SANSIMONISMO. — At his death, S.-S. left not a school in the strict sense of the term, but a group of friends of whom Olindo Rodrigues was the guiding spirit. They set out to bring to life one of the master’s final projects, the founding of a journal of doctrine and propaganda, Le
Producteur, which continued until October 1826. It fulfilled the task of making Sansimonian thought known in a wider circle; doctrinally, it remained at the scientific stage of the master’s thought, merely accentuating the anti-liberal polemic. In the years 1826–29 the Sansimonians organized themselves in the form of a school and gave systematic ideological expression to their principles in the Exposition de la doctrine (1829). From the social point of view, the abolition of inheritance is decisively affirmed; only the capacity to put the instruments of production to work confers the right to possess them; “to each according to his capacities, to each capacity according to its works.” Privileges of birth must disappear entirely; and the right of inheritance will belong only to the state, which has become an association of workers. But the most characteristic feature of this writing is the transformation of the doctrine into a religion and the affirmation of humanity’s religious future. The conflict between science and religion is proper to critical epochs; organic ages, on the other hand, are characterized by their intimate unity. In the history of religion too, one must discern a development, and therefore the religious revolution of our time cannot be a simple restoration of Christianity, on account of the fundamental error within it, the separation of the spiritual from the temporal. To affirm their unity and, consequently, the rehabilitation of the flesh is the task of the Sansimonian revelation. The way was now open for the transformation of the doctrine into a religion and of the school into a church. On Christmas Day 1829, St-Amand Bazard (1791–1832) and Prospero Enfantin (1796–1864) were elected “Fathers” of the Sansimonian “Family.” The former represented the rationalist direction, also inclined toward agreements with liberalism, albeit limited to the struggle against reaction; the latter, the religious and theocratic direction, uncompromisingly anti-liberal. Between 1830 and 1832 the church was constituted through the two experiments in communal life at rue Monsigny and at Ménilmontant. Enfantin succeeded in gaining the upper hand, despite Bazard’s schism and the subsequent breaks with Olindo Rodrigues and with Michel Chevalier, who had directed the journal Le Globe, which, from the end of 1830, became the organ of the school. The disagreement between Bazard and Enfantin arose over the latter’s ideas concerning the rehabilitation of the flesh and the abolition of marriage; but it also originated in the fact that Bazard intended to remain faithful to the idea of freedom, the sacrifice of which was demanded by Enfantin’s theocratic line. Enfantin’s philosophical-religious ideas are essentially a transposition into a fantastic pantheistic metaphysics of S.-S.’s social anti-individualism: the connection of individual life with collective life receives its metaphysical sanction in the thesis that all souls, finite manifestations of the infinite, participate in divine eternity. There is neither birth nor death, because the same soul becomes incarnate in different individuals without ceasing to be itself.
The scant response elicited by his ideas turned Enfantin’s attention toward the East, as the land of religious revelations. In his view, practical Sansimonism must begin by realizing the unity of the East (religion) and the West (industry). “A great act of worship” that must bear the features of the new industrial civilization would symbolize this unity; Enfantin, a curious mixture of bizarre dreamer and realistic man of action, identified it with the cutting of the Suez Isthmus. The Sansimonian family therefore moved to Egypt, hoping for the support of Mehmet 'Ali. Unable to convince him, the Sansimonians accepted his proposal to devote their activity to the construction of a dam on the Nile: the success of this undertaking was supposed to signify the beginning of the industrial organization of the East. But the works were postponed; many Sansimonians remained unemployed, while others died in an epidemic of plague. Three years were lost in the expedition to Egypt (1834–37). After this failure, Enfantin thought that the best way to implement his program was through the support of princes, and he placed his hopes in Luigi Filippo, who was supposed to become the “king of the workers.” This “apostolate among the princes” brought him nothing more than an appointment as a member of the Scientific Commission of Algeria (1840–1841), which enabled him to write a book on the colonization of that region, but nothing concrete for the success of the Sansimonian idea. After 1841 he devoted himself to industrial activity, in the belief that only the industrialization of society could create the conditions favorable to the implementation of his political-religious program. He concerned himself with the problems of the French railway network and played a decisive role in the merger of the small railway companies into large companies. Politically, he increasingly accentuated, especially after the experience of 1848, his opposition both to liberalism and to revolutionary socialism. He was thus naturally led to adhere to the Second Empire: it seemed to him that only authority could guarantee the conditions for social reforms. Other Sansimonians underwent the same evolution, the most notable being Michel Chevalier, who became one of the most influential economic advisers of Napoleone III. Thus the Sansimonian movement attained reality by collaborating in the industrialization of France, but abandoned—confining it to distant hopes—the revolutionary and messianic aspect. Enfantin devoted two further books to the systematic exposition of the philosophical-religious element of his work, La Science de l'homme (1858) and La vie éternelle (1861), which had few readers. With his death (31 August 1864), it may be said that the Sansimonian school came to an end.