The history of all civilizations is the story of the struggle between the plundering classes and the productive classes. This is the creed of the two authors we will discuss. They are the originators of a liberal theory of class struggle that inspired Frédéric Bastiat as much as Karl Marx, although the latter distorted it.

For Comte and Dunoyer, plunder, meaning all forms of violence exercised in society by the strong over the weak, is the great key to understanding human history. It is at the origin of all phenomena of exploitation of one class by another.

If Frédéric Bastiat owes his economic education to Smith, Destutt de Tracy, and Say, he owes his political education to the leaders of the journal Le Censeur, Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer.

This review (1814-1819), renamed Le Censeur européen after the Hundred Days, disseminated the liberal ideas that triumphed in 1830 with the insurrection of the Three Glorious Days and the rise to power of the Duke of Orléans, Louis-Philippe I.

Charles Comte, cousin of Auguste Comte and son-in-law of Say, is the founder of the review. He was soon joined by Charles Dunoyer, a jurist like himself, and then by a young historian, Augustin Thierry, former secretary of Saint Simon. Their motto, featured on the front page of each issue of the review, was "Peace and Liberty."

What is the goal of the review? The title speaks for itself: to censor the government. To fight against the arbitrariness of power by enlightening public opinion, to defend the freedom of the press.

(Benjamin Constant)

They adopt from Benjamin Constant the distinction between the Ancients and the Moderns, characterized on one hand by war, and on the other by commerce and industry. However, they argue that political economy provides the best explanation of social phenomena. They particularly understand that nations achieve peace and prosperity when property rights and free trade are respected. From now on, for them, political economy is the true and only foundation of politics. To philosophy, which confines itself to the abstract critique of forms of government, must be substituted a theory based on the knowledge of economic interests.

This new social theory contains one of the elements that would become the cornerstone of Marx and Engels' scientific socialism: the concept of class struggle. But what does the liberal theory of class struggle consist of, and how does it differ from Marxism?

It starts with the individual who acts to meet their needs and desires. From the moment one creates, that is, increases the utility of things and enhances their value, one engages in industry. Here, an industrialist is not an industry owner, as the current language might suggest, but a producer, regardless of the field in which they work. That's why their theory is called industrialism. It posits that the goal of society is the creation of utility in the broad sense, namely, goods and services that are useful to humans.

On this point, individuals face two fundamental alternatives: they can plunder the wealth produced by others, or they can work to produce wealth themselves. In any society, one can clearly distinguish those who live off plunder from those who live off production. Under the Ancien Régime, the nobility directly attacked the most industrious to live off a new form of tribute: taxes. The rapacious nobility was succeeded by hordes of bureaucrats, no less rapacious.

While for Marx, class antagonism is situated within the productive activity itself, between employees and employers, for Comte and Dunoyer, the conflicting classes are, on one side, the society's producers, who pay taxes (including capitalists, workers, peasants, scholars, etc.) and on the other, the non-producers, who live off rents financed by taxes, "the idle and devouring class" (bureaucrats, officials, politicians, beneficiaries of subsidies or protections).

Then, unlike Marx, the authors of the Censeur Européen do not advocate for class warfare. Instead, they campaign for social peace. And this, according to them, can only be achieved through the depoliticization of society. To this end, it is essential to first reduce the prestige and benefits associated with public offices. It is then important to give influence in the political body to the producers.

Finally, the only way to rid the world of the exploitation of one class by another is to destroy the very mechanism that makes this exploitation possible: the power of the State to distribute and control property and the allocation of benefits related to it (the "positions").

Their ideas, profoundly innovative, would forever mark Frédéric Bastiat, who would himself become a deep thinker on political crises.