The trajectory of French socialist militancy with an emphasis on self-management and religious references or reminiscences

• Grant number: 24/07859-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: February 23, 2025
• End date: July 13, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: André Ricardo de Souza
• Grantee: André Ricardo de Souza
• Host Investigator: Jean-Louis Laville
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Cnam), France

Abstract

France is the main country where, in the 19th century, the intellectual elaboration linked to political activism and the realization of economic experiments characterized by self-management took place, making up a social phenomenon that became known as utopian socialism. Consisting of cooperatives, associations, communities of integral coexistence, this set of socio-economic practices was largely guided by religious values and precepts, fundamentally Christian, having as its primary reference the biblical portrait of the first community of followers of Jesus Christ in the first century, something that is interpreted in the literature on the subject as 'primitive Christian communism'. With the theoretical and political construction of Marx and Engels, known as scientific socialism, the ideas and practices identified with utopian socialism lost their adherence, vigor and political strength, but self-management experiments reappeared on the French scene in the mid-20th century. These were the so-called 'work communities', most notably the Boimondau watch case factory in the 1940s, which was owned and managed by a businessman guided by Christian values, who remained its leader for most of its three decades of existence. A significant Brazilian working community was formed by a Dominican priest, who was personally inspired by the French experiences, especially Boimondau. Also in France, with only three years of self-management, but great repercussions and national mobilization of support, the Lip watch factory had among its main leaders another Dominican who worked there as a 'worker priest'. In that country - much less so than in Brazil - the movement with socialist values and the banner of self-management still seems to have some religious reminiscences, despite the fact that France is deeply marked by secularism. This historical trajectory of the intersection of socialist and self-management activism with religion and its possible reminiscences today make up the subject of this research.