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The Official Social Philosophy of the French Third Republic: Léon Bourgeois and Solidarism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

J. E. S. Hayward
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At the turn of the century, the authoritative political theorist Henri Michel had this to say of the characteristic approach in France to all problems, and in particular to political problems. “We are infatuated with isms, it is part of the national temperament. It is significant that a large number of our fellow-citizens like them so much, that every time they are presented with a new one, they greedily seize upon it, without asking themselves whether it can be accomodated alongside the one with which they were previously enamoured.”; The accuracy of this observation has not substantially diminished over the last half-century, the parties left of centre being particularly addicted to doctrinaire formulations of their political philosophies and programmes and to the consequent verbal fetishism and pompous dogmatism. The rise of Socialism in the late nineteenth century overshadowed the contemporary crystallisation of Radical attitudes and aims into the doctrine of Solidarism. Solidarism, however, played a major part in galvanising and rallying the protagonists of state intervention and voluntary association; uniting them in the task of building, by a series of piecemeal reforms inspired by a simple principle and a multiplicity of imperative needs what has come to be known as the “Welfare State”. Despite the doctrinal fragility of Solidarism, its practical programme was inspired by and was appropriate to the social and political needs of a society in transition from individualist and non-interventionist liberalism to associationist and statist socialism, just as liberal economism had secured the transition from corporativism and mercantilism to private enterprise, laisser faire and laisser passer. To-day it is Gaullism that dominates the political scene, but the tenacious Radical tradition of the Third and Fourth Republics may yet reassert itself, transforming in retrospect the tidal wave of to-day into a ripple, as it has so frequently done during the last eighty years of France's tormented history.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , April 1961 , pp. 19 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1961

References

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page 20 note 1 Leroy, M., La Loi, , 1908, p. 286Google Scholar; cf. pp. 286–97. For a discussion of the origins and evolution of the idea of solidarity from mystique to politique, see my article in The International Review of Social History, 1959, Vol. IV, Part 2, pp. 261–84Google Scholar, entitled: Solidarity: the Social History of an idea in Nineteenth Century France.

page 20 note 2 Thibaudet, A., Les idées politiques de la France, 1932, p. 175Google Scholar; cf. pp. 173, 178, 243–44; Milhaud, A., Histoire du Radicalisme, 1951, p. 101.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 Hamburger, M., Léon Bourgeois, 1851–1925, 1932, pp. 19–21.Google Scholar On Léon Bourgeois' refusal of offers of support for his candidacy as President of the Republic in 1912 on grounds of ill-health, see the interesting revelations on the vanity of statesmen in Corday, M., The Paris Front. An Unpublished Diary: 1914–1918, 1933Google Scholar, in which he quotes Briand as saying that he and Jaurès made vain overtures to Bourgeois who backed out after initial acceptance (p. 29). Corday explained this by a “deal” between Léon Bourgeois and Raymond Poincaré, according to which Bourgeois would support Poincaré for the Presidency of the Republic if Poincaré supported his candidature for membership of the “Académie Française”; Bourgeois having remarked to Anatole France that “he did not care a damn about the Presidency of the Republic, since his sole ambition was membership of the Academy”. (Ib., p. 289; cf. Wright, G., Raymond Poincaré and the Presidency, 1942, p. 35).Google Scholar Be this as it may, Poincaré was elected President; Bourgeois never joined the “immortals”.

page 22 note 1 Solidarité, 1st ed. 1896, 7th ed. 1912, p. 5Google Scholar; cf. pp. 6–7, 79. Of Pierre Leroux, the social reformist and pioneer socialist, George Renard wrote: “He was the initiator of the solidarisme which M. Léon Bourgeois has recently propagated and rejuvenated”. (La Révolution de 1848, 1904, I, pp. 64–65.)Google Scholar

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page 24 note 2 Ib., p. 99; cf. p. 100.

page 25 note 1 Erogan, D. W., The Development of Modern France 1870–1939, 1940, 1945, ed., p. 445.Google Scholar On Bourgeois, and Clemenceau, , see Scott, J. A., Republican Ideas and the Liberal Tradition in France, 1870–1914, 1951, pp. 156, 191Google Scholar; Halévy, D., La République des Comités, 1934, PP. 22, 47–49, 85–96.Google Scholar

