Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:27:28.525Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Solidarity: The Social History of an Idea in Nineteenth Century France1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

J. E. S. Hayward
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The survival of a concept is generally only secured at the price of an intellectual odyssey in the course of which it is transformed out of all recognition. The nineteenth century fortunes of the idea of solidarity exemplify this axiom only too strictly. It became the victim of a multiplicity of ingenious puns and metaphors as well as outright malicious distortions that rendered a simple, technical word, drawn from the sphere of jurisprudence, at once emotive and obscure, influential and diffuse. As the eminent and caustic critic of the twentieth century, Julien Benda, formulated this vital problem of the fate of concepts, “pour l'historien des idées des hommes, la réalité ce n'est point ce qu'ont été les idées dans l'esprit de ceux qui les ont inventées, mais ce qu'elles ont été dans l'esprit de ceux qui les ont trahies… car il est clair qu'une doctrine se propage d'autant plus largement qu'elle est apte à satisfaire un plus grand nombre de sentiments divers.” This pessimistic view has been all too frequently verified in human history.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , August 1959 , pp. 261 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1959

References

page 261 note 2 Mon Premier Testament, 1910, pp. 15, 49. This brochure formed the third Cahier of the 12th Series of Charles Péguy's celebrated Cahiers de la Quinzaine. In a lecture on the idea of solidarity in 1900, the Catholic critic Brunetière asserted that “le mouvement des idées étant presque toujours plus rapide que la transformation du langage, les mêmes mots à quelques années d'intervalle, s'ils continuent à rendre le même son, expriment rarement les mêmes idées. IIs en signifient même quelquefois des contradictoires.” Discours de Combat, Série, Nouvelle, 1903, p. 52.Google Scholar

page 262 note 1 Leroy, Maxime, La Politique de Sainte-Beuve, 1941, pp. 279–80.Google Scholar

page 263 note 1 Benda, J., The Living Thoughts of Kant, 1940, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

page 265 note 1 “The Reasoning of Europeans,” article in Listener, Nov. 21, 1957, Vol. LVIII, No. 1459, p. 856.—In The Good Society, Walter Lippmann pointed to the same phenomenon. “It is no exaggeration to say that the transition from the relative self-sufficiency of individuals in local communities to their interdependence in a world-wide economy is the most revolutionary experience in recorded history. It has forced mankind into a radically new way of life and, consequently, it has unsettled customs, institutions and traditions, transforming the whole human outlook” (1st ed. 1938; 1944 ed. pp. 161–62; cf. pp. 161–65).

page 266 note 1 Leroux, , Discours aux philosophes, in Volume I of his Oeuvres, 1850, p. 9. This Discours first appeared in 1831.Google Scholar

page 267 note 1 Renouvier, , Philosophie analytique de l'histoire, IV, 1896–1897, p. 84Google Scholar. As Paul Desjardins wrote of a later wave of solidarist activity, by then less abstract, at the end of the nineteenth century: “la solidarité se développe en même temps que renaît l'espérance… Jamais, peut-être, depuis l'établissement des ordres monastiques, on n'avait vu une telle ferveur d'union par le monde; il se fonde partout des Sociétés coopératives, des syndicats, des Ligues, des Compagnies, pour ne pas dire des Eglises. On n'a guère affaire en tous lieux qu'à des groupes au lieu de personnes” (Le Devoir Présent, pp. 33–34).

page 267 note 2 The name “liberal” in a French context should not, at the risk of serious misinterpretation, be given the same connotation as it possesses in Britain. The credo of the French Liberals was much more narrow, dogmatic and intimately associated with the “sinister interests” of the “grande bourgeoisie.” The rights of the individual were conceived as the exclusive, sacrosanct privileges of the few rather than a precondition of human dignity, due to all men.

