mercantilist periods came to an end with the French Revolution which smashed the social, economic, and political structures of the old regime. Dunoyer reacted to the very changed circumstances created by the Revolution and Napoleon's Empire by adding two new stages to complete the path of evolution of the modern world. A new fifth stage of "place-seeking" emerged during the Revolution as the scramble for political power by new social groups became intense. This stage continued in the immediate post-Napoleonic period as the restored monarch and his supporters sought to turn the clock back as much as possible to the accepted practices of the old regime. The stage of political "place-seeking" was to be followed sometime in the near future, Dunoyer hoped, by the sixth and final stage of "industrialism." The last two stages of Dunoyer's theory of history and its impact on his contemporaries is the subject of the next chapter.
The Revolution of 1789 destroyed the system of privileges which had grown up under the ancien régime. It brought to an end to all distinctions based upon membership of an order or a guild, in other words all `artificial hierarchies," and thus the need to seek the support of the state in inter-corporate class conflict. Dunoyer greatly admired the Revolution for what it had achieved in destroying the ancien régime and was keen to defend it from its critics for being a social and political levelling process. The "great revolution" in Dunoyer's view, far from destroying what he called "natural inequalities,"[363] in fact made it possible for these inequalities to flourish by sweeping away the ancien régime and all the "artificial inequalities" which impeded industry. The true levellers in his view were the defenders of the system of political privilege of the ancien régime, who classified and forced vastly different individuals into guilds and other corporate associations regardless of their talents and interests. The aim of the revolution had been to destroy the system of privilege, "this absurd and compulsory equalisation," and to open up all occupations to anybody regardless of social class. In other words, Dunoyer considered the Revolution to be profoundly liberating.
It is against this absurd and compulsory equalisation that the revolution was directed. It smashed the oppression which kept the masses in their lowly position, and, without claiming to assign a rank to anyone, (the revolution) wanted each person to be able to become all that they legitimately could become, something they were never able to do under the law but would be able to do in reality. To achieve this, it was decided simply that no one could be constrained in the uncoercive (inoffensif) use of their natural faculties; that all legitimate professions, all (forms of ) work, all services would be opened to universal competition. This was the new order which the revolution proclaimed.[364]
The revolution had partly succeeded in this task of liberation and the degree of liberty and industrial expansion which the revolution made possible was considerable. Dunoyer believed that the progress which the abolition of corporations and political privileges made possible was "incalculable" and that the ending of a major source of violence and injustice was a considerable improvement for the average person.[365]
Thus the Revolution had created the legal and perhaps material conditions for a purely industrial society to emerge, but for the absence of one crucial factor which prevented it from occurring: the presence of the appropriate industrial political culture or "morals" among the people. True liberty existed "virtuellement" to allow the unlimited development of all human faculties, including the industrial faculties, the progress of morals, the growth of enlightenment and material well-being, and the end to all violence and political privilege. Unfortunately, this liberty did not emerge in reality because of the nearly universal "amour des places" or in other words the desire to seek fame and fortune through state appointments rather than through industry. This factor alone, thought Dunoyer, had turned the revolution sour and had prevented the industrial stage of society from appearing at this time.[366] The desire by so many to prefer public employment to that of private industry led to the corruption of the new order and its ultimate failure, as the forces of reaction were able to harness the public mania for government posts in order to ultimately undo the benefits of the Revolution. This was possible because the new class of political place-seekers were trying to emulate the behaviour of the nobility of the ancien régime in treating government posts as a source of personal betterment, as a "resource" to be exploited for profit and fame. Exploitation by political place-seeking, or "le vice politique" as Dunoyer termed it, was present when one had the personal disposition to live at taxpayers' expense, when one willingly accepted positions in the government without being sure of their social or economic usefulness, and when one accepted payment from the state for services which in the free market would not be needed or which would be supplied at much lower prices.[367] Dunoyer believed that this desire for political place-seeking was so widespread that it became the foundation for a new economic mode of production.[368]
