Paul de Rousiers

[1] His father, a graduate of the naval school, was an officer in the navy and owned an agricultural estate in Rhus, in the commune of Saint-Maurice-des-Lions, where Les Rousiers had lived for several generations.

His theoretical apprenticeship ended with the publication in 1881 of the Programme de gouvernement et d'organisation sociale d'après l'observation comparée des divers peuples, with a preface by Le Play.

The first proven occurrence of the term derives from a review of Reclus' Nouvelle géographie universelle from 1884, written by Paul de Rousiers, a member of the Le Play School.

[citation needed] In 1885, three years after the death of Le Play, Henri de Tourville and Demolins split from the movement and founded a new journal, Science sociale.

They brought with them a few adherents including de Rousiers and Robert Pinot (1862–1926), future director of the Musée social and secretary-general of the Comité des forges.

[5] In 1893 de Rousiers made two visits of four months to England and Scotland, then to Belfast, where in September 1893 he participated in a trade union congress.

[8] As in America, he made many observations, particularly in Birmingham, London and the Scottish Lothians, visited factories and mines, and interviewed workers, industrialists, union leaders and intellectuals such as Sidney Webb.

[10] Le Trade-unionisme en Angleterre (1896)[11][12] was a collective work that Paul de Rousiers organized at the request of the directors of the Musée social.

[13] Robert Pinot, the effective leader of the Musée and a close friend of de Rousiers, had placed him at the head of a team of four pupils of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques who conducted inquiries in September and October 1895.

This resulted in several articles and two books, La Concentration des forces ouvrières dans l'Amérique du Nord by Vigouroux and Les Industries monopolisées (trusts) aux Etats-Unis by de Rousiers.

He then investigated the Comptoir métallurgique de Longwy, formed in 1877 by the main enterprises of Lorraine to coordinate purchase and allocation of pig iron.

With his considerable intellectual authority, de Rousiers was an effective defender of the interests of the shipowners and contributed to discussions on legislative project.

How could it be conceived that, in the midst of a crisis, a professional trade union would be forced, by submitting to such an arbitration procedure, to impose new burdens on all its members which might exceed the limit of what some can bear?

It would be a lack of clairvoyance.In 1923 the Société d'études et d'informations économiques, formed by the Comité des forges, published studies by de Rousiers defending "good" agreements.

[22] De Rousiers represented the shipowners in the Standing Joint Committee on Merchant Shipping, established in 1925, which had the purpose of examining issues that could cause conflicts between owner and workers.

He also presided over the École des Roches that Demolins had founded which sought to apply the lessons of social science to educational reform.

[5] De Rousiers, who inspired the revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel with this work, wrote that the American aristocracy stressed ability and discouraged mediocrity, even among their own children.

[29] He contrasted the German cartel to the American trust, writing, The former is a league of allies in which each one preserves a certain liberty of action, but forbids himself the usage of certain weapons against the others.

In the conclusion of his work he outlines a concept of syndicalism, with organizations independent of workers and owners that would favor the evolution of industry and solve the "labor question".

[16] Paul de Rousiers was sympathetic to trade unions but thought they should focus on adapting to the constantly evolving industrial economy.

[27] In Hambourg et l'Allemagne contemporaine (1902) de Rousiers criticized the German labour movement, which he considered poorly organized and influenced too much by social democracy and the class struggle.

Frontispiece of La question ouvrière en Angleterre (1895)
Frontispiece of Les Syndicats industriels de producteurs en France et à l'étranger (1901)