Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc (; ; 29 October 1811 – 6 December 1882) was a French politician and historian. A

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor. Although Blanc's ideas of the workers' cooperatives were never realized, his political and social ideas greatly contributed to the development of

socialism in France The Left in France (french: gauche française) was represented at the beginning of the 20th century by two main political parties, namely the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and the French Section of the Workers' Internatio ...

. He wanted the government to encourage co-operatives and replace capitalist enterprises. These co-operatives were to be associations of people who produced together and divided the profit accordingly. Following the

Revolution of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...

, Blanc became a member of the provisional government and began advocating for cooperatives which would be initially aided by the government but ultimately controlled by the workers themselves. Blanc's advocacy failed and, caught between radical worker tendencies and the

National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...

, he was forced into exile. Blanc returned to France in 1870, shortly before the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war and served as a member of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

. While he did not support the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...

, Blanc successfully proposed amnesty to the

Communards The Communards () were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. After the suppression of the Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards w ...

Biography

Early years

Blanc was born in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

. His father held the post of Inspector General of Finance under

Joseph Bonaparte it, Giuseppe-Napoleone Buonaparte es, José Napoleón Bonaparte , house = Bonaparte , father = Carlo Buonaparte , mother = Letizia Ramolino , birth_date = 7 January 1768 , birth_place = Corte, Corsica, Republic of ...

. His younger brother was

Charles Blanc Charles Blanc (17 November 1813, Castres (Tarn) – 17 January 1882, Paris) was a French art critic. Life and career He was the younger brother of the French socialist politician and historian Louis Blanc. After the February Revolution of 184 ...

, who later became an influential art critic. Failing to receive aid from Pozzo di Borgo, his mother's uncle, Louis Blanc studied law in Paris, living in poverty, and became a contributor to various journals. In the ''Revue du progres'', which he founded, he published in 1839 his study on ''L'Organisation du travail''. The principles laid down in this famous essay form the key to Louis Blanc's whole political career. He attributes all the evils that afflict society to the pressure of competition, whereby the weaker are driven to the wall. He demanded the equalization of wages, and the merging of personal interests in the common good—"''De chacun selon ses facultés, à chacun selon ses besoins''",Louis Blanc, ''Plus de Girondins'', 1851
p. 92
which is often translated as "

from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (german: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 '' Critique of the Gotha Programme''. The principle ref ...

." This was to be affected by the establishment of "social workshops", a sort of combined co-operative society and trade-union, where the workmen in each trade were to unite their efforts for their common benefit. In 1841 he published his ''Histoire de dix ans 1830-1840'', an attack upon the monarchy of July. It ran through four editions in four years.

Revolution of 1848

In 1847, Blanc published the two first volumes of his ''Histoire de la Revolution Française''. Its publication was interrupted by the

, when he became a member of the provisional government. It was on his motion that, on 25 February, the government undertook "to guarantee the existence of the workmen by work"; and though his demand for the establishment of a ministry of labour was refused—as beyond the competence of a provisional government—he was appointed to preside over the government labour commission (''Commission du Gouvernement pour les travailleurs'') established at the

Palais du Luxembourg The Luxembourg Palace (french: Palais du Luxembourg, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the ...

to inquire into and report on the labour question. The revolution of 1848 was the real chance for Louis Blanc's ideas to be implemented. His theory of using the established government to enact change was different from those of other socialist theorists of his time. Blanc believed that workers could control their own livelihoods, but knew that unless they were given help to get started the cooperative workshops would never work. To assist this process along Blanc lobbied for national funding of these workshops until the workers could assume control. To fund this ambitious project, Blanc saw a ready revenue source in the rail system. Under government control the railway system would provide the bulk of the funding needed for this and other projects Blanc saw in the future. When the workshop program was ratified in the

, Blanc's chief rival was put in control of the project. The National Assembly was not ready for this type of social program and treated the workshops as a method of buying time until the assembly could gather enough support to stabilize themselves against another worker rebellion. Thomas's deliberate failure in organizing the workshops into a success only seemed to anger the public more. The people had been promised a job and a working environment in which the workers were in charge, from these government funded programs. What they had received was hand outs and government funded work parties to dig ditches and hard manual labor for meager wages or paid to remain idle. When the workshops were closed the workers rebelled again but were put down by force by the

. The National Assembly was also able to blame Blanc for the failure of the workshops. His ideas were questioned and he lost much of the respect which had given him influence with the public. Between the

sans-culottes The (, 'without breeches') were the common people of the lower classes in late 18th-century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the . T ...

, who tried to force him to place himself at their head, and the National Guards, who mistreated him, he was nearly killed. Rescued with difficulty, he escaped with a false passport to Belgium, and then to London. He was condemned to deportation in absentia by a special tribunal at Bourges. Against trial and sentence he alike protested, developing his protest in a series of articles in the ''Nouveau Monde'', a review published in Paris under his direction. These he afterwards collected and published as ''Pages de l'histoire de la révolution de 1848'' (Brussels, 1850).

Exile

During his stay in Britain he made use of the unique collection of materials for the revolutionary period preserved at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

to complete his ''Histoire de la Revolution Française'' 12 vols. (1847–1862). In 1858 he published a reply to Lord Normanby's ''A Year of Revolution in Paris'' (1858), which he developed later into his ''Histoire de la révolution de 1848'' (2 vols., 1870–1880). He was also active in the

masonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

organisation, the Conseil Suprême de l'Ordre Maçonnique de Memphis. His membership in the London-based La Grand Loge des Philadelphes is unconfirmed.