The reasons for the public's desire for government posts were economic, social and political. Although the condition of the working classes had improved with the changes brought about by the Revolution, the economic and social position of the "classes gouvernantes" still remained incomparably better and it was this surer path to wealth that attracted many of those who previously been excluded from government service to seek jobs there.[369] It was obviously unjust that a particular social class or family reserved for itself the right to serve in the government and it was understandable, though perhaps an overreaction, for the newly liberated classes under the revolution to seek to replace the much despised old class in government service. The mistake they made, Dunoyer thought, was to ignore reason, which should have told them that the size and scope of government should be as small as possible, rather than to see it, as the new doctrine of democracy often portrayed it, as something which all had a right to participate in at the expense of others.[370] Unscrupulous politicians took advantage of this popular desire for government posts to amass power for themselves and to further the centralisation of state power. Dunoyer draws upon Alexander de Laborde's De l'esprit d'association (1818) to argue, much like Alexis de Tocqueville was to in L'Ancien régime et la Révolution in 1856, that the first of these centralising politicians was not Napoleon, as many believed, and that this practice had not stopped with the end of the Empire.[371] Tocqueville's argument was that the centralising tendency of French governments since the revolution had not been a direct result of the revolution, but had roots deep within French history. One of the purposes of L'Ancien régime et la Révolution was to show how little the revolution had in fact changed French politics. Thus, Dunoyer was making similar arguments about the process of political centralisation some thirty years before Tocqueville.[372] Even conservative liberal politicians of the Restoration period, such as Decazes and Guizot, argued that the enormous increase in the size and cost of the bureaucracy could be partly justified on the grounds that political equality demanded it.[373] Dunoyer scoffed at the suggestion that one could have an expanded and costly state and be free at the same time.[374]
One of the differences between the class system of the ancien régime and that created by political place-seeking was that the class of beneficiaries had become much more unified and concentrated around one institution. In the ancien régime the privileged orders, guilds and corporations were scattered and often competed against each other. In the new stage which followed the revolution these scattered bodies had been destroyed and replaced by a more centralised state, "une administration gigantesque," which was now the sole dispensary of privileges.[375] Entirely new areas of public control and administration had become available for those who were ambitious for careers in the state public service. With some horror Dunoyer lists the areas of expanded state activity which he considered had infiltrated every part of life since the revolution and Napoleon's empire:
(Political) power has gradually expanded its sphere to the same extent as ambition (les passions ambitieuses) has drawn more men towards power. It has multiplied not only employment but also administration. It is difficult to count the number of public enterprises (régies) which have been created in order to open up markets for the ever increasing multitude of zealous and of course disinterested men who wish to devote themselves to the public interest: public enterprises in tobacco, salt, gambling, theatres, schools, commerce, manufacturing, etc. Little by little it has extended its action to everything. It has interfered in all (forms of) work with the pretension of regulating and guiding them. One no longer finds on one's journey the syndics of the corporations but the agents of authorities. In the fields, in the woods, in the mines, on the highways, at the frontiers of the state, at the outskirts of the towns, at the heart of all the professions, at the entry point of all careers, one comes across them everywhere. The prime effect of the "passion for places" has been to multiply them beyond all measure: this passion has driven the central authority to an unlimited development.[376]
One indicator of the increase in the size of government and its scope of activities was the size of the budget between 1802 and the early 1820s.[377] Dunoyer concluded from these figures that the same impulse to seek government jobs existed under Napoleon as it did under the restored monarchy, thus confirming in his mind the view that it was the result of the underlying mode of production rather than a result of the outward form of the political structure or constitution. He concluded that, at a time when the costs of government should have been falling as the benefits of peace and industry spread, the increase in costs of government could only be due to several related factors such as the desire (as Dunoyer phrased it "au penchant dépravé") for more people to work for the state, the stupidity of the remaining taxpayers to continue funding their parasitic compatriots, the capacity of the old corrupt government to take advantage of the confusion following the defeat of Napoleon, and finally the present corrupt morals which allowed some of the practices of the ancien régime to return.