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page 26 note 1 Worms, R., Philosophie des Sciences Sociales, III, 1907, pp. 152–53.Google Scholar Réné Worms, who championed organicist sociology in his best known work Organisme et Société, published in 1896, was the founder and editor of the Revue Internationale de Sociologie from 1892 and also founded the International Institute of Sociology in 1893. The fame of the Durkheimian school of French sociology has dwarfed his work which was Spencerean in method. However, he repudiated Spencer's individualistic deductions, writing in retrospect: “In France, organicism had the good fortune to be linked with solidarism.” (La Sociologie, 1921, p. 50.)Google Scholar

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page 27 note 2 Ib., p. 105; cf. pp. 2, 71–72, 96, 139–42.

page 28 note 3 Ib., p. 229; cf. pp. 166–70; La Politique de la Prévoyance Sociale, I, pp. 123, 215, 219–20.Google Scholar

page 28 note 4 Solidarité, , p. 191Google Scholar; cf. Politique de Prévoyance, I, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

page 28 note 1 In Les Idées Solidaristes de Proudhon (1912, p. 69)Google Scholar A.-G. Boulen went so far as to exclaim: “L'homme naît débiteur! Cette proposition est en train de causer plus d'émoi que le fameux: La propriété, c'est le vol… Vous pouvez être bien sûrs que de toutes les assemblées, de tous les discours, toasts et rapports qu'elle traversera, elle ne sortira pas muée en une formule de défense de la propriété”.

page 28 note 2 Solidarité, pp. 42–44, 51–52, 84, 176–77, 200–01.Google Scholar

page 29 note 1 Ib., p. 54; cf. pp. 54–57, 63–64. – On Fouillée's Radical transformation of Comte's traditionalist conception of the social debt (as expounded, for example, in Comte, , Système de Politique Positive, 1851–1854, I, p. 335; II, p. 363)Google Scholar see his La Science Sociale Contemporaine, 1880, 5th ed. 1910, pp. 369–78.Google Scholar

page 29 note 2 Solidarité, pp. 57, 177Google Scholar; cf. pp. 191, 197–98, 203–05, 232–33.

page 30 note 1 Bougié, C., Le Solidarisme, 1907, p. 77Google Scholar; cf. Chapter 3 passim, and Gide, C., La Solidarité, 1932, Chapter 6 passimGoogle Scholar; Bourgeois, , Solidarité, pp. 61, 196, 206, 208–10, 230–31.Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 In R. M. Jackson, The History of Quasi-Contract in English Law, 1936, the term is stated to derive from Justinian's classification of legal obligations not arising from contract or delict, carried over into English law as liabilities not based upon either contract or tort, and so interpreted in the Courts since the seventeenth century (pp. xxi–ii, 127). In particular, the rise of the count of indebitatus assumpsit led the Courts to interpret the fact of indebtedness as a ground for legal obligation because of an implied promise to repay, i.e. a “fictitious” or “constructive” contract. Quasi-contract should not, however, be regarded as meaning “like a contract”, because “The essence of contract has come to be agreement, whilst the essence of quasi-contract has remained a duty imposed by the law irrespective of agreement.” (Ib. p. 129; cf. pp. xxii, 128–9). – In his preface, H. D. Hazeltine drew attention to the fact that Chancery Equity, rather than the Common Law on which Jackson concentrated, might be a particularly significant source of quasi-contractual law, referring to Lord Mansfield's assimilation of quasi-contract to “natural justice” in the key case of Moses v. Macferlan in 1760. (Ib. p. xiii–iv; cf. pp. 118–21.) This view seems to be shared by Jenks. He gave the following definition: “When the law imposes upon one person, on the grounds of natural justice, an obligation towards another similar to that which arises from a true contract, although no contract, express or implied, has in fact been entered into be them to that effect, such obligation is said to arise from Quasi-contract.” (A Digest of English Civil Law, 2nd ed. 1921, 1, Book 2, Part 3, p.315.)Google Scholar – Jackson claims that Lord Mansfield's motive was essentially that “Public policy requires ill-gotten gains to be restored” (loc. cit. p. 121), and his quotation of J. B. Ames' statement that “The equitable principle which lies at the foundation of the great bulk of quasi-constract, namely that one person shall not unjustly enrich himself at the expense of another” (Ib. p. 162), makes clear that as compared with the three facets of quasi-contract in the Code Civil, only the third, unjust enrichment, is recongnised in English law and is grounded on Equity. In the opinion of Lé Bourgeois, public policy had wider claims.

