"To each according to his ability, to each according to his works" Essay on Saint-Simonian social justice.

Summary This doctoral thesis focuses on the birth of the idea of social justice, an idea formulated for one of the very first times in France by the Saint-Simonians (1825-1832). More precisely, social justice emerged under certain material and intellectual conditions. Observing the progress made through industrialization, the Saint-Simonians showed that the means of production could be distributed to all. This constitutes the material condition. The spirit of the French Revolution, and especially the Declaration of 1789, created an egalitarian atmosphere: each individual should be able to improve his or her socioeconomic status. This constitutes the intellectual condition. The Saint-Simonian considerations of social justice are based on a specific criterion: capacity. The founding aphorism of the Saint-Simonian doctrine follows: "to each according to his ability, to each according to his works", an aphorism specifying the rules of allocation of means of production and distribution of rewards. The Saint-Simonian system was rooted in their desire to provide an equitable system of opportunity based on bank credit. Such considerations constitute St. Simonian social justice.