[378] The parallel increase in national debt was another mechanism by which to measure the results of political place-seeking. Dunoyer thought that debt financing was a particularly evil method of increasing the spoils of office for the new political ruling class. He thought one political effect of increased government expenditure and debt was the corruption of many important institutions. The more the state became a milking cow for the political class, the more it became despotic, and therefore the more it engaged in electoral fraud, and imposed restrictions on the freedom of parliament, censorship, the weakening of jury trials, and other institutions which attempted to place some limit on the power of the state.[379]
One can't help seeing in this observation the reason for Comte's and Dunoyer's search for a more fundamental explanation for the difficulties of establishing constitutional limits on the power of the restored Bourbon monarchy in the early years of the Restoration. The reason why the very liberal provisions of the Charter of 1814 and the constitution which evolved from it did little to actually create a liberal society in the years after 1815 lay in the underlying mode of production which carried over from the last years of the Empire. The industrial class was too weak and the class of political "place-seekers" too strong to permit a winding back of state privileges and a freeing of the economy to take place. The policies of the Restored monarchy against certain political freedoms, such as freedom of speech and trial by jury, and any broader economic freedoms are now seen as the inevitable consequence of the consolidation of a new mode of production based upon political place-seeking by the classes liberated by the revolution and the continuation of some of the practices of the ancien régime. It is not surprising that the liberal constitutionalism of Constant was inadequate to oppose this phenomenon. Before the power of the class of political "place-seekers" could be challenged, its structure, origins, and political culture (or morals) had to be explored and understood.
The morals to which the mode of production of the political "place-seekers" gives rise are, from Dunoyer's liberal perspective, to be regretted. At the highest level of government the prevailing spirit is one of "sollicitation" for power and position. Throughout the political hierarchy, from the restricted number of privileged voters to their elected deputies and even senators, the prevailing spirit is that of a political "client" who owes allegiance to powerful faction leaders in the government. One side of the coin is ambition for office and power, the other side is servility towards those with power.[380] Dunoyer compared the behaviour of government officials in the system of place-seeking with that of the royal courts of the ancien régime. In the competition for a restricted number of places, those who behaved most like the courtiers of a previous century, those who could best play the game of intrigue and flatter or lie to their ministerial superiors would be most successful.[381] Naturally, the "spirit of ambition" for political office is not conducive to the cultivation of industrial morals. It destroys the spirit of invention, enterprise, activity, emulation, courage and patience, all of which are values prized by the "spirit of industry." A considerable danger, Dunoyer thought, lay in seeing talented men abandoning industry for the more lucrative area of government jobs. The loss of these men to the government led to three problems for the economy. Firstly, skills and intelligence which might have been used to make French industry more competitive were syphoned off into non-productive government work. Secondly, in order to pay their salaries, taxes have to be raised or the level of debt increased, both of which place an added burden on the economy. Thirdly, and perhaps more importantly, these same men were employed to control and restrict industry, further adding to the problems of industry and hampering its growth and development.[382] A similar problem existed with capital which could be invested either in productive private industry or invested in government loans and bonds. Once more, the latter course leads to a double loss to the economy. Productive capital is not only lost to industry but is used by the state to increase its control and regulation of it.[383]
The society of place-seeking was not without its class conflict, its "intestine" or "homicidal struggle"[384] When it began in earnest during the Empire, when place-seeking had become a "veritable national industry," the struggle for position and power led to a "war for (political) places," with well-defined parties jostling for the spoils of government. Since even the bitterest political enemies share the same desire to use their position for their own betterment, the effect on the taxpaying public is to unite them against the political class in order to defend their property from further abuse. If they can find allies in industry or commerce who are not part of the scramble for government posts, they will unite in common cause with these groups as well, thus dividing the nation into two clearly defined classes - those who benefit from government jobs or favours and those who do not. Dunoy