art. the debate about luxury in french political tehory

The Debate about Luxury in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century French Political ThoughtAuthor(s): Jeremy JenningsSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Jan., 2007), pp. 79-105Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30141868 .Accessed: 08/04/2014 09:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toJournal of the History of Ideas.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 157.92.4.12 on Tue, 8 Apr 2014 09:56:17 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

The Debate about Luxury in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century French Political Thought

Jeremy Jennings

INTRODUCTION: MELON VERSUS ROUSSEAU

In his "Last Reply"' to the criticisms directed at his Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and the Sciences Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the following comment: "It is true that up to now, luxury, although often preva- lent, had at least at all times been viewed as a fatal source of infinitely many evils. It was left for M. Melon to be the first to publish the poisonous doctrine whose novelty brought him more followers than did the soundness of his reasoning. I am not afraid to be alone in my century to fight these odious maxims which only tend to destroy and debase virtue, and to make for rich

An early draft of this article was presented at the 2004 Annual Conference of the APSA. In its final form it has benefited greatly from conversations with Matthew Watson, Hank Clark, Sheryl Kroen, Mihaela Bacou, and Vincent Michel. Research for this article was aided by a Visiting Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at Indiana University, Bloomington, where I was able to make use of the wonderful collection of eighteenth- century material belonging to the Lilly Library, and by a six-month visiting professorship at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris. With regard to the former I thank in particular Ivona Hedin, Stephanie Lookenbill, and Aurelien Craiutu; with regard to the latter I thank especially Patrick Le Gales and Lucien Jaume. Finally, I thank two anonymous reviewers for their extremely useful comments on the first submission of this article and Warren Breckman for his sound advice and editorial encouragement. S"Last Reply by J.J. Rousseau of Geneva," in The Discourses and other early political writings, trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 63-85.

Copyright 0 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 68, Number 1 (January 2007)

79


JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS + JANUARY 2007

people and wretches, that is to say for wicked people in either event."" The Monsieur Melon referred to was Jean-Francois Melon, former secretary to John Law and the author of the Essai politique sur le commerce, first published in 1734.- It is not difficult to appreciate what Rousseau must have found so objectionable in Melon's argument; for it was indeed the case that his text provided one of the first examples of what Christopher Berry has referred to as the "de-moralization of luxury."4

According to Melon, if commerce could be defined as "the exchange of the superfluous for what is necessary,"' then luxury was "an extraordinary sumptuousness which flows from wealth and the security provided by government." Yet, luxury could be given no precise meaning because desires were "relative to time and persons." Furthermore, Melon disputed the claim that luxury encouraged immorality, contending that it had certain moral benefits; most notably it was the "destroyer of sloth and idleness." Melon also pointed out the futility of seeking to regulate luxury out of existence. With Rousseau's Geneva in mind, he commented that such a society more resembled "a community of recluses than a society of free men." He similarly disputed the efficacy of sumptuary laws, believing them fundamentally flawed in both design and intention. Crucially, they disre- garded the human motive of emulation. From this followed a claim that brought Melon's argument close to that of Mandeville. Why, he an- nounced, should extravagant luxury be damned? Unspent, this money would remain "dead to society," but when used in the pursuit of luxury, it paid the gardener, fed and clothed his children, and encouraged him to work for the future. Given away to beggars as an act of Christian charity, that same money would only support idleness and debauchery.

From this argument, Melon drew two conclusions. It was the business of the state to use luxury to its advantage. Secondly, the term "luxury" should be banished from the languages of public administration and commerce because the meaning attached to it was "vague, confused and false" and its abuse ran the risk of stifling industry "at its very source."'' 2 Ibid., 84. For Rousseau's views of luxury, see Renato Galliani, Rousseau, le luxe et I'ideologie nobiliare: etude socio-historique (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1989). The treatment of Melon, however, is limited to one page of text: see 244-45.

3Jean-Francois Melon, Essai politique sur le commerce (Rouen: no publisher, 1734). The

edition of the text referred to is Collection des Principaux Economistes (Osnabruck: Otto Zeller, 1966), 1: 701-835. 4 Christopher J. Berry, The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Melon, Essai politique, 709. 6 Ibid., 742-49.

80


Jennings + Luxury in French Political Thought

Rousseau's response, outlined in his early Discourses,7 was to suggest that "luxury is diametrically opposed to good morals." It produced "the corruption of taste" and the decline of "true courage" and "military virtues." Men became "soft and effeminate." Thus, to the question of what limit should be placed on luxury, Rousseau's response was that everything beyond what was absolutely necessary was "a source of evil" and that it would be "exceedingly imprudent" to multiply our needs. Therefore, Rous- seau stated, "it is one of the most important functions of government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes." Taxes should be designed so as to construct a just society through the eradication of superfluous consumption.

In summary, by reworking the classical themes of ancient republicanism, Rousseau provided a comprehensive indictment of a society where the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury had replaced a simple life lived according to the dictates of virtue. We had lost our innocence and our morals. We were slaves to vice. The poor groveled in their misery while the rich were honored for their superfluous opulence. In our fellows we saw only compet- itors. We lived only in and through the opinion of others. Everything was reduced to appearances and play-acting. Moreover, to his own satisfaction, Rousseau had proved that this was not our original state.

THE LUXURY DEBATE

It is the purpose of this article to suggest that the disagreement between Melon and Rousseau transcends the narrow historical context in which it was articulated. At stake was a new vision of human beings and the pur- poses of society.' Until this moment, civic humanism, if not the only lan-

See "Discourse which won the prize of the Academy of Dijon in the year 1750 on this question proposed by the Academy: Whether the restoration of the Sciences and the Arts has contributed to the purification of morals," in Rousseau, Discourses, 1-28; "Discourse on the Origins and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men," in Discourses, 113-88; and "Discourse on Political Economy," in Rousseau, The Social Contract and other later political writings, trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 3-38. 1 Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capi- talism before its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977). See Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001), Pierre Force, Self-Interest before Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cam- bridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 2005).

81



guage available to discuss political activity, was "the prevailing ideology"9; however, with the gradual emergence of a commercial society, the individual pursuit of happiness, rather than the pursuit of virtue (and even less, the attainment of personal salvation) came increasingly to denote the summum bonum of human existence. In France, the precise context in which this ideational transformation occurred was one of relative economic expansion and urban growth, which combined to produce greater social mobility. With this came dramatic changes in consumption patterns characterized by the passage from a "society of scarcity" to one of expenditure and accumulation."' The King and Queen ceased to be the sole arbiters of taste, and, to that extent, this new material culture was linked to the demise of absolut- ism and the collapse of traditional forms of political and social authority."I

These transformations met with far from universal approval. The word "luxe" entered the French language in 1606 as the synonym for "superfluity." In 1694, the Dictionnaire de l'Acade'nie Franoaise tied its meaning to that of "excess," with an implied note of moral condemnation.12 Criticism of luxury largely focused upon the lavish expenditure of the court at Ver- sailles. Fenelon testified to this critical trend in his abidingly-popular text of 1699, Telemachus in which he praised simplicity, labor, and the virtues of agriculture.'3 Yet, by the mid-eighteenth century, censure of the aristo- cratic culture of the court was extended to broader concerns relating to the activity of consumption and its impact upon the fabric of French society. Commercial prosperity was associated with a growing materialism that brought with it a series of ills, including a confusion of ranks and a femini- zation of the social body. As Sarah Maza has noted: "critics of luxury vastly outnumbered and decisively out-argued defenders of the concept in the decades before the Revolution."l4 The scale and intensity of the debate was quite astonishing. Daniel Roche estimates that in France alone, between the

9 M. M. Goldsmith, "Liberty, luxury and the pursuit of happiness," in The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 232. ' Daniel Roche, Histoire des choses banales (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 67-91. " See Sheryl Kroen, "A Political History of the Consumer," The Historical Journal 47 (2004): 709-36. 12 Philippe Perrot, Le Luxe: Une richesse entre faste et confort XVIIIe-XIXe siecle (Paris: Seuil, 1995), 34n.2. " Franlois de Finelon, Telemachus, trans. Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1994). 14 Sarah Maza, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750-1850 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003), 55.