page 31 note 1 Solidarité, pp. 39–41, 70, 93–94, 123, 207–10, 242–44.Google Scholar On the significance of solidarity for Duguit, see my article Solidarist Syndicalism: Durkheim, and Duguit, , Part II, in: Sociological Review, December, 1960.Google Scholar – For Duguit's criticism of the doctrine of social quasi-contract, see his L'État, le droit objectif et la loi positive, 1901, pp. 25, 39Google Scholar; Le Droit Social, le droit individuel et les transformations de l'État, 1908, 3rd ed. 1921, pp. 8, 80–81 note.Google Scholar On the significance of the breakdown of the distinction between public and private law, see Andler, , Le Quasi-Contrat Social et Léon Bourgeois in: Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 07 1897, pp. 520–30.Google Scholar For an exposition of a movement parallel with Solidarism which has a “succès de curiosité” in 1903–06, associated with the jurist Emmanuel Lévy, see J. Hitier, La Dernière Évolution doctrinale du Socialisme: Le Socialisme Juridique, 1906, also published in the Revue d'Économie Politique (edited by Charles Gide) in 1906. On Bourgeois' Solidarism as the forerunner of juridical socialism considered broadly – embracing Duguit and Morin as well as Lévy – see Barasch, M. I., Le Socialisme Juridique, 1923, pp. 9 sq.Google Scholar; cf. Sarraz-Bournet, M., Une évolution nouvelle du Socialisme doctrinal: Le Socialisme Juridique, 1911, pp. 135–40Google Scholar, on the affinity between the Solidarism of Bourgeois and the co-operativism of Gide, with juridical socialism traced back to Proudhon (Ib., p. 48 sq.).

page 32 note 1 Bourgeois, , Vues Politiques, article in: Revue de Paris, 15.4.1910, p. 695; cf. pp. 696–97.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 Hamburger, , op. cit., p. 163; cf. pp. 17, 22, 262.Google Scholar For Sorel's scathing review of Solidarité, see Revue Philosophique, 1897, XLIII, pp. 652–55.Google Scholar Bourgeois' Radicalism, as distinct from the Opportunist Radicals, however, could not be embraced by A. Després' ironic etymological derivation of the term Radical: “Ça vient de Radis, rouge en dehors et blanc en dedans”. (Manuel du parfait radical, 1896, cover.)

page 33 note 1 See Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 1903, especially the contribution of E. d'Eichthal, La Solidarité Sociale et ses Nouvelles Formules (subsequently delivered as a lecture to the “Société d'Économie Politique”) and Brunot's defence: La Solidarité Sociale comme principe des lois. See also D'Eichthal's retort to Bouglé's L'Évolution du Solidarisme (Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 03 1903, pp. 480–505)Google Scholar entitled: Solidarité Sociale et Solidarisme (Ib., July, 1903, pp. 97–116) and the hostile articles on Solidarity in: Journal des Économistes by Rouxel (March 1897, pp. 462–64), Léon, H. (05 1897, pp. 176–86)Google Scholar and Pareto, (02 1898, pp. 161–71).Google Scholar For all their claims to having stressed prior to all others the phenomenon of solidarity, the Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Économie Politique, 1891–92, by Léon Say and J. Chailley did not see fit to mention it.

page 33 note 2 Politique de Prévoyance, I, p. 21; cf. pp. 20–23, 129Google Scholar; Solidarité, pp. 172–73.Google Scholar

page 34 note 1 Essai d'une Philosophie de la Solidarité, p. 272Google Scholar; cf. pp. 66–70, 163 sq., 254 sq. for contributions of Renard, Rauh and La Fontaine. See Pirou, G., Les Doctrines Économique en France depuis 1870, 1930, p. 165.Google Scholar The “École des Hautes Études Sociales” department of social studies was heavily weighted with Solidarists or sympathisers: Bougié, Duguit, Durkheim, Séailles.

