Gli economisti francesi e il miglioramento delle condizioni dei lavoratori (1850-1914)

During the second half of the 19th century, working-class poverty became an increasingly recurrent issue in French society. Economists of all stripes – notably socialists, social Christians and liberals – offer an analysis of the situation and solutions to improve working conditions. The purpose of this presentation is to analyze the debates occurring from 1848 to 1914 within the French Liberal School about ways to improve the lot of workers. We will thus see that the authors propose a classification of the poor, ranging from the hereditary destitute to the disabled. While the authors agree that the disabled must be the subject of broad, unconditional assistance, the debates focus on the indigent who are able to work. While authors such as Paul Leroy-Beaulieu oppose in principle any intervention by the State and refer the situation of workers to their non-virtuous behavior far removed from bourgeois virtues, others are ready to admit intervention by the State. State – admittedly limited – in order to improve the situation of the working class. We then develop the solutions proposed by these authors. A first series of authors, such as Clémence Royer or Gustave de Molinari, therefore propose to improve the functioning of the labor market, in particular by setting up institutions allowing better mobility of workers and bringing workers and bosses into contact. . A second series of authors, such as Émile Cheysson or Clément Colson, propose the development of a sort of welfare state with aid paid under conditions. They therefore offer social insurance to cover certain risks independent of the worker such as work accidents or assistance paid in exchange for work. Finally, we show that this attention paid by liberals to improving the lot of workers can be justified by two motivations. While some authors have real concerns about the living conditions of workers, others, on the contrary, fear that workers will turn to socialism. With universal male suffrage, the risk is not non-existent of seeing a socialist government come to power. Thus, by seeing that the public authorities take their situation into account, these state interventions would make it possible to prevent workers from turning to give in to the songs of socialist sirens.