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Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon , was a French political and economic theorist and businessman whose thought played a substantial role in influencing politics, economics, sociology, and the philosophy of science.

He created a political and economic ideology known as Saint-Simonianism that claimed that the needs of an industrial class, which he also referred to as the working class, needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy. Unlike later conceptions by others of a working class being manual labourers alone, Saint-Simon's conception of this class included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, that included businesspeople, managers, scientists, bankers, along with manual labourers amongst others. He said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class, that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work. Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy, such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government. He strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring no hindrances to productive work and reducing idleness in society, regarding intervention beyond these as too intrusive.This ideology soon inspired and influenced utopian socialism, liberal political theorist John Stuart Mill, anarchism through its founder Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who was inspired by Saint-Simon's thought and Marxism with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identifying Saint-Simon as an inspiration to their ideas and identifying him among the utopian socialists. However historian Alan Ryan regards certain followers of Saint-Simon, rather than Saint-Simon himself, as being responsible for the rise of utopian socialism that based itself upon Saint-Simon's ideas. He also regards strong differences as existing between Saint-Simon's conceptions and Marxism's as Saint-Simon did not promote class conflict as a solution to societal problems nor did he adhere to the narrower definition of the working class as manual labourers as defined by Marxists. Saint-Simon unlike Marx did not regard the prevalent form of ownership as being paramount issue in the economy but rather the form of management. Furthermore, Saint-Simon held no opposition to capitalists as a whole unlike Marx and he regarded them as an important component of the industrial class. Later Saint-Simon's views influenced sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, including Veblen's creation of institutional economics that has included prominent economists as adherents. Historian Alan Ryan states that by the 1950s it was clear that Saint-Simon had invented the modern understanding of industrial society and its organization.Saint-Simon and his secretary Auguste Comte developed what Comte would complete as sociology.

✵ 17. October 1760 – 19. May 1825   •   Other names Conte di Saint-Simon
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Henri de Saint-Simon: 9   quotes 14   likes

Famous Henri de Saint-Simon Quotes

“The philosopher places himself at the summit of thought; from there he views what the world has been and what it must become. He is not just an observer, he is an actor; he is an actor of the highest kind in a moral world because it is his opinion of what the world must become that regulates society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

Le philosophe se place au sommet de la pensée; de là il envisage ce qu'a été le monde et ce qu'il doit devenir. Il n'est pas seulement observateur, il est acteur; il est acteur du premier genre dans le monde moral, car ce sont ses opinions sur, car ce sont ses opinions sur ce que le monde doit devenir qui règlent la société humaine.
Science de l'homme: Physiologie religieuse (1858), p. 437

“The whole of society rests upon industry.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

L'Industrie, in Œuvres de Saint-Simon, Vol. 18 (Paris, 1868), p. 13
Context: The whole of society rests upon industry. Industry is the sole guarantee of its existence, the single source of all its wealth and all its prosperity. The state of things most favorable to industry is by that very reason the most favorable to society.

“We regard society as the ensemble and union of men engaged in useful work. We can conceive of no other kind of society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

"Declarations of Principles"

“Politics is the science of production.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

De L'Industrie (1816), in Saint-Simon: sa víe et ses travaux (1857), by M. G. Hubbard, pp. 156–157

“Today, for the first time since the existence of societies it is a question of organizing a totally new system; of replacing the celestial with the terrestrial, the vague by the positive, and the poetic by the real.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

[A]ujourd'hui … [i]l est question, pour la première fois depuis l'existence des sociétés, d'organiser un système tout-à-fait nouveau, de remplacer le céleste par le terrestre, le vague par le positif, le poétique par le réel.
L'Industrie, as quoted in L'Ami de la Religion et du Roi: journal ecclésiastique, politique et littéraire, No. 336 (29 October 1817)

“True equality consists in each drawing benefits from society in exact proportion to his social outlay, that is to his real capacity, to the beneficent use he makes of his abilities. And this equality is the natural foundation of industrial society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

Syst. Indus, VI, 17, as quoted from E.Durkheim, Socialism and Saint-Simon (1958)

“The progress of the human mind, the revolutions which occur in the development of knowledge, give each century its special character.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

Preface
The Reorganization of the European Community (1814)

“Since governmental activity may be deemed a service which is useful to society, society should consent to pay for this service.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

"Declarations of Principles"

“I have divided [the different sections of mankind] into three classes. The first, to which you and I have the honour to belong, marches under the banner of the progress of the human mind. It is composed of scientists, artists and all those who hold liberal ideas. On the banner of the second is written 'No innovation!' All proprietors who do not belong in the first category are part of the second. The third class, which rallies round the slogan of 'Equality' is made up of the rest of the people.”

Henri de Saint-Simon

[J]e me propose en m'adressant à différentes fractions de l'humanité, que je divise en trois classes: la première, celle à laquelle vous et moi avons l'honneur d'appartenir, marche sous l'étendard des progrès de l'esprit humain; elle marche sous l'étendard des progrès de l'esprit humain; elle est composée des savants, des artistes et de tous les hommes qui ont des idées libérales. Sur la bannière de la seconde il est écrit: point d'innovation; tous les propriétaires qui n'entrent point dans la première sont attachés à la seconde. La troisième, qui se rallie au mot égalité, renferme le surplus de l'humanité.
Oeuvres choisies: précédées d'un essai sur sa doctrine (1839), p. 15

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