82



years 1736 and 1786 over 100 texts were published that dealt with the issue of luxury.'5

Nevertheless, some scholars suggest that by the time of the French Rev- olution these passionate disputes had come to an abrupt and decisive end. Jennifer Jones provides a sense of the arguments that have been brought into play to explain this occurrence. Drawing upon earlier work by Ellen Ross, she first contends that the Revolution "extinguished" the debate on luxury in two ways. It revealed that the problems associated with luxury, rather than being mysterious and rooted in human nature, had "compre- hensible political causes and solutions." Next, the debate on luxury had been a "primary form" of criticism of the ancien regime. The Revolution allowed men and women to abandon such coded strategies and engage overtly in political forms of opposition. To this, Jones herself adds a third explanation. "By the late eighteenth century many of the problems which women's luxury had been accused of causing in society had been 'solved' through the ascendancy of a new conception of women, fashion and taste which naturalized women's interest in clothing: the frenzy for fashions was no longer considered a sinful state, harmful to the general health of society and the maintenance of social hierarchies, but rather a natural aspect of femininity, necessary for marital harmony and domestic bliss."16 By way of summary, therefore, Jones concludes that "[t]his formerly serious debate had been transformed into frivolous, bantering literature alternatively de- ploring or upholding women's right to adorn themselves and their homes lavishly.""17

All three arguments can be challenged. It did not require the onset of the Revolution to demonstrate that the issues and problems arising from luxury had political causes and solutions. Numerous writers (including Montesquieu) had concluded that the effects of luxury varied according to the political regime, especially with regard to monarchies and republics. Secondly, the majority of those who wrote in the luxury debate were not critics of the ancien regime but defenders of the hierarchy and stability of the old order. Finally, Jones's own explanation is only convincing if the luxury debate was limited to a consideration of the issue of women and fashion. This was not the case. For example, Gabriel Senac de Meilhan's

'~ Roche, Histoire des choses banales, 88. 16 Jennifer M. Jones, Sexing La Mode: Gender, Fashion and Commercial Culture in Old Regime France (New York: Berg, 2004), 199. 17 Ibid., 199.

83



Considerations sur les richesses et le luxe,18 published on the eve of the Revolution, was intended as a detailed refutation of the ideas put forward by Jacques Necker in his De l'Administration des finances de la France.19 Necker argued that it was a mistake to attribute luxury uniquely to changes in morals, the nature of government, or the acquisition of the New World. In general, he believed, "luxury is the consequence of the inequality of wealth." As such, luxury had its origin "in the natural course of things," and specifically in "the advancement of science." On this view, luxury was not the cause of poverty. At best, government could temper the taste for luxury. Governments, Necker therefore concluded, should be "neither in- different to luxury nor to its excesses nor have the ambition to extinguish it entirely." If, as indicated by Jones, S&nac de Meilhan made the point that sumptuary laws were usually directed at women ("because it is in women that resides the principle of luxury"),20 the greater part of the almost 500 pages of his text was devoted to the wholesale castigation of the political, social, and moral consequences of luxury. Great states preserved themselves not because of, but despite their luxury. Testifying to a permanence of discourse within the luxury debate, Senac de Meilhan wrote, "The immortal author of Telemachus better understood and made known the problems arising from luxury than most of those who have explored the subject."21

Published three years earlier, Antoine-Prosper Lottin's Discours contre le luxe: Il corrompt les moeurs et detruit les Empires,22 began by announc- ing that combating luxury was "the most important and patriotic of subjects," and then proceeded, in addition to pillorying "the eternal incon- stancy of fashions" and the reduction of society to a "perpetual ball," to itemize how luxury destroyed the arts, the sciences, letters, industry, agriculture, public morals and manners, before finally destroying Empires themselves. Citing Montesquieu and the example of the decline of the Span- ish Empire, Lottin contended that wealth did not guarantee the greatness of a state. Rather, this lay in a people devoted to agriculture and the "useful arts" and one imbued with a sense of virtue and courage. For these writers,

18 Gabriel Senac de Meilhan, Considerations sur les richesses et le luxe (Amsterdam and Paris: Valade, 1787). 19 Jacques Necker, De l'Administration des Finances de la France (Paris: no publisher, 1784). Chapter XI, Vol.III, 57-75 is devoted to "Considerations sur le luxe et sur le progres." 20 Senac de Meilhan, Considerations sur les richesses et le luxe, 144-45. 21 Ibid., 174. 22 Antoine-Prosper Lottin, Discours contre le luxe: Il corrompt les moeurs et detruit les Empires (Paris: Belin, 1783).

84



the luxury debate was certainly not a frivolous and ephemeral matter of taste and fashion.

The above is not intended to challenge the insights provided by Jones with regard to the emergence of a new fashion system in eighteenth-century France. Rather, it suggests that the luxury debate lost none of its vigor towards the end of the eighteenth century and that the elements of that debate remained relatively stable over time. Moreover, the Revolution of 1789 did not bring the discussion of luxury to a shuddering halt. In fact, the reverse was the case. As we shall see, at the heart of the revolutionary project was an ethic of simplicity and virtuous frugality that found no place for the trappings of vulgar luxury. This was so because in France, as elsewhere,23 the challenge was not merely to harness prosperity in such a way as to ensure that the morally and socially debilitating consequences of luxury could be avoided, but also to come to some agreement about the very source of wealth itself, be it agriculture or industry, capital accumulation or unbridled consumer spending. Consequently, at issue were broader issues relating to the nature and sources of inequality and its relationship to commerce and the market. This in turn invited argument about the appropriate model of government in a modern society. This article will therefore show that the debate about luxury extended beyond the narrow confines of the eighteenth century in which it is usually located.

THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DEBATE ON LUXURY

Melon was not the first person in France to address the issue of luxury. Montesquieu rejected the argument against luxury in Letter 106 of his Per- sian Letters.24 "For one man to live in luxury," he wrote, "a hundred others must work without respite." The passion for getting rich, combined with the enthusiasm for work, was being transmitted from class to class and was transforming the French nation; the "scene was one of universal industry and ingenuity." Conversely, a nation where everyone worked the land and where "to produce fancy goods and luxury was banned" would be "the most wretched on earth."

Montesquieu returned to the theme at some length in The Spirit of the

2r See Warren G. Breckman, "Disciplining Consumption: The Debate About Luxury in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914," Journal of Social History 24 (1991): 485-506. 24 Montesquieu, Persian Letters, trans. C. J.Betts (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 193-96.