page 268 note 1 Démocratie Pacifique, 12. 8. 1847. Quoted by Villey, D.: La Vie, l'Oeuvre et la Doctrine de C.-B. Dupont-White, 1936, p. 554.Google Scholar

page 269 note 1 However, on close examination, the French Revolution ceases to live up to the boast of being “un bloc.” Against the antisolidarist “Loi Le Chapelier” must be set Article 21 of the abortive Jacobin Declaration of Rights of 1793 which proclaimed a sacred social debt of work and assistance to which all citizens were entitled.

page 270 note 1 Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française, 1694, II, p. 485: Encyclopédie, , 1765, XV, p. 320Google Scholar. See also Brunot, F., Histoire de la langue française, IX (2) 1937, p. 669 n. and 745 nGoogle Scholar. for the use of the term “solidarity” in a wider sense in the Revolutionary Assemblies.—See lb. X (2), p. 876 sq. for the further extension of its usage. “Solidariser” and “Solidarisme” appear in J.-B. Richard's Enrichissement de la langue française. Dictionnaire de mots nouveaux, 1842, p. 390.–By 1864, in Maurice Block's Dictionnaire Général de la Politique, under the heading “Solidarité,” appeared the following significant words: “C'est une des grandes lois qui régissent le développement de l'humanité et dominent la science politique… Peut-être parviendra-t-il à donner un plus large et plus rapide essor au progrès politique en étudiant davantage cette loi de solidarité qui relie l'un à l'autre tous les membres de la famille humaine” (II, p. 935). A shortened version of the above entry appeared in Block's Petit Dictionnaire Politique et Social, pp. 716–17, published in 1896, the same year as Léon Bourgeois' Solidarité.

page 270 note 2 Melon, A.-J.-B., De l'idée de Solidarité entre Codébiteurs, 1898, pp. 134–35.Google Scholar

page 270 note 3 a Melon, op.cit., p. 26. The same obligation existed in classical Greece, cf. Glotz: La Solidarité dans la Famille en Gr`ce.

page 271 note 1 Thisse, R., Etude comparée sur l'histoire et le rôle actuel du cautionnement et de la solidarité, 1895, p. 243.Google Scholar

page 271 note 2 The most succinct discussion is to be found in H. Moreau, De la Solidarité, 1930. Solidarity between creditors was dealt with in Arts. 1197–99; between debtors in Arts. 2000–02; between creditors and debtors in Arts. 1203–04; and between co-debtors in Arts. 1213–15, of the Code Civil. See also articles 20, 22, 24, 28, 140, 187 of the Code du Commerce; and article 55 of the Code Pénal.—The most important articles are 1197 and 1200 of the Code Civil. Article 1197 lays down: “L'obligation est solidaire entre plusieurs créanciers lorsque le titre donne expressément à chacun d'eux le droit de demander le paiement du total de la créance, et que le paiement fait à l'un d'eux libère le débiteur, encore que le bénéfice de l'obligation soit partageable et divisible entre les divers créanciers” (Code Civil des Français, 1804, pp. 288–89).—Article 1200 asserts: “II y a solidarité de la part des débiteurs, lorsqu'ils sont obligés à une même chose, de manière chacun puisse être contraint pour la totalité, et que le paiement fait par un seul libère les autres envers le créancier” (Ib., p. 289).

page 272 note 1 Code Civil, p. 290. The only articles in which solidarity was expressly stipulated were 395–96, 1033, 1442, 1887 and 2002.

page 272 note 2 Drakides, P., Du Principe en vertu duquel la solidarité ne se présume pas, 1939, pp. 231–33Google Scholar; Moreau, op.cit., p. 47.

page 274 note 1 “On pourrait définir la Révolution de 1848: le romantisme en politique. Ce fut un déchaînement lyrique des imaginations, une débauche d'idéalisme” (G. Renard, quoted by Gaumont, J.: Histoire de la Coopération en France, 1924, I, p. 240).—In Volume II, Ch. 3 of his monumental Histoire de la Révolution Française entitled “Les Révolutionnaires Mystiques,” a leading figure in the history of the idea of solidarity, Louis Blanc, discussed the contribution of Freemasonry, Martinism, Mesmerism and Illuminism in general to subsequent thought.Google Scholar