page 34 note 2 Essai d'une Philosophie de la Solidarité, p. 34; cf. pp. 25, 44–45.Google Scholar

page 34 note 3 Buisson, F., La Politique Radicale, 1908, pp. 70–76.Google ScholarRastoul, A., in: Histoire de la Démocratie catholique en France (1789–1903), 1913, p. 299Google Scholar, wrote of Bourgeois' programme: “It is the sole example of a progressive government preferring the implementation of a democratic programme (i.e. social and economic reform) to the facile diversion of anticlericalism.”

page 35 note 1 See the testimony of a hostile critic, Ferré, E., Un Ministère Radical, 1896, pp. 19, 26; cf. pp. II, 17, 20–22, 45.Google Scholar

page 35 note 2 See Hamburger, , op. cit., pp. 167 sq., especially pp. 195–202, 208–12Google Scholar on Bourgeois' conflict with the Senate. On the policy of Radical-Socialist collaboration symbolised by the slogan “Pas d'ennemis à gauche”, see Charpentier, A., Le Parti Radical et Radical-Socialiste à travers ses congrès, 1901–11, 1913, pp. 425 sq.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 Politique de Prévoyance, I, pp. 5–9, 40Google Scholar; Solidarité, pp. 48–49, 87–90, 94–95, 108–09, 112–16, 125–26, 214–17.Google Scholar

page 36 note 2 La Politique de la Prévoyance Sociale, II, 1919, p. 378Google Scholar, speech in 1912 as Minister of Labour; see also Solidarité, pp. 244–46.Google Scholar For important extracts of the debates on the income tax bill, see Hamburger, , op. cit., pp. 96, 137–39, 144–45, 149–58, especially pp. 156–58.Google Scholar Not until 1914 did the Radical Caillaux finally secure the enactment of the progressive income tax.

page 37 note 1 Bourgeois, , Lettre au Congrès Radical et Radical-Socialiste de Nantes, 1909, pp. 14–15Google Scholar; cf. Hamburger, , pp. 33, 128–32, 135–37Google Scholar; Scelle, G., Précis Élémentaire de Législation Industrielle, 1927, pp. 79–80, 324–28, 347.Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 Bourgeois, , Vues Politiques in: Revue de Paris, 15.4.1910, p. 699Google Scholar; cf. Lettre au Congrès Radical, p. IIGoogle Scholar; Solidarité, pp. 114–15, 125–26Google Scholar; La Politique de la Prévoyance Sociale, II, pp. 316 sq.Google Scholar For Mirman's article Une loi de solidarité sociale, see Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 07 1903, XXXVII, pp. 49–73.Google Scholar For a detailed analysis of the provisions of this Act, see the article entitled Social Solidarity in France, by Henderson, C. R., in: The American Journal of Sociology, 1905, Vol. XI, pp. 168–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 37 note 3 See the lecture by the eminent civil servant, G. Paulet, Directeur de l'Assurance et de la Prévoyance Sociales, in the series on Les Applications Sociales de la Solidarité (1903, especially pp. 164–68, 173–79) delivered at the École des Hautes Études Sociales in 1902–03, under the presidency of Léon Bourgeois and following on the 1901–02 theoretical lectures Essai d'une Philosophie de la Solidarité. – On Sismondi's anticipation of late nineteenth and early twentieth century legislation on occupational risk in particular and social reform in general, see especially his Nouveaux Principes d'Économie Politique, 1st ed. 1819, 2nd ed. 1827, pp. 354–69Google Scholar and Jeandeau, R., Sismondi, précurseur de la législation sociale contemporaine, 1913, pp. 1–3, 12, 33–38, 84.Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 La Politique de la Prévoyance Sociale, II, p. 512; cf. pp. 310–12, 410–16; I, pp. 206–07.Google Scholar Employment Exchanges were reorganised by an Act of 1894. (Scelle, , op. cit., pp. 74–75.)Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 Quoted in Hamburger, , pp. 127–28; cf. pp. 106–13, 122–28.Google Scholar See also Zévaès, A., Le Syndicalisme Contemporain, p. 212.Google Scholar

page 38 note 3 Politique de Prévoyance, II, p. 244.Google Scholar

page 38 note 4 Ib., pp. 215, 244, 248–57; cf. Ib., I, pp. 204–05; Solidarité, pp. 236–37. In 1906, the Radicals pushed through an Act guaranteeing at least one day's holiday a week to all employees, two-thirds of a century after the publication of Proudhon's De la Célébration du Dimanche.