85



Laws, devoting much of Book 7 to the examination of sumptuary laws in republics and monarchies and Book 20 to the relationship of laws to commerce. Within that broad framework, Montesquieu made an important distinction between commerce "ordinarily founded on luxury" and commerce "more often founded on economy." The ends pursued by each were quite different. If the former rested on "the practice of gaining little. . . . and of being compensated only by gaining continually," the latter sought to "pro- cure for the nation engaging in it all that serves its arrogance, its delights and its fancies."" "In general," Montesquieu wrote, "the poorer the state, the more it is ruined by relative luxury, and the more, consequently, it must have relative sumptuary laws. The richer the state, the more its relative luxury enriches it, and one must be careful not to make relative sumptuary laws there."26

Nevertheless, as indicated by Rousseau it was Melon who brought the subject of luxury to the fore. This is explained in part by the fact that when Voltaire published his controversial poem Le Mondain, he attached to his reply to his critics (entitled Defense du Mondain: ou l'apologie du luxe) a letter written by Melon to the comtesse de Verrue.27 In the first poem Volta- ire indicated his preference for the modern world over a Garden of Eden characterized by physical austerity. His reply focused less on the delights to be derived from personal pleasures than upon the social and economic advantages that flowed from luxury. The rich were born to spend their money and the poor were there to receive it. Colbert and Solomon, both of whom "through luxury [had] enriched the state," rather than the classical heroes of Greece and Rome, were the objects of praise. Melon's letter added weight to Voltaire's case. The comtesse de Verrue was cited by Melon as an example of the wisdom of his doctrine that luxury was necessary for the circulation of money and the maintenance of industry. "How many families in Paris," Melon asked, "have subsisted solely through the protection you have given to the arts?" If such tastes were to become extinct, thousands would find themselves out of work and forced to flee abroad.

Voltaire took up this theme on many subsequent occasions. His Dic- tionnaire philosophique contained an entry on luxury, and he touched on this topic at various points in his Lettres philosophiques and elsewhere. He continued to refer favorably to Melon, citing him as "a man of sense, a

2 Montesquieu., The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 340. 26 Ibid., 101. 2- See Oeuvres comrpletes de Voltaire (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2003), 16: 273-313.

86



good citizen and an excellent philosopher."'2 Diderot also took up the theme of luxury, most notably in his Observations sur le Nakaz.29 Here we read of the benefits that accrue from the expenditure of the rich man, of how "He makes his nation worth visiting for foreigners; he provides a livelihood for a large number of citizens who are consumers and who give a price to the fruits of the earth." Nevertheless, Diderot made what was later to become a standard distinction between good and bad luxury. "Under bad luxury," Diderot wrote, "people toil a lot, but only do bad work. Thus the decline of the sciences and of the liberal and mechanical arts. Under good luxury, people toil just as much; but they only do good work, because everyone is in a position to pay for it. There, the sciences and mechanical arts flourish." Bad luxury united the vices of opulence and poverty, while good luxury produced wealth and prosperity for all.

A similar tone is found in the marquis de Saint-Lambert's entry of 1764 on luxury for Diderot's Encyclopedie.p' This long essay set out the arguments both for and against luxury. Six points were cited in favor of luxury. Luxury contributed to the growth of population. Luxury enriched states. It facilitated the circulation of money. It softened manners and spread the private virtues. Luxury was favorable to the advance of knowledge. It in- creased the wealth and happiness of citizens. Against this were the arguments that luxury encouraged the decline of the "useful" arts; it ruined the countryside; it led to depopulation; it caused a confusion of social ranks; and it weakened our sense of both honor and love of country. Saint- Lambert's text endeavored to show that all of these assertions could be contradicted by the facts and thus that the effects of luxury-beneficial or otherwise-were relative to the situation in which it is found. "In this regard," he wrote, "luxury is for peoples what it is for individuals; the multi- tude of gratifications must be in keeping with the means to enjoy them."''

Saint-Lambert was clear that the consequences of what he termed "dis- ordered luxury" were truly deleterious. Extreme cupidity and the pursuit of frivolous wealth induced a progressive decline. Subject to especial oppro- brium were those who performed no function in society and the nouveaux riches who quickly became addicted to their idleness. In their desire to es-

28 Ibid., 276-81. 2 Diderot, Political Writings, trans. R. Wokler and J. Hope Mason (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1992), 124-25, 130-31. '0 See Oeuvres completes de Diderot (Paris: Briere, 1821), 17: 235-77. This text can be found in translation in Commerce, Culture and Liberty: Readings on Capitalism Before Adam Smith, ed. Henry C. Clark (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003), 477-501. -' Oeuvres completes de Diderot, 17: 247.

87



cape boredom they sought ever more indulgent and extraordinary forms of gratification.

Saint-Lambert also detailed the conditions in which luxury could bene- fit society as a whole. There would be no sudden fortunes. Extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be rare. Luxury would not be detached from usefulness. All classes would appreciate and enjoy the fine arts. Most importantly, "luxury and the passions leading to it must be subordinated to a spirit of community and to the goods of the community."'2 The first objec- tive therefore had to be to put "luxury back in order." As Saint-Lambert concluded, "I beg my readers to rid themselves alike of the prejudices of Sparta and of Sybaris."33

As Christopher Berry has commented, it is apparent from his text that Saint-Lambert was aware that the debate about luxury now took a predict- able and standard form.34 What is also apparent is that Saint-Lambert mir- rored the wider concern (to be found in the writings of Montesquieu, Diderot, Helvetius and Condillac) to distinguish between the good and bad uses of luxury and to specify that luxury could not be divorced from considerations of social utility. Whereas Melon seemed unconcerned about either the source of wealth or how it was used-it mattered only that money was spent rather than hoarded-later writers were acutely aware that displays of ostentatious, frivolous, and unearned wealth could deeply corrupt and divide a society. Thus, while Melon was content simply to assert that "the equality of man is a chimera"3" and to affirm that all consumption was inherently beneficial, some of those who followed him were far from san- guine about a society characterized by gross inequalities of fortune and doubted the merits of exaggerated consumption.

If, however, the lines of the debate about luxury had now been drawn, there was no lessening of the dispute between the pro- and anti-luxury camps. Moreover, this debate would run right up to the outbreak of the Revolution. Two texts in particular provide evidence for this claim: Butel- Dumont's Thborie du luxe, ou traite dans lequel on entreprend d'dtablir que le luxe est un ressort non seulement utile mais memne indispensablement ndcessaire a la prosperite des Etats, first published in 1771,-6 and the Abbe"

12 Ibid., 250. 33 Ibid., 276. 14 Berry, The Idea of Luxury, 137. 3 Melon, Essai politique, 724. 36 Butel-Dumont, Theorie du luxe, ou traite dans lequel on entreprend d'etablir que le luxe est un ressort non seulement utile mais mhme indispensablement ndcessaire a la prosperite des Etats (Paris: J-F. Bastien, 1771), 2 Vols.

88



Pluquet's Traits philosophique et politique sur le luxe of 1786.17 The au- thors offer diametrically opposed views on the whole issue. The former was content to define luxury in morally neutral terms as those things which were "superfluous" and not "strictly necessary,"'" while the latter denounced it as "the use of objects producing agreeable sensations considered necessary by man, although by the laws of nature the use of these objects and the agreeable sensations they produce are neither necessary nor useful to life or health, nor necessary for the happiness of man."-9 Pluquet devoted more than 900 pages to developing this theme, repeatedly disparaging the ideas of Melon, Mandeville, Hume, and the other "panegyrists of luxury" in the process. Butel-Dumont was content with a more modest 400 pages designed to prove his argument that the most powerful peoples and states were those that pursued luxury and that it was far better for states to reduce their expenditure than to impose "inept" sumptuary laws.

