Abstract:
Historians have dubbed solidarism the official social philosophy of the French Third Republic, yet no history of the theory exists. In the absence of such a study, scholars have variously interpreted the doctrine and its role in the making of the French welfare state. This dissertation aims to dispel the confusion around the theory of solidarism by providing a historical analysis of the doctrine grounded in extensive research into the treatises, speeches, conferences, articles, parliamentary debates, and actions of the French solidarists. By doing so, it contributes to the understanding of French republicanism and of bourgeois reformism in pre-war France. Early chapters examine the philosophical and economic roots of solidarism in the work of Alfred Fouillée and Charles Gide. A middle chapter studies Leon Bourgeois's theory of solidarism and follows his efforts, as prime minister of France in the 1890's, to institute a program of solidaristic social reform. Final chapters examine the debates on solidarism of the Belle Epoque and clarify the solidarists' role in the social reform movement of the era. The dissertation challenges the positivist, anti-socialist, and conservative characterizations of solidarism that dominate the scholarship on the theory. Solidarism served as a transitional position between the idealistic republicanism of 1848 and a scientific and pragmatic republicanism that marks the twentieth century. In their search for a middle position between socialism and liberalism, the solidarists constructed a hybrid vision of social protections that combined the benevolent hand of the republican state with a vital civil society. Their social vision rested on a complex and open-ended theory that struggled to balance the social necessities of an increasingly interdependent and industrialized society with the humanistic values of the French Enlightenment. This dissertation demonstrates that while the solidarists emphasized the humanism of their doctrine, they increasingly resorted to pragmatic arguments to win support for their social reforms. Though such arguments proved critical in breaking down resistance to social reforms, they came at the cost of solidarism's humanistic and arguably more democratic model of the welfare state.
