ABSTRACT
Saint-Simonism undoubtedly represents the most important social and doctrinal movement of the first half of the nineteenth century. This doctrine draws on the positivist philosophy of history developed by its worshipped Master, Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon, and predicts the advent of a novel “organic” era in which men will cease to govern each other and shall only manage things. The unlimited scientific, technological and economic development of the modern world would, in this view, allow such an historical substitution. Intensifying worldwide communications and collaboration between individual and collective “abilities”, is supposed to open the way to an unprecedented mastery and exploitation of natural and spiritual resources, which is the condition for mankind’s efficient emancipation.