THE IMPACT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Did the French Revolution and the fall of the Jacobins elicit a change of attitude towards luxury in particular and towards commerce more generally? The Abbe' Sieyes, the principal ideologue and architect of the first stage of the Revolution, had been fully aware that the distinctive feature of modern society was that it rested upon the division of labor, an insight which he applied to his understanding of both politics and economics.40 "If," he wrote, "every individual concerned himself with all the objects required for his own consumption, all individuals would be the same, and society would not depart from its state of infancy."41 Where Sieyvs diverged from the physiocratic school was that he concluded that there was no fundamental difference in productive potential between agriculture and manufacturing and thus that the exclusive focus of the physiocrats upon the former was misplaced. From this it followed that the privileged position accorded to

7 Abbe Pluquet, Traits philosophique et politique sur le luxe (Paris: Barrot, 1786), 2 Vols. . Butel-Dumont, Theorie du luxe, 1: 121. , Pluquet, Traite philosophique, 1: 79. 4" See William H. Sewell Jr, A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbe Sieyes and What is the Third Estate? (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1994). 4' Roberto Zapperi ed., Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes, Ecrits Politiques (Paris: Editions des archives contemporaines, 1985), 63.

89



the ownership of land had to be removed and that anti-commercial prejudices, most obviously associated with the court and the aristocracy, had to be eradicated.

Between the summer of 1789 and 1791 France moved in the direction advocated by Sieyes and, to that extent, the dominant tendency was broadly favorable to the further development of commerce. The feudal regime, with its restrictions upon the free movement of goods and persons, was abolished. Property rather than privilege was to be the basis of the new order and was to define a person's status. The loi Le Chapelier of 1791 made illegal all forms of restrictive trade corporations. But did this mean that concerns about the potentially damaging consequences of gross inequality and unbridled luxury had been forgotten?

The advent of foreign war and internal revolt opened the door to a revival of the rhetoric of classical republicanism and with it not merely a return to the notion of the virtuous, frugal citizen of ancient Greece and Rome but also the victory of austerity and simplicity over ostentation and display. The reintroduction of economic controls from 1793 to 1794 amounted to what Judith A. Miller has described as "the Economy of Ter- ror."42 National price ceilings were introduced for grain and flour, and to this were later added price ceilings on all "goods of first necessity." The General Maximum of September 1793 was, according to Colin Jones and Rebecca Spang, a "shibboleth of overt consumer renunciation," providing "a snapshot of what Revolutionary Government regarded as prime necessities."43 Yet, by the same token, they argue, "it was a shimmeringly indeter- minate document," revealing that "[d]espite their best attempts to look and sound like Athenians and Romans, the French found it altogether more difficult than their classical forbears to draw a hard-and-fast line between the realms of necessity and luxury." In short, denouncing luxury was easy but defining it proved well-nigh impossible, and constructing an economic policy upon the basis of its eradication showed itself to be both catastrophic and repressive.

With the fall of the Jacobins, the General Maximum was abolished. This is how Rebecca Spang accounts for what followed and for what she

42 Judith A. Miller, Mastering the Market: The State and the Grain Trade in Northern France, 1700-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 155. 41 Colin Jones and Rebecca Spang, "Sans-culottes, sans cafe, sans tabac: shifting realms of necessity and luxury in eighteenth-century France," in Consumers and Luxury: Con- sumer Culture in Europe, 1650-1850, ed. Maxine Berg and Helen Clifford (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 55.

90



describes as "the end of luxury."44 The political debate over the designation of some goods as necessities and others as luxuries subsided after 1794, such that, by the end of the decade, "both terms, though not completely abandoned, had lost much of their explanatory efficacy." In the world of the Thermidorian republic, frivolous consumption ceased to be the moral failing of the individual and was seen as integral to the flourishing of the French economy. The broader social and moral ramifications associated with luxurious consumption were increasingly forgotten, only to be replaced by "the personalized category of 'pleasure' " that made "individual desires the basis (rather than the bane) of social organization." Spang concludes that "By the middle of the nineteenth century, luxury was of analytic usefulness for those interested in studying medieval sumptuary laws or cat- aloguing the books collected by connoisseurs."45

Again, there is much of merit in these accounts and they capture especially well the fluid quality of what was understood by luxury in a society that was increasingly characterized by commodity production. Yet, it would be a mistake to believe that reflections on the nature of commercial activity were suddenly divested of moral and political concerns and thus that the question of luxury was now forgotten altogether.46 Indeed, as Mar- tin S. Staum has argued, "concepts of public virtue remained indelibly linked to economic theory despite efforts to construct a value-neutral science based on private interest."'

LUXURY AFTER THE REVOLUTION

This can be shown by referring to the ideas of the most important French economist of the time: Jean-Baptiste Say. Say has usually been regarded as a classical political economist who uncritically embraced and popularized the ideas of Adam Smith. Pierre Manent, for example, states that Say's Traite'

44 Rebecca Spang, "The frivolous French, 'liberty of pleasure' and the end of luxury," in Taking Liberties: Problems of a new order from the French Revolution to Napoleon, ed. Howard G. Brown and Judith A. Miller (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 110-25. 4S Ibid., 125. 46 See James Livesey, Making Democracy in the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001). 4 See Martin S. Staum, Minerva's Message: Stabilizing the French Revolution (Mon- treal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1996), 192; and Cheryl B. Welch, Liberty and Utility: The French Ideologues and the Transformation of Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 70-96.

91



d'eIconomie politique, first published in 1803, "constitutes the first great post-Smithian synthesis of economic liberalism."48 A somewhat different story might be told. In 1800 Say published a curious text entitled Olbie.49 It is an account of a utopian city recently established upon "the ruins of an absolute monarchy." The text itself covers a variety of issues: for example, the need to ban lotteries because they not only encourage "avarice" and "laziness" but also reinforce the belief that wealth depends upon chance rather than

"industrie."50 In essence, what Say described was a society characterized by "modest comfort" rather than "the excesses of wealth and of indigence." "The Olbiens" Say wrote, "knew that the love of gain was a snare as dangerous as idleness. When this passion is very strong it becomes as exclusive as all the others; it extinguishes a mass of noble and disinter- ested sentiments which must be a part of the perfect human soul. It is thus that amongst certain peoples, or even amongst the habitants of certain towns, who are too much involved with commerce any idea, other than that of enriching oneself, is regarded as folly.""'51 Accordingly, the leaders of the Olbiens declared their opposition to displays of luxury, themselves adopting a "system of simplicity" and forbidding their servants and soldiers to show a "stupid deference for luxurious livery." As the taste for luxury diminished, the Olbiens came to consume nothing that was beyond what was necessary for their utility and comfort. Happiness grew at the same time as morals were reformed.52

In a note to the text, Say clarified what he took to be the import of his argument. "In criticizing luxury," he wrote, "I would not insist on the fool- ish pretension of returning man to a savage state where there are no utensils but fingers and teeth." The use of everything that was conducive to well- being in "rich and industrious nations" should be allowed but, he continued, "I do not hesitate to pronounce that luxury is harmful to states, large and small, and that the country where there is least would be the richest and happiest.""3 For that reason Say denied two of the main claims made in defense of luxury. The production of luxury did not provide jobs. Rather, Say insisted that there are "never fewer unemployed hands than in regions where morals are simple and where, by consequence, few luxuries are pro-

48 Pierre Manent, Les Libdraux (Paris: Hachette, 1986), 2: 182. 41 Jean-Baptiste Say, Olbie, ou Essai sur les moyens de reformer les Moeurs d'une Nation (Paris: Crapelet, 1800). o Ibid., 34-35. ' Ibid., 29.

