Louis Blanc 's Oganisation of Labor

Louis Blanc's Organization of Labor (1840)

Louis Blanc was born in Madrid, Spain on October 29, 1811, while his father was holding the post of inspector-general of finance under Joseph Bonaparte. In 1813, when the regime collapsed, the Blanc family returned to France, where Blanc would attend Rodez, a very conservative institution. Rodez was Catholic and classical. The students were taught to hate all forms of revolutions. Blanc evidently bought in to these because in such a conservative school he won awards for his oratory skills and the school would only listen to one view. He did not like the overthrowing of Charles X in England because of his lessons at Rodez. After graduating from Rodez in 1830, he worked as a tutor in Arras, an industrial city in northern France. It was here that he started to communicate with members of the working class and his political views changed. By talking to the workers, Blanc gained confidence in them and their ability to absorb political ideas and control themselves. He kept these ideas with him when he moved to Paris and founded the Revue du progres in 1839. In 1840, he published in his new journal his study on L'Organisation du travail (The Organization of Labor). The principles found in this famous essay form the key to Louis Blanc's political ideas and subsequent career. His ideas were to create a more practical form of socialism that could work in France and through Europe. Three revolutionary socialist ideas found in L'Organisation du travail clearly illustrate the changes he wanted to make to French Socialist ideas.

His first new idea was the eradication of competition in places of work such as factories and printing establishments, where a large number of his countrymen worked. He attributes all the evils that afflict society to the pressure of competition, whereby the weaker are driven to the wall. In the essay, he says:

"A contractor needs a laborer: three apply: 'How much do you ask for your work?" Ð''Three francs, I have a wife and children.' Ð''Good, and you?' Ð''Two and a half francs, I have no children, but a wife.' Ð''So much the better, and you?' Ð''Two francs will do for me; I am single.' Ð''You shall have the work.' With this the affair is settled, the bargain is closed. What will become now of the other two proletarians? They will starve, it is to be hoped. But what if they become thieves? Never mind, why have we our police? Or murderers? Well, for them we have the gallows. And the fortunate one of the three; even his victory is only temporary. Let a fourth laborer appear, strong enough to fast one out of every two days; the desire to cut down the wages will be exerted to its fullest extent."

It is clear that Blanc is very hostile to employers of unskilled jobs. He says that in the end all lose except for the employer. In his example, the first two workers, one with a wife and child and the other with just a wife to provide for, are left out. The final worker, who can afford work for a wage of two francs, will, as Blanc predicts, ultimately by a worker who can survive for even less. "Who would be blind enough not to see that under the reign of free competition the continuous decline of wages necessarily becomes a general law with no exception whatsoever", he continued, agreeing with David Ricardo's ideas in his Iron Law of Wages (1817). Blanc considers what will happen to those who are not able to get jobs. He predicts that they will have to starve or turn towards crime as a way of supporting his family. This is bad for the society as a whole. This system is beneficial to only to bottom-line obsessed employers, in the short term. Therefore, Blanc tried to merge personal interests with common good. In this attempt, he wrote "Ð" chacun selon ses besoins, de chacun selon ses facultes," which is often translated "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." This is a commitment from an employer to his workers. The workers make a commitment to working as hard as they physically can and employers make a commitment to providing for their needs and responsibilities to their families. This is a new idea in socialism. Saint-Simon and other French socialists of the era believed that workers should be paid by their skill level and effectiveness. Because companies would never agree to such a commitment, Blanc claimed that government "ought to be considered as the supreme regulator of production and endowed for this duty with great power." It is with this same confidence in government that he proposed another new socialist idea.

French Socialism had always been an idea in which the government took control of most aspect of life for the greater good, but never before was an idea put forth to eliminate private industry. Social workshops were Blanc's way of using government involvement in industry to eradicate public industry. These workshops would compete with private business in a battle that would not be long because "the social workshops would have advantages over the others, the results of the cheaper communal life and through the organization by which all laborers, without exception, are interested in producing good and quick work." Private business would be put out of business because they couldn't compete. This is Blanc's way of "destroying competitionÐ'... [and] at the same time