Charles-Louis de Sismondi

“ Sismondi, Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de, celebrated Swiss historian, born at Geneva; son of a Protestant clergyman of Italian descent; the family fortune was lost in the troublous days of the French Revolution, and exile in England and Italy followed, but in 1800 Sismondi returned to Geneva, and having received a municipal appointment gave himself to literary pursuits; the works which have established his reputation are his great histories of “The Italian Republics in the Middle Ages,” “European Literature,” and “A. History of the French” ”

“ The generous ardor of the Genevese Economiste was not more pleasing to behold than the filial deference of the young republican; for Sismondi spared neither remonstrance nor advice, where he thought the interests of his young colleague, or of the sacred cause in which he was embarked, likely to be endangered by his precipitancy. ”

“ The government of Lord Bute and Lord North was doubtless mainly based on the influence of official or parliamentary patronage, and the evils of that corruption clearly appeared in the disasters of the American war; but these Tory noblemen only carried on the system invented and brought to perfection, during the seventy years that the Whigs had enjoyed a monopoly of power.
It is a first principle, says Sismondi, in politics, that all classes which have not constitutionally the means of resistance, will be oppressed. There can be no doubt that this is true ”

“ Is there, then, no way of reconciling the apparent antagonism between the development of man's industrial powers, and his higher interests as a rational and accountable being? Are we to conclude that the roads that lead to wealth, to happiness, and to virtue, are necessarily divergent? and that national advancement in any one of these paths implies a departure from the others? No; not necessarily so. Such is not the doctrine taught by Sismondi, and by those who, with him, impugn the title of political economy to be considered as the great paramount rule of social existence. ”

“ But, in addition to this, Sismondi's general views, though ordinarily just, and always expressed with clearness [Pg 793] and precision, are not always to be taken without examination. Like Robertson, he was never able to extricate himself entirely from the early prejudices of his country and education; hardly any of the Geneva school of philosophers have been able to do so. Brought up in that learned and able, but narrow, and in some respects bigoted community, he was early engaged in the vast undertaking of the History of the Italian Republics. ”

“ This continued splendour and population of the towns, amidst the ruin of the country, in the declining periods of the Roman empire, has attracted the particular notice of one of the greatest historians of modern times. "In the midst," says Sismondi, "of the general desolation of the country, the continued existence and splendour of the great towns is not so easily explained; but the same thing is now to be witnessed in Barbary and Turkey, and in the whole Levant. Wherever despotism oppresses insulated man, he seeks refuge from its outrages in crowds. ”

“ We know not how to reconcile this monkish spirit with the semi-pagan character of society under Lorenzo di Medici, nor whether we ought to accuse Pulci of gross bigotry or of profane derision." [1] Sismondi did not consider that the lively and impassioned people of the south take what may be called household-liberties with the objects of their worship greater than northerns can easily conceive; that levity of manner, therefore, does not always imply the absence of the gravest belief ”

“ Even more cowardly than his father, Filippo Maria lived, like Louis XI of France, shut off from the sight of men. Sismondi, the historian, describes him as ‘a strange, dingy, creature, with303 protruding eyeballs and furtive glance.’ He hated to hear the word ‘death’ mentioned, and for fear of assassination would change his bedroom every night. When news was brought him of defeat he would tremble in the expectation that his condottieri might desert him: when messengers arrived flushed with victory he was scarcely less aghast, believing that the successful general might become his rival. ”

“ After saying that the moment a man entered the gates of one of the Italian republics of the twelfth century "he might reckon with a certainty on finding good faith in treaties and negotiations," Sismondi adds that he might also reckon upon "an energy in the people to resist by common exertion every act of injustice and violence." The militant nations were the last to abolish slavery and serfdom, and also judicial torture and the burning of witches and heretics. They were the last to cultivate commercial honor, personal purity, and the other virtues of a pacific life. ”

“ If it is too much to say that the historian of republics should be himself a republican, it is at least true that his soul should be penetrated to its very depths with the spirit which animates them. No one, who is not smitten with the love of freedom, can furnish the key to much that is enigmatical in her character, and reconcile his readers to the harsh and repulsive features that she sometimes wears, by revealing the beauty and grandeur of the soul within.
That portion of our narrative which is incorporated with Italian story is too small to occupy much space on Sismondi's plan. ”

“ Political economy, as a science, dates its origin, by the common consent of men, from the famous work "On the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." But a greater authority than Adam Smith has told us, that "he that HASTENETH TO BE RICH SHALL NOT BE INNOCENT." Sismondi's doctrines on political economy are a commentary on these words, applied to the management of nations and the social concerns of man. ”

“ A division of society into caste-like classes was taking place. The rich were becoming richer; it was thought the poor were becoming poorer. Free competition imposed no restraints upon the powerful. They were at liberty to exploit the poor to their heart’s content. The strength on the one side was so great, and the capability of resistance on the other so insignificant, that there could exist no real freedom of contract. As Sismondi said, the rich man labored to increase his capital, the poor man to satisfy the cravings of his stomach. ”

“ And at this period, after so many vicissitudes, the culture life of Switzerland is found fully abreast of that of Europe in general. Sismondi, standing apart from France and Italy, and writing impartially the history of both, is the greatest historian of his day.
The later history of the Confederation, however, is one of the great illustrations of the perpetual possibility of strife and sunderance in communities. Sismondi lived to ban the democracy which would not be content to be ruled by the middle class. At 1820 the old spirit of class subsisted under the new institutions ”