12 Ibid., 42-44. s Ibid., 123.

92



duced."54 Nor did luxury keep people alive. It was, Say argued, "only in a country where there is no luxury, or very little, that one sees everyone well- dressed, well-housed, well-nourished, and content."'s Accordingly, copious praise was heaped upon Lycurgus and the institutions of Sparta, while the fates of Carthage, Venice, and the Dutch Republic were cited as examples of the dire consequences that followed from the exclusive concentration upon the pursuit of wealth.

Conventional wisdom has it that the transition from Olbie to the Traite d'dconomie politique, published only three years later, represented a shift from a republican political economy to a laissez-faire liberalism based on the inviolability of private property and minimum state activity. Richard Whatmore has contested this account.56 While Whatmore does not wish to deny that there were innovations-Say no longer believed that a republican constitution was necessary for the inculcation of industrious manners nor did he retain his faith in legislation as a form of moral catechism-he nevertheless holds the view that Say's ambition remained that of uniting industrious patterns of behavior (especially frugality) with the republican manners associated with moderate wealth and the absence of social hierarchy. Say, in fact, was deeply concerned about the deleterious consequences of commerce as described by Adam Smith-not least the impoverishment of the general population which would follow from the overzealous introduction of the division of labor-and for all his emphasis upon the importance of productive capital as the source of a nation's wealth, he continued to dis- parage the unbridled pursuit of needless luxury.

Specifically, we should note that in his lengthy Discours Pre'liminaire Say dismissed the maxim that "a state is enriched by luxury," further contending that its application in the France of the 1720s had led to bank- ruptcy. "Moderation and economy," he commented, "became terms of ridicule."7s This anti-luxury theme was developed in the main body of the text. In line with his preference for frugality over excess, Say began by ar- guing that "[t]hose who say that money is only good to be spent and that products are only made to be consumed are badly mistaken if by this they

54 Ibid., 125-26. s1 Ibid., 126. 56 See Richard Whatmore, Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual Bi- ography ofJean-Baptiste Say (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). See Evelyn L. Forget, The Social Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say (London: Routledge, 1999). Forget's text includes a translation of Say's Olhie: see 196-241. 57 Say, Traite d'Economie Politique, in Collection des Principaux Economistes (Osna- brock: Otto Zeller, 1966), 9: 22-23.

93



mean solely expenditure and consumption devoted to securing pleasure."'" There was no merit in consuming everything one could, only in consuming what was reasonable. Say acknowledged that the taste for luxuary was among the motives that most determined private consumption. Luxury had usually been defined in terms of what was superfluous, but Say found it difficult to distinguish the superfluous from what was a necessity. "Like the colors of a rainbow," he observed, "they are connected together and merge into each other by imperceptible nuances."" Luxury and necessity had only relative meaning and varied according to the stage that society had reached and within society itself. Luxury, therefore, was best defined in terms of the "expensiveness" of an object. Luxury, Say wrote, "has principally as its end to excite admiration through the rarity, the high price, and the magnificence that it displays.""' It was a form of ostentation designed to dazzle and impress others. Most importantly, it was a form of "unproductive consumption," and as such directed resources away from "reproductive expenditure."

This was no minor matter, as it related to one of the central conclusions reached by Say and for which he was subsequently best-known. What became known as Say's Law stipulated that total demand in an economy could not exceed or fall below total supply in that economy. As he himself expressed it, "products are paid for by products," and not by consumption. Into what kind of error, he asked, "have fallen those who, seeing generally that production always equals consumption (because it is necessary that what is consumed should have been produced), have mistaken the effect for the cause, have conjectured that unproductive consumption alone brings about reproduction, that saving is directly contrary to public prosperity and that the most useful citizen is the one who spends the most!""'

If this truth was demonstrated by economic theory, it was likewise proven by history. Poverty, Say wrote, "always follows in the wake of luxury." Do not be fooled, he counseled: a country in decline gives for a time "the image of opulence," but it can never last and inevitably comes to an end. Say concluded that "those people,who, through their great power or talents, seek to spread the taste for luxury, therefore, conspire against the happiness of nations.""' For Say, the challenge was to find a means of rec- onciling the virtues of frugality and industry with commerce. ,x Ibid., 454.

I lbid,, 457. 6" Ibid., 458. 'i Ibid., 459.

6' Ibid., 462.

94



Say's concerns about luxury were no isolated preoccupation. The debate about luxury was central to the work of the most important of the political theorists associated with the French Ideologues, Antoine-Louis- Claude Destutt de Tracy. Destutt de Tracy discussed luxury at length in two of his most important texts: his Commentaire sur I'Esprit des lois de Montesquieu and the Traite' d'economie politique.6' There are many intri-

guing elements to his argument. First, Destutt de Tracy provided an account of the origin of private property that was the very antithesis of that provided by Rousseau. The concepts yours and mine were never invented because they derived from the faculty of our will. Second, the will was defined in terms of the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, thus placing us under a duty to satisfy our needs "without any extraneous consideration." Yet Destutt de Tracy stood back from concluding that all consumption was inherently good, and he did so because the force of his argument was to be repeatedly directed against those he disparaged as les oisifs. "Consumption," he wrote, "varies greatly according to the type of consumer as well as according to the nature of the things consumed."64

Destutt de Tracy's fulminations against luxury bore a marked resem- blance to the criticisms pronounced by Say. Luxury consisted essentially in "non-productive expenditures." It varied according to time and place. Nevertheless, it was wrong to believe that the increase of luxury would enrich a nation. It did not favor commerce and encourage industry by quickening the circulation of money. Rather it changed the nature of that circulation and "made it less useful." It created only "a fleeting pleasure." Only if the alternative was to bury one's money in the ground did it make sense to spend it in this way, "however badly." "I believe myself entitled to conclude," Destutt de Tracy wrote, "that, in economic terms, luxury is always an evil, a continuous cause of misery and weakness. Its true consequence is continuously to destroy, through the excessive consumption of some, the product of the work and industry of others."65

If Say's argument stopped at this point, Destutt de Tracy took it a step further, contending that luxury was "an even greater evil" from a moral point of view. It thrived on vanity and encouraged frivolity. In women it led to depravity and in men to avarice, and in both "to a lack of delicacy and probity." Luxury produced "these sad effects, not only amongst those

6B Destutt de Tracy, Commentaire sur l'Esprit des lois de Montesquieu (Paris: Delauney, 1819), 87-114 and Traite d'economie politique (Paris: Bouguet & L&vi, 1823), 232-65. 64 Ibid., 243. 6 Destutt de Tracy, Commentaire, 96-97.