page 276 note 1 Dolléans, E. and Dehove, G., Histoire du Travail en France, 1953, I, p. 238; cf. Revue de la Solidarité Sociale, Nov. 1905, pp. 259–60.Google Scholar

page 277 note 1 It is impossible to go into detail here concerning the contributions of these theoreticians to the transition from the “Socialist” conception of solidarity in 1848 into the “Radical” doctrine of Solidarism half a century later. It must suffice to indicate that Charles Renouvier developed Proudhon's juridico-moralistic critique of the pre-Solidarists of the early nineteenth century; Charles Secrétan gave the idea of solidarity a Social Protestant orientation; Alfred Fouillée made it the keystone of an eclectic juridico-social philosophy; Léon Walras utilised it in his theory of social economics; Emile Durkheim made it the foundation of an “objective” sociology with syndicalist undertones that were rendered fully explicit in the jurisprudence of Léon Duguit; whilst Charles Gide adopted it as the pivot of his “Co-operative Republic.”

page 280 note 1 Proudhon, , De la Capacité Politique des Classes Ouvrières, 1865, p. 226.Google Scholar

page 281 note 1 Mill, J. S., On Liberty, Watts ed. 1941, p. 57Google Scholar; cf. 55 sq.; Butler, S., The Way of All Flesh, Dent ed. 1954, Ch. LXIX, p. 267.Google Scholar—Dicey has pointed out in words fully applicable to France: “Extreme and logically coherent theories have, during the nineteenth century, exerted no material effect on the laws of England. It is moderate though it may be inconsistent individualism alone, as it is moderate though it may be inconsistent socialism alone, which has told upon the making of English laws, and which therefore can claim to be legislative opinion” (Lectures on the relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the nineteenth century, 1905, p. 18). In his Introduction to The Social and Political Doctrines of Contemporary Europe, 2nd ed., 1941, Professor M. Oakeshott made the point in a more general form when he indicated a “danger that the intellectual critic of political doctrines should avoid. He is apt to think that the value of a régime or of a condition or an ideal of society depends upon the coherence with which the doctrine associated with it is expressed. He observes a system of reasons adduced to explain the practice of a régime, and he is apt to conclude that because it leaves something to be desired the régime itself stands condemned… And this tendency may lead him astray. The value of a régime, fortunately, does not depend upon the intellectual competence of its apologists; indeed, in most cases, practice is more coherent than doctrine and its superiority recognised” (p. xv).

page 283 note 1 Solidarité, , p. 25Google Scholar. For example, the French Social Security Act of 1946 consolidated the legislation on industrial accidents and diseases within the framework of those common social risks to be dealt with preventively as well as reparatively – the solidarist notion of professional, physiological and family risks replacing the traditional Code Civil principle of personal responsibility – insurance replacing assistance. (Dolléans, and Dehove, : Histoire du Travail, II, pp. 404Google Scholar, 419 sq.) “La sécurité sociale nous paraît correspondre à une double préoccupation de sécurité et de solidarité” (Ib., p. 463). In particular, the authors refer to solidarity between rich and poor (cf. insurance against unemployment and industrial accidents) between the healthy and the ill (national health insurance contributions) and between adults and both the very young and the very old (family allowances and old age pensions). (Ib., pp. 464–65)—P. Durand, Professor of Law at the University of Nancy and member of the “Conseil Supérieur de la Sécurité Sociale,” wrote in La Politique Contemporaine de Sécurité Sociale (1953, p. 51): “Les formes modernes de réparation des risques sociaux traduisent… une volonté d'étendre à de nouveaux risques la garantie sociale”; whilst P. Laroque, President of the “Caisse nationale de Sécurité Sociale,” has affirmed: “Toute l'organisation française de la Sécurité sociale repose sur la solidarité nationale.” (Informations Sociales, May-June, 1957, p. 521; cf. 516, 518; and his preface to H. C. Galant's Histoire Politique de la Sécurité Sociale Française, 1945–52. 1955. PP. XV-XVII; cf. pp. 5, 39, 49, 76–77, 112, 177.)