Henri de Saint-Simon

Lore & Background

Henri de Saint-Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat, the son of Balthazar Henri de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon and his wife and cousin, Blanche Isabelle de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon. From his youth he was highly ambitious, ordering his valet to wake him with the reminder that he had great things to do. Upon release he returned to France to study engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mézières.

Reader's Guide

Saint-Simon's significance lies in his formulation of Saint-Simonianism, which identified the industrial class—including workers, managers, scientists, and bankers—as the productive foundation of society, opposed by an idling class of parasitic individuals. He advocated hierarchical, merit-based organizations of managers and scientists as decision-makers in government, and condemned government intrusion into the economy beyond ensuring productive conditions and reducing idleness. His ideas inspired utopian socialism, John Stuart Mill, anarchism via Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Marxism; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels classified him among the utopian socialists. Saint-Simon also influenced 20th-century sociologist Thorstein Veblen and the school of institutional economics. After his death, his disciples formalized his ideas into a movement emphasizing a planned economy, abolition of inheritance, and emancipation of women, and he is widely regarded as a founder of French socialism and a major early progenitor of sociology.

Did You Know?

• He fought in the American Revolution and was captured by British forces.
• He and Talleyrand planned to profiteer during the Terror by buying the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and selling its metal roof for scrap.