95



who enjoyed it, but also upon all those who admired it and who served to provide it."66

Moreover, Destutt de Tracy found himself agreeing with Montes- quieu's original contention that luxury was appropriate to monarchies; however, he added that representative governments had no need to pander to "the natural tendency of man to give himself up to superfluous expenditure." Did this mean that governments, in whose interest it was to combat the advance of luxury, should resort to sumptuary laws? Not only were they an abuse of authority and an attack on property, but they served no purpose "when the spirit of vanity is not incessantly excited by all institutions; when the misery and ignorance of the lowest class are not so great as to encourage a stupid admiration for ostentation; when the opportunities to make fast and excessive fortunes are rare; when wealth is dispersed promptly through the equal division of inheritance; when finally everything leads us in another direction and towards real pleasures; in a word, when society is arranged." There, he concluded, were "the true means to combat luxury."' 6

LUXURY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Yet, one could argue that concern to institute a moralized commerce drawing upon republican principles was an increasingly difficult position to sus- tain, especially in the years following the Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. If so, did this mean, as has recently been argued, that "at the turn of the nineteenth century luxury's focus diminished to issues of income distribution, its social and psychological dimensions not to re-emerge until the turn of the twentieth century"?68

Philippe Perrot has suggested that the concept of luxury ceased to be a central concept of economic analysis. In his otherwise admirable book, Per- rot repeats the earlier claim of Serge Latouche that the concept did not figure in any of the four major dictionaries of political economy published in France during the nineteenth century.69 This is simply incorrect. There

66 Ibid., 109. 67 Ibid., 112. 68 Maxime Berg and Elizabeth Eger, "Introduction," in Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, ed. M. Berg and E. Eger (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2003), 5. 69 See Perrot, Le Luxe, 38; and Serge Latouche, "Luxe et &conomie," Revue de MAUSS 16 (1985): 71-72.

96



are entries on luxury in Charles Ganilh's Dictionnaire analytique d'dconomie politique of 1826 7 and in Sandelin's Repertoire general d'economie politique ancienne et moderne of 1847.7' The same entry by Courcelle- Seneuil figured in both the Coquelin and Guillaumin dictionary of 1852-53 and the dictionary edited by Ld0on Say and Joseph Chailley of 1892. More- over, only the entry penned by Ganilh disclosed an indifference to the social and psychological consequences of luxury. Sandelin concluded that luxury went hand in hand with the "depravity" of morals, while Courcelle-Seneuil wrote that, "[w]ith regard to luxury, the teachings of political economy fully confirm those of morality."72 Luxury, the latter affirmed, thrived on avarice, egoism and vanity; without fail, it engendered poverty and misery. As this indicates, it would be wrong to conclude that the moral critique of luxury disappeared altogether from view. It would be an even greater mistake to believe that the egalitarian voice of classical republicanism was now silent.

This article began with an examination of the eighteenth-century controversy over luxury. Out of this came a debate about the nature of a commercial society and, in some quarters, praise bestowed upon England as the country of commerce and liberty. Here seemed to be a country that embodied the benefits and virtues of le doux commerce. Liberals, most notably Benjamin Constant, developed this theme in order to suggest that a new type of liberty was appropriate to the modern age and that older concerns about republican virtue were misplaced in a modern commercial society. The economic dimensions of this argument were most clearly developed in Constant's text, Commentaire sur l'ouvrage de Filangieri.7" Here Constant was able to revisit many of the key issues explored by eighteenth-century political economy-population growth, the grain trade, principles of taxation, and restrictive trade practices-in order to provide a defense of free trade, competition, reduced taxation and commerce. "The functions of government," Constant wrote, "are negative: it should oppress evil and leave good to operate by itself." The best policy was that of "laissez passer et laissez faire."74 He thus agreed with Say that "the sole means of prosper-

70 (Paris: Ladvocat, 1826), 270-80. 71 (The Hague: Noordendorp, 1847), 4: 400-403. 72 Charles Coquelin and Gilbert-Urbain Guillaumin, eds. Dictionnaire de l'Economie Pol- itique (Paris: Guillaumin, 1853), 2: 109-12; and Lion Say and Joseph Chailley, eds. Nou- veaux Dictionnaire de l'Economie Politique (Paris: Guillaumin, 1892), 2: 191-94. 7 Constant, Commentaire sur l'ouvrage de Filangieri (Paris: Dufart, 1822-24); see Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2004. 74 Ibid., 316-32.

97



ity for a nation was the employment of capital in productive consumption."75 In this way, he distanced himself from what he took to be Rousseau's earlier conclusions on luxury. Rousseau, Constant wrote, "had no knowledge of financial questions."''76

Whatever their complexion, all liberals in France accepted some ver- sion of this argument. As Martin S. Staum has shown,77 liberal economists were increasingly hostile to the idle and unproductive lifestyle of the aristocracy and in the guise of the doctrine of "industrialism" became strong advocates of the wealth-creating power of commerce. The key to wealth was capital accumulation (not expenditure on luxury) and in this the central figure, following Say, was the entrepreneur.

This argument was later developed with regard to luxury in the writings of the liberal economist and publicist, Frederic Bastiat. In one of his most insightful essays, entitled Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas, Bastiat asked whether there was a "blatant contradiction" between what he terms "the moral idea and the economic idea," between frugality and luxury.78 To illustrate his argument he took the example of two brothers, one a spendthrift, the other a man who lived modestly within his means. It was the "prodigality" of the former that received popular acclaim, because his berlines, rich carpets, splendid mansion, and fine dinners provided work and entertainment for many. Yet, as Bastiat pointed out, ten years hence his wealth will have vanished and he will be ruined. "He is," Bastiat wrote, "no longer the joy of the shopkeepers; he is no longer considered a promoter of the arts and of industry." In contrast, the thrifty brother invested his wealth and added to the national capital. He thereby supported industry and "con- tributes to the progressive increase of remuneration of the working class." Bastiat concluded that "Morally, the superiority of thrift over luxury is incontestable. It is consoling to think that, from an economic point of view, it has the same superiority." For Bastiat, in much the same way as for Say before him, it was not the consumption of luxury goods that made wealth grow but frugality and capital accumulation. In short, the moral critique of

71 Ibid., 221. 76 Ibid., 222. Constant had made the same point in his earlier Principes de politique. Filangieri discussed luxury at some length, making the standard distinction between "useful" and "dangerous" luxury and believing that it was not luxury that corrupted morals but bad morals that corrupted luxury. See Oeuvres de G. Filangieri (Paris: Aillaud, 1840), 1: 256-69. 77 Martin S. Staum, "French Lecturers in Political Economy, 1815-1848: Varieties of Lib- eralism," History of Political Economy 30 (1998): 95-120. 78 Frederic Bastiat, Oeuvres completes (Paris: Guillaumin, 1862), 5: 383-94.

98



luxury was combined with one resting primarily upon economic considerations. In contrast to that articulated by Rousseau, however, Bastiat's was a critique of luxury that quite happily sat beside an endorsement of private property and inequalities of wealth.

Beyond this, it is relatively easy to find evidence of a continuing concern about the social and psychological dimensions of luxury. Unsurpris- ingly, the literature of utopian socialism frequently displayed the hope that the workers would avoid a taste for opulence and ostentation and limit their consumption to the satisfaction of "real" needs. This was certainly the view of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Recognizing the divisions within socialism on this issue-Proudhon described the Fourierists as "supporters of luxury and of lust"-he contended that the error of socialism, be it "epicu- rean or ascetic," with regard to luxury derived from "a false conception of value." This led to a conception of community as "the religion of misery." M. Cabet, Proudhon wrote, "has banned luxury. No more luxury! Down with fashions and finery! Women will wear artificial feathers; diamonds will be replaced by glass baubles; fine carpets and expensive furniture will belong to the State, so that no one becomes jealous. Clothing will be decided upon once and for all by a sovereign council."17

Yet, no better proof can be found of the continuing concern with the social and moral implications of luxury than in the work of the legitimist political economist, Alban de Villeneuve-Bargemont's Economie politique chretienne, ou Recherches sur la Nature et les Causes du Pauperisme en France et en Europe et sur les Moyens de le soulager et de le prevenir.x" Although now largely forgotten, Villeneuve-Bargemont was no minor figure in his day. For example, his ideas had a major influence upon Alexis de Tocqueville."' Villeneuve-Bargemont contended that the question of luxury had never properly been resolved. The origin of the problem had to be sought not in the form of government but within the nature of man himself. Citing both Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say against unproductive luxury, he nevertheless concluded that all was error and confusion in the "En- glish school" of political economy. Not only were the conclusions of the

7" Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Oeuvres completes: Systmne des contradictions economiques ou philosophie de la misere (Geneva: Paris: Slatkine, 1982), 1 (2): 303-5. 1" (Paris: Paulin, 1834), 2 Vols. See also Villeneuve-Bargemont's Histoire de l'Economie Politique ou Etudes Historiques, Philosophiques et Religieuses sur 1'Economie Politique, 2 vols. (Paris: Guillaumin, 1841). XI See Michael Drolet, Tocqueville, Democracy and Social Reform (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2003), 95-111. See Tocqueville's "Memoires sur le paupbrisme," Oeuvres completes: Melanges (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), 16: 117-57.