“ The inconveniences resulting from such adventures apart, the life of an Italian peasant was far more safe and far more happy in those days than the life of a noble or a citizen, and Sismondi has justly pointed out that they were more contented with their lot, and had more cause for content, than any other class in the land. ”

“ They only see the formula C—M—C, even reducing everything to barter, and believe that such barren wisdom can cover all the problems specific to the process of reproduction and accumulation. This is a regress even on Smith, and over such myopic vision, Sismondi scores most decisively. He, the social critic, evinces much more understanding for the categories of bourgeois economics than their staunchest champions—just as, at a later date, the socialist Marx was to grasp infinitely more keenly than all bourgeois economists together the differentia specifica of the mechanism of capitalist economy. ”

“ The exile imposed on Mathieu de Montmorency and Madame Récamier caused her the greatest grief, more especially as she never doubted but that unwittingly she was the cause. She had other causes of suffering also in her health at the time, and doubtless was far from being as brilliant as of yore.
Circumstances (she had a son by Rocca in 1812) condemned her to an isolation which fretted her almost beyond endurance; and Sismondi, not possessing the key to the situation, was aggrieved at her sombre mood and nervous irritability. He wrote that he sometimes “bores himself” at Coppet (O Ichabod!) ”

“ It paves the way for the disintegration of a classical economics unable to cope with the problem of its own making. But for all Sismondi’s terror of the consequences attendant upon capitalism triumphant, he was certainly no reactionary in the sense of yearning for pre-capitalistic conditions, even if on occasion he delights in extolling the patriarchal forms of production in agriculture and handicrafts in comparison with the domination of capital. ”

“ Surely it was no disgrace to admit oneself frankly powerless to envisage a future beyond capitalism in the year 1820—at a time when capitalism had only just begun to establish its domination over the big industries, and when the idea of socialism was only possible in a most Utopian form. But, as Sismondi could neither advance beyond capitalism nor go back to a previous stage, the only course open to his criticism was a petty-bourgeois compromise. ”

“ He was a great maker of war and verses. ‘The most violent,’ says M. Sismondi, ‘the most impetuous of the French chevaliers, breathing nothing but war; exciting, inflaming the passions of his neighbours and his superiors, in order to engage them in hostilities, he troubled the provinces of Guienne by his arms and his intrigues, during all the second half of the twelfth century ”

“ Sismondi says, that his life is sprinkled with few events. How do we know this? Throughout these campaigns, during these years of youthful ardour and enterprise, how much may have occurred, what dangers he may have run—what generosity, what valour he may have displayed—how warmly he may have loved, how deeply have suffered! As a poet and a master of the passions he must have felt them all. But a blank meets us when we seek to know more of these things. A poet's life is ever a romance. That Calderon's was such we cannot doubt ”

“ What Sismondi says of courage is preëminently true of that bodily vigor which it usually presupposes: that, although it is by no means the first of virtues, its loss is more fatal than that of all others. "Were it possible to unite the advantages of a perfect government with the cowardice of a whole people, those advantages would be utterly valueless, since they would be utterly without security." ”

“ The history of the bourgeois despots proves that Italy in the fifteenth century was undergoing a natural process of determination toward tyranny. Sismondi may attempt to demonstrate that Italy was 'not answerable for the crimes with which she was sullied by her tyrants.' But the facts show that she was answerable for choosing despots instead of remaining free, or rather that she instinctively obeyed a law of social evolution by which princes had to be substituted for municipalities at the end of those fierce internal conflicts and exhausting wars of jealousy which closed the Middle Ages. ”

“ The richer guilds deprived the poorer of their shares in the choice of the ruling agencies; the privileged class was continually narrowed by disqualifying regulations; and newly risen families were excluded by those of long standing. So that, as Sismondi points out, such of the numerous Italian republics as remained nominally such at the close of the fifteenth century were, like "Sienna and Lucca, each governed by a single caste of citizens: ... ”

“ They despised too much the force of the newly-risen popular power, founded on economy, sobriety, and common sense; and, alike by impertinence and pillage, increased the irritation of the civil body; until, as aforesaid, on the 20th October, 1250, all the rich burgesses of Florence took arms; met in the square before the church of Santa Croce, ("where," says Sismondi, "the republic of the dead is still assembled today,") thence traversed the city to the palace of the Ghibelline podesta; forced him to resign; named Uberto of Lucca in his place, under the title of Captain of the People ”

“ It was he who had maintained that in a capitalist economy there could be no difficulties, no surplus, no crises and no misery; since goods can be bought one for the other, we need only go on producing more and more and everything in the garden will be lovely. It was in Say’s hands that this postulate had become a tenet of the doctrine of harmony, that doctrine so typical of vulgar economics, which had evoked a sharp protest from Sismondi who proved this view untenable. ”

“ But they should lead us to be cautious in adopting the conclusions of Sismondi, who saw Italian greatness only in her free cities. The obliteration of the parties beneath despotism was needed, under actual conditions, for that development of arts and industry which raised Italy to a first place among civilized nations. Of the manners of the Despots, and of the demoralization they encouraged in the cities of their rule, enough will be said in the succeeding chapters, which set forth the social conditions of the Renaissance in Italy. ”

“ Sismondi’s theory of crises and disagrees sharply with the conclusions drawn from it. If Sismondi saw the source of all evil in the unlimited expansion of production without regard to the limitations of incomes, and advocated a restriction of production, Rodbertus, quite on the contrary, champions the most powerful and unrestricted expansion of production, of wealth and of the productive forces, believing this to be a social necessity. Whoever rejects the wealth of society, rejects at the same time its power, its progress, and, with its progress, its virtues. ”