Return to France

As far back as 1839, Louis Blanc had vehemently opposed the idea of a Napoleonic restoration, predicting that it would be "despotism without glory", "the Empire without the Emperor." He therefore remained in exile until the fall of the

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

in September 1870, after which he returned to Paris and served as a private in the National Guard. On 8 February 1871 he was elected a member of the National Assembly, in which he maintained that the Republic was "the necessary form of national sovereignty", and voted for the continuation of the war; yet, though a leftist, he did not sympathize with the

, and exerted his influence in vain on the side of moderation. In 1878 he advocated the abolition of the

presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified b ...

and the Senate. In January 1879 he introduced into the chamber a proposal for the amnesty of the

, which was carried. This was his last important act. His declining years were darkened by ill-health and by the death, in 1876, of his wife Christina Groh, whom he had married in 1865. He died at

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. T ...

, and on 12 December received a state funeral in

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figure ...

Legacy

Blanc possessed a picturesque and vivid style, and considerable power of research; but the fervour with which he expressed his convictions, while placing him in the first rank of orators, tended to turn his historical writings into political pamphlets. His political and social ideas have had a great influence on the development of

. His ''Discours politiques'' (1847–1881) was published in 1882. his most important works, besides those already mentioned, are ''Lettres sur l'Angleterre'' (1866–1867), ''Dix années de l'Histoire de l'Angleterre'' (1879–1881), and ''Questions d'aujourd'hui et de demain'' (1873–1884). The

Paris Metro Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

Station

Louis Blanc Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc (; ; 29 October 1811 – 6 December 1882) was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor. Alt ...

is named after him.

Capitalism

Blanc is sometime cited as the first person to use the word capitalism in something like its modern form. While he did not mean the economic system described by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

in ''

Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...

'', Blanc sowed the seeds of that usage, coining the word to mean the holding of capital away from others:

Thought

Reformist socialism

Blanc was unusual in advocating for socialism without revolution first.

Right to work

Blanc invented the

right to work The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in productive employment, and should not be prevented from doing so. The right to work is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized ...

with his ''Le Droit au Travail''.

Religion

Blanc resisted what he perceived as the atheism implicit in Hegel, claiming that it corresponded to anarchism in politics and was not an adequate basis for democracy.

Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

romantic tradition. He regarded

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

and

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

as part of the same historical and ideological movement and accordingly considered the

French Revolution of 1789 The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

as a political outgrowth of the

individualistic Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-relianc ...

rejection of authority inherent in

and heretical movements. Blanc thought the best of the revolution was the Jacobin dictatorship in the communitarian spirit of Catholicism. Blanc himself sought to combine Catholicism and Protestantism in order to synthesize the values of authority, community, and individualism that he both affirmed as necessary for community. He was unusual in combining Catholicism and socialism. Along with Etienne Cabet, Blanc advocated for what he understood as true Christianity while simultaneously critiquing the religion of Catholic clergy. He was hopeful about the religious innovation taking place in early revolutionary France. His belief in God was shaped by

romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

and was similar to

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

Philippe Buchez Philippe-Joseph-Benjamin Buchez (1796–1865), more commonly called Philippe Buchez, was a French historian, sociologist, and politician. He was the founder of the newspaper ''L'Atelier'', and he served briefly, in 1848, as the president of the C ...

and

François-Vincent Raspail François-Vincent Raspail, L.L.D., M.D. (25 January 1794 – 7 January 1878) was a French chemist, naturalist, physician, physiologist, attorney, and socialist politician. Biography Raspail was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. A member of th ...

Works

In 1834, he moved to Paris and soon began working there at the newspaper "Common Sense." * ''L'Organization du Travail'' (1839) (''The Organization of Work'') * ''Histoire de Dix Ans, 1830-1840'' (1841) (''The History of Ten Years, 1830-1840'') * ''Histoire de la Revolution Francaise'' (1847-1862) (''The History of the French Revolution'') * ''Lettres sur L'Angleterre'' (1865) (''Letters on England'')

References

Sources

* Leo A. Loubère, (1961) Louis Blanc: His Life and His Contribution to the Rise of French Jacobin-Socialism * G.D.H Cole, ''Socialist Thought, The Forerunners 1789-1850'' (1959) * * * * * * * * Harry W. Laidler, ''A History of Socialist Thought'' (1927) * * * * G.R.S. Taylor, ''Leaders of Socialism'' (1968) ; Attribution * This work in turn cites, in addition to Blanc's own works: ** L. Fiaux, ''Louis Blanc'' (1883)

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blanc, Louis 1811 births 1882 deaths 19th-century French essayists 19th-century French historians 19th-century French male writers 19th-century Roman Catholics Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery Catholic socialists European democratic socialists French cooperative organizers Forty-Eighters French anti-capitalists French Freemasons French male essayists French Roman Catholics French socialists Government ministers of France Historians of the French Revolution Members of the 1st Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 2nd Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 3rd Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 1848 Constituent Assembly Members of the National Assembly (1871) People deported from France Politicians from Madrid Republican Union (France) politicians