99



"English School" false but they were also dangerous, "because it tended, on the one hand, to produce the most excessive luxury and, on the other, the most profound and fearful misery." In contrast, the school of Christian political economy "condemns excessive luxury as damaging to the social as much as the moral order." However, it gave its approval to "reasonable luxury," a luxury that spread gradually through all the ranks of society and that was the fruit of honest labor. Such luxury was the product of an indus- trial system that sought "to distribute the profits of work more fairly and to bring about the disappearance of gross inequalities in conditions." Ac- cording to this view, if "excessive luxury" arose from materialism, "inno- cent luxury" was indissolubly tied to Christian charity and duty.82 With its concern to moderate luxury and to avoid both inordinate wealth and grind- ing poverty, thereby preserving the foundations of the social and moral order, there was little in Villeneuve-Bargemont's analysis that could not have been found in many of the anti-luxury tracts of the ancien regime.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1848

As Villeneuve-Bargemont's call for an economy based upon agriculture and charity indicates, despite the advances made by the advocates of "industrialism," all was not well in the liberal garden. Political economists such as Adolphe Blanqui, Michel Chevalier and Pellegrino Rossi had their doubts about an unrestricted free market, doubts that were deepened with the se- vere business slumps of the 1820s and 1830s. The turning point came in 1848, if not slightly before. "The revolutionary upheavals and labor unrest of 1848," Martin S. Staum writes, "proved ... that the liberals were far from willing to surrender central free market assumptions." Competition was now described as a fundamental doctrine of human nature. Blanqui insisted that the government could neither supply the workers with jobs, help when they were ill, nor provide for their security in old age. Regula- tions on minimum wages and maximum hours of work were viewed as excessive interference in the workings of the market and detrimental to the interests of the workers themselves."3 The same message can be found in the writings of Frederic Bastiat.84 "The prevailing illusion of our age," he

82 Villeneuve-Bargemont, Economie politique chritienne, 463-78. "I Adolphe Blanqui, Des classes ouvrieres en France pendant l'annee 1848 (Paris: Pag- nerre, 1849). 14 See Bastiat, Oeuvres completes, 4: 353.

100



wrote, "is that it is possible to enrich all classes at the expense of one another-to make plunder universal under the pretext of organizing it." These concerns likewise lay at the heart of the dispute between two of the tower- ing figures of 1848, Adolphe Thiers and Louis Blanc, over the issue of the right to work.'s In such circumstances, advocates of a moralized commerce gave ground to the enthusiasts for a more overtly liberal conception of the economy, a conception grounded upon a new vision of politics appropriate to a post-revolutionary and post-Napoleonic order. It is this, in part, which explains why Jean-Baptiste Say was later misread as a theorist of liberal political economy.

Nevertheless, evidence of the enduring character of republican arguments against luxury and, by extension, of republican hostility to the commercial model embodied by England is not difficult to identify. In 1848 Charles Renouvier published his Manuel Republicain de l'Homme et du Citoyen.86 This was a text commissioned by the Ministry of Public Instruc- tion and was intended to be a civic catechism for the new (Second) Repub- lic. If the text itself sought above all to define the rights and liberties to be enjoyed by the citizen of the Republic, it clearly indicated Renouvier's conviction that the Republic should embody "justice" and "fraternity" and that its goal was to produce virtuous citizens. Complications arose when Renouvier considered liberties associated with the right of property. "The most important outcome of a well-ordered Republic," he wrote, "is to guarantee for each citizen the protection of his person, of his rights and of everything which belongs to him."87 This included a citizen's property, described as "the fruits of a man's work." Equality of conditions was to be rejected because "it could be established only by depriving citizens of their liberty." How, then, could equality be made compatible with liberty? Re- nouvier's answer, in true quarante-huitard fashion, was to call upon the sentiment of fraternity. Therefore, towards the end of the dialogue that makes up the text the questioning turned to the desirability of luxury.18 The most striking aspect of what followed is that Renouvier addressed the topic in terms which were almost identical to those deployed in the exchange between Rousseau and Melon.

You speak, the student interlocutor remarked, of the "leveling of conditions" but in such circumstances what will become of luxury and of those

8S See Adolphe Thiers, De la proprie't (Paris: Lheureux, 1848); and Louis Blanc, Le Socia- lisme: Droit au travail: Reponse M. Thiers (Paris : Librairie du progrds, 1848). 86 References are to the Paris: Armand Colin, 1904 edition. 7 Ibid., 161.

88 Ibid., 265-80.

101



who lived off its production? Was it not the case that great wealth "spent ostentatiously serves at least to maintain workers?" Renouvier's reply was to accept that at present the luxury of the rich provided livelihood for the poor, but he then added that the poor would only die of hunger if the abolition of luxury was not accompanied by an acknowledgement of the right to work. Accompanied by such a reform, the worker would pass from the production of luxury goods to the production of something of use and of practical value. In addition, the "idler" who had previously paid for luxury would now turn his reduced resources in the direction of something more useful. Was luxury to be abolished altogether? Renouvier echoed the very arguments deployed at the height of the 1789 Revolution89 when he contended that there was a place for "collective luxury" in the shape of libraries, theatres, museums, and so on, all of which could be regarded as expressions of fraternity and civic education. There was even a place for luxury in the hands of private individuals; but such luxury was scandalous when so many people were denied the necessities of life. "In a Republic," Renouvier wrote, "where the solidarity between men is recognized, I find it repugnant that luxury should spread before ease of circumstance has been attained and that the caprices of men should be satisfied while the needs of others cry out before Providence.""o To this he appended two further famil- iar refrains. Renouvier declared that he trembled when he thought of those nations-and in particular of England-whose wealth and prosperity consisted in the perfect comfort of a few thousand families whose actions condemned millions to live on bare necessities. Secondly, the greater majority of rich people were "enervated" by luxury, "debased" by dissolute living, and "consumed" by boredom. However, this was "just punishment" for those who had sought the "refinement" of their lives through "the exploita- tion of their brothers." It was only in "an age of corruption," he asserted, that such behavior was not condemned. For good measure, Renouvier then concluded his discussion by asserting that it was not true that the arts and sciences would perish with the end of luxury. Rather, both would flourish when allied to the advance of human well-being. "Nothing is beautiful, nothing is noble," Renouvier remarked, "which is not also useful."91

Republican arguments against luxury, inaugurated in the eighteenth century, clearly retained their vitality and held center stage in the ferment of ideas that followed the fall of the July Monarchy. Moreover, in the con-

89 See Perrot, Le Luxe, 80. 9o Renouvier., Manuel Republicain, 269. 91 Ibid., 278.

102



text of 1848, the rhetorical force of these arguments had far more appeal than liberal calls to commerce and individual liberty.