page 39 note 1 Solidarité, p. 214; cf. pp. 241, 247–48.Google Scholar

page 39 note 2 Politique de Prévoyance, I, p. 88; cf. pp. 71, 169.Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 Solidarité, p. 130; cf. pp. 100–02, 131, 143–49, 278–83Google Scholar; Preface to Girard, Vers la Solidarité par les sociétés coopératives de consommation, 1904.

page 40 note 2 Politique de Prévoyance, I, p. 118; cf. pp. 111–29Google Scholar; Hoog, G., La Coopération de Production, I, 1942, pp. 115–116; II, 1943, pp. 48–50.Google Scholar

page 40 note 3 Dubron, V., in the opening speech at the Second Congress of the “Alliance” in 1905.Google Scholar (Annales de l'Alliance d'Hygiène Sociale, March 1905, p. 13.) The main associations in the Alliance were: the “Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française” (Mabilleau); “Association Centrale Française contre la tuberculose” (Bourgeois); “Société Française des Habitations à Bon Marché” (J. Siegfried); “Ligue contre la mortalité infantile”; “Ligue Nationale contre l'Alcoolisme”; “Ligue Française de l'Enseignement” (E. Petit); “L'Association Polytechnique”; “Le Musée Social”; “Ligue Française d'hygiène scolaire”; “L'Association des Industriels de France contre les accidents de travail”; “L'Association des Cités-Jardins” (C. Gide); “L'Association Française pour la lutte contre le chômage” (Bourgeois). For a brief statement of the purposes of the above-mentioned societies and their leading members, see Annales, , 01–03 1913, pp. 12–49.Google Scholar

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page 42 note 1 Bourgeois, L., Pour la Société des Nations, 1st ed. 1910Google Scholar, Dent, ed., p. 40; cf. pp. 1, 10, 15–18, 41, 62, 122Google Scholar; Scelle, G., Le Pacte des Nations et sa liaison avec le Traité de Paix, 1919, p. 87. Scelle dedicated this work to Bourgeois.Google Scholar

page 42 note 2 Pour la Société des Nations, pp. 261–64Google Scholar; cf. Paix par le Droit, 1899, pp. 264, 293; cf. pp. 308, 349–50, 366; 1900, pp. 78–80.Google Scholar For a detailed account of the work of the 1899 Hague Conference, see Ib., 1899, pp. 301 et seq., 351 et seq. – The “Association de la Paix par le Droit” was founded in 1887 (though it was initially called “Jeunes Amis de la Paix par le Droit”) at Nîmes at a time when this town was emerging as the centre of a resurgence of the consumer co-operative movement with its periodical Emancipation and of Social Protestantism with its periodical Le Christianisme Pratique, renamed in 1897 Revue du Christianisme Social. In both of these movements, Charles Gide, the principal exponent of Solidarist economics played a prominent part. Though he preferred to conduct his campaign for international peace through the “International Co-operative Alliance”, he was a member of the “Association” and a contributor to its publication La Paix par le Droit.

