ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: How political rights are based upon economic contributions: the Saint-Simonian concept of ability
Author: Lutz Adrien
This paper shows that the Saint-Simonian concept of ability remains a differentiating criterion as it presupposes that each member of the society has to contribute to the social utility in order to get a political voice. “To each according to its ability, to each ability according to its work”, here stands the Saint-Simonian motto, French intellectual movement of the XIXth century, which aims to drive the whole society to more economic and social justice. Indeed, in their journal Le Producteur, the Saint-Simonians design a meritocratic system based upon ability where each individual contributes to a whole system of rationalized industry. In other words, each individual —divided in three kinds of producers: artists, industrialists and scientists —has to produce according to industrial imperatives provided by an elite of the most able of them. Few enlightened by the recent economic literature on Saint-Simonianism, the concept of ability still plays a large part in the French doctrine and remains more than a mere economic concept. Even though the Saint-Simonians are part of an industrialist tradition in France, we shall admit that their concept of ability not only refers to economic considerations as the “productive capacity” from the other great industrialist author Jean-Baptiste Say. Indeed, being an able producer implies the respect of two specific rules: 1/ the repartition of productive goods as the Saint-Simonians aim to afford ex ante to each member the means of production. 2/ the distribution of final goods as the French doctrine also deals ex post with remuneration due to works. We aim to show that ability lays out the prerequisite to be a member of their society. Our hypothesis is that the concept of ability also embodies political and social considerations: only able producers have a right to contribute to political life, as the degree of social utility —based upon ability —should supersede birth order and privileges. In this respect, we observe that Saint-Simonianism clearly goes against the European context of their times —particularly marked by the Anglo-Saxon Utilitarianism and the emerging French universal Republicanism —where is gradually gaining currency the major idea that everyone has at least the possibility —at better the right —to contribute to social utility through political rights. Therefore the fact that the Saint-Simonians go against this global context and seem to reject these influences appears as a paradox regarding the privileged links between Saint-Simonianism and thinkers such as Bentham and James Mill. We enlighten how the Saint-Simonians reject the equal consideration of interest, which emerges in Europe instead of the mutual influence with Utilitarianism: we first present how all individuals have a right to access to means of production and to a remuneration based upon works. Here ability appears as a criterion of economic and social justice, which aims to link personal interests around a general goal: “happiness in all class of societies”. Then we show how only able individuals —the producers —have a right to contribute to the political strand of social utility. More precisely this leads to question why the Bentham’s dictum “everybody to count for one nobody for more than one” remains at odds with these Saint-Simonian principles.
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