THE SECOND EMPIRE: MELON'S REVENGE?

In 1878 Henri Baudrillart, a member of the Academie des sciences sociales, published a four-volume Histoire du Luxe Prive et Public Depuis l'Anti- quit" jusqu'a nos jours.92 He began by recounting that when he was giving a set of lectures in 1866 on economic doctrines at the Collhge de France he had decided to include the question of luxury. He did so, he further explained, because at the time the issue was 'a l'ordre du jour.' If this was so, it was in part because the previous year the Attorney General, Andre' Dupin, had introduced before the Senate a proposal which sought to prohibit women from wearing expensive clothing.93 This intervention was ulti- mately defeated but it did indeed cause a heated polemic. One of the partici- pants in this debate was the novelist and archeologist, Ernest Feydeau.

In 1866 Feydeau published Du Luxe, des Femmes, des Moeurs, de la Litterature et de la Vertu.94 If nothing else, the work was a spirited defense of luxury. Of no less interest is the fact that, in both tone and content, it replicated many of the arguments earlier presented by Jean-Franqois Melon. The debate on luxury, Feydeau began, had been around since the Greeks and always the refrain was the same: luxury corrupts public morals and it must be stopped. But what was luxury? No two people agreed. What was luxury for Diogenes was a necessity for Rousseau. What is a superfluity for one, another will regard as the sine qua^ non of his existence.95 Thus, for the State to intervene in such matters was an "abominable tyranny." "Leave me therefore with my superfluities," Feydeau proclaimed, "If they involve inconveniences, it is not you who suffer from them. I am a better judge than you of what I need to live according to my tastes. If I am happy to ruin myself, what is it to do with you? ..... I am irrational, you say. Agreed. I am useless to humankind. Very well. I am an egoist. Perfect. I will end my days in a hospital. That's fine. And afterwards? If happiness for me is to die

92 Henri Baudrillart, Histoire du Luxe Prive et Public Depuis l'Antiquite jusqu'a nos jours. 4 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1878). 9 See Victoria E. Thompson, The Virtuous Marketplace: Women and Men, Money and Politics in Paris, 1830-1870 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 165-66. 94 Ernest Feydeau, Du Luxe, des Femmes, des Moeurs, de la Litte'rature et de la Vertu (Paris: Michel Levy, 1866). 91 Ibid., 26.

103



on a bed of rags, you who call yourselves liberals, leave me to die in peace."96 Having thus defended the right of individuals to spend their money as they wished (even unwisely), Feydeau next agreed with Montes- quieu on the virtues of the rich spending their money in order to keep people in employment. Here he deployed an argument that had grown in importance since the eighteenth century. The production of luxury goods was central to the French economy. To close such industries down would be to force thousands of skilled workers "to break stones on roads, as they had done in 1848." Those, therefore, who argued against luxury wanted to impoverish France, to return to Sparta.

Moreover, for Feydeau, luxury was not only useful because it provided work. It was also "legitimate." Luxury represented "the exterior form of civilization." It was through luxury that prosperity manifested itself. Noth- ing could be more absurd or oppressive than to impose sumptuary laws stipulating how people dressed or how much they could spend. Rejecting the arguments against the social mobility occasioned by luxury, Feydeau argued that such measures were an attempt to petrify France "into an aris- tocratic and hierarchical mould." They prevented the poor from seeking to emulate the rich. Next (and echoing Melon's defense of the comptesse de Verrue) Feydeau denied Dupin's charge that, in displaying their wealth, rich women were setting the poor a bad example. Such criticisms were simply based on envy.

Attempting to ban luxury, therefore, would only produce doleful consequences, a "boredom" descending like a "poisonous fog upon an im- mense city" and "a frightful increase in hypocrisy." There were only two remedies to the problem of luxury. The first, which Feydeau did not recom- mend, was war. This would give us back the virile qualities and passion for glory that we had lost. The second, quite simply, was liberty.

CONCLUSION

It has long been acknowledged that, in the wake of the consumer revolution that characterized the final decades of the nineteenth century, debates about luxury again came to the fore in France.97 What has been shown in this

96 Ibid., 29. 97 See Rosalind H. Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth- Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).

104



article, however, is that the debate which began in the eighteenth century did not peter out before the revolution of 1789, did not end with the advent of the Thermidorian Republic, and did not lose substance in the first half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the contest over luxury lost little of its vitality in these years and remained an issue that was addressed by many of the leading political thinkers and political economists of the period. Perhaps even more remarkably, the contours of the debate changed relatively little over time. To that extent, luxury can be described as a relatively stable concept that was regularly deployed in the political thought of a relatively unstable society. From Rousseau to Renouvier, the voice of classical republicanism could be heard denouncing the injustice of luxury and the iniqui- ties of inequality it entailed. From Melon to Feydeau, there were those prepared to endorse the utility of our natural propensity to luxury and to embrace the individual liberty through which it could be procured. Throughout there was not only the repeated attempt to define and identify the specific manifestations of luxury but also the effort to distinguish between useful and dangerous luxury, and to assess the virtues required of individuals in societies characterized by increasing wealth and commerce.

Quite remarkably, very few were prepared to put aside all moral qualms when faced with a world of expanding personal consumption and seemingly needless luxury. Frugality and the productive use of resources frequently remained the prevailing maxims, even for those who had abandoned the chimera of equality and the Spartan ideal. Beneath this lay a constant engagement with England and the kind of social order it was thought to represent. There is much that could be said about this fascinat- ing theme.98 It was ever present in the political writings of eighteenth and nineteenth-century France. At stake, however, were two very different mod- els of society. It is tempting to suggest, over a century and a half later, that similar concerns inform today's debate over the comparative merits of the "modele social frangais" and what is usually referred to (with thinly dis- guised hostility) as the "modele anglo-saxon."

Queen Mary, University of London.

98 See Jeremy Jennings, "France and the 'Anglo-Saxon' Model: Contemporary and Histor- ical Perspectives," European Review 14 (2006): 537-54.

105


Article Contentsp. 79p. 80p. 81p. 82p. 83p. 84p. 85p. 86p. 87p. 88p. 89p. 90p. 91p. 92p. 93p. 94p. 95p. 96p. 97p. 98p. 99p. 100p. 101p. 102p. 103p. 104p. 105

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Jan., 2007), pp. i-iv, 1-186Front MatterDivus Dionysius: Authority, Self, and Society in John Colet's Reading of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy [pp. 1-34]"Some Other Kinde of Being and Condition": The Controversy in Mid-Seventeenth-Century England over the Peopling of Ancient America [pp. 35-56]Selecting a Phenomenalism: Leibniz, Berkeley, and the Science of Happiness [pp. 57-78]The Debate about Luxury in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century French Political Thought [pp. 79-105]From Human Nature to Normal Humanity: Joseph de Maistre, Rousseau, and the Origins of Moral Statistics [pp. 107-130]John Venn, James Ward, and the Chair of Mental Philosophy and Logic at the University of Cambridge [pp. 131-155]German Philosophy and British Public Policy: Richard Burdon Haldane in Theory and Practice [pp. 157-179]Books Received [pp. 181-184]Notices [pp. 185-186]Back Matter

art. the debate about luxury in french political tehory

Documents

jstor terms

history of ideas

jstor archive

terms conditions of

amall use subject

century material

cambridge university

early political writings