page 43 note 1 Paix par le Droit, 11 1907, p. 441Google Scholar; cf. Pour la Société des Nations, pp. 21–22, 55, 62, 79–80, 140–46, 154, 188, 196, 205Google Scholar; Hamburger, , op. cit., Ch. 6.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 In referring to “l'Association française pour la Société des Nations, créée par Léon Bourgeois en 1889,” J. and Charlot, M., in “La Ligue des Droits de l'Homme”, Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. IX, 12 1959, p. 1015Google Scholar, are probably confusing his 1918 initiative with the “Association de la Paix par le Droit” of 1889. The phrase “League of Nations” was launched in Britain after the outbreak of war in 1914 by Lowes Dickinson who played a prominent part in the creation, first of a League of Nations Society (1915) and later of the League of Nations Union. See Forster, E. M., Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, 1934, pp. 163 et seq.Google Scholar In the U.S.A., the comparable body was the League to Enforce Peace. In A History of the League of Nations, 1952, 1960 ed., p. 18Google Scholar note, Walters, F. P. wrote: “The name ‘League of Nations’, unknown in the autumn of 1914Google Scholar, had become current by the spring of 1915; I have not traced its origin with certainty. It may have been adapted from the French term “Société des Nations”, which had been in use for many years, and was the title of a book published in 1908 by Léon Bourgeois.”

page 44 note 1 Le Pacte de 1919, pp. 46–47Google Scholar; cf. pp. 45–47, 69–71, 91–92, 118–19; L'Oeuvre de la Société des Nations, 1923, pp. 108–13.Google Scholar

page 44 note 2 Le Pacte de 1919, pp. 111 et seq.Google Scholar; cf. pp. 121–26, 132–33, 136.

page 45 note 1 Bonsal, S., Unfinished Business, 1944, p. 27; cf. p. 171.Google Scholar See Walters, , loc. cit., pp. 23, 36–37, 62–63.Google Scholar

page 45 note 2 Ib. p. 49; cf. pp. 36, 56–57, 149–50, 170–72. Bonsal describes a revealing incident when, in reply to a question from Larnaude (Dean of the Paris Faculty of Law, and Bourgeois' fellow French delegate) about who would decide whether or not a treaty was consistent with the Covenant, President Wilson said: “The decision will lie with the court of public opinion.” With a lawyer's disgust at this piece of naïve rhetoric from an ex-Professor of politics, Larnaude said sotto voce to Bourgeois: “Tell me, mon ami, am I at the Peace Conference or in a madhouse?” (Ib. p. 52.)

page 45 note 3 Ib. pp. 58–59, 140–41.

page 46 note 1 Commémoration solennelle du Centenaire de la Naissance de Léon Bourgeois, 1952, pp. 15–16Google Scholar; cf. Scelle, , loc. cit., pp. 206 et seq., especially pp. 227–28, 525–34.Google Scholar

page 46 note 2 Le Pacte de 1919, p. 181Google Scholar; cf. pp. 184–89. See also Dawborn's, C. article Léon Bourgeois: An Apostle of Peace in: The Contemporary Review, 1919, CXV, pp. 304–08Google Scholar; Milhaud, , op. cit., pp. 121–22, 126–27Google Scholar; Prudhommeaux's, obituary on Bourgeois in: Paix par le Droit, 10 1925, p. 357.Google ScholarOn Bourgeois' key rôle in determining the character of the Hague International Court in 1920, see L'Oeuvre de la Société des Nations, pp. 159–208.Google Scholar

page 47 note 1 Commémoration solennelle, loc. cit., pp. 19–22Google Scholar; cf. Pirou, , Les Doctrines Économiques, op. cit., pp. 165–66Google Scholar; Scott, J. A., op. cit., p. 171Google Scholar; Ribet, J.: Vers la Solidarité Sociale, in: Revue de la Solidarité Sociale, 07 1905, p. 185.Google Scholar

page 47 note 2 Lettre au Congrès Radical, op. cit., p. 11Google Scholar; cf. Milhaud, , op. cit., pp. 276–78 and pp. 302–03Google Scholar, for a list of social reforms promoted by the Radicals between 1884–1924. – However, by 1950, the Radical party had become a socially Conservative party, content, apart from a few modest proposals dictated by the Opportunistic rather than the Intransigent tradition, to rest on its laurels. The attempt in the mid-1950's by Pierre Mendès-France to revive the intransigent tradition of Louis Blanc failed, and the Radical party resumed its degeneration into a congeries of opportunistic office-seekers, switching its indispensable support now to the Left (generally at elections) and now to the Right.

page 47 note 3 Charpentier, , op. cit., p. 397.Google Scholar