Saint-Simonianism

Saint-Simon himself argued that the coming industrial society should be reorganised around the industrialists, and in his late New Christianity (1825) spoke of renewing society through brotherly love. At his funeral in 1825 his disciples, on Rodrigues's proposal, founded the journal Le Producteur, and in 1829–1830 they published the Exposition of the Doctrine of Saint-Simon. Enfantin and Bazard styled themselves 'Supreme Fathers' and led the movement together, but Bazard broke away as it grew ritualistic and religious. Enfantin set up a community at Ménilmontant, denounced marriage and preached free love; in 1832 he was tried for offences against public morals and the school was banned. After the dissolution former members turned to railways and banking: Saint-Simonians ran the company that built France's first passenger railway, from Paris to Saint-Germain, and took part in founding the Crédit Mobilier and the Suez Canal Company. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels classed the systems of Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen as 'critical-utopian socialism' born while the class struggle was still undeveloped, judging that the founders were in many respects revolutionary but their disciples formed reactionary sects.