Dissident Voices 287ment. Th e St.- Simonian vision was therefore decidedly elitist in outlook—
even authoritarian, as it lacked any commitment to democracy. It was also
strongly collectivist in its stress on planning. Th ere is little surprise, then,
that many have seen premonitions of totalitarianism in it. In all events,
St.- Simonism presented a very great contrast to liberalism, with its individ-
ualistic and libertarian character and its stress on free competition. It was
similarly incompatible with the nationality school, since it had no use for
nations or states or cultural traditions. It was an aggressively modernist,
postpo liti cal, cosmopolitan creed.
A New World counterpart of St.- Simon can be found in an Argentinian
lawyer and po liti cal activist named Juan Bautista Alberdi. Like St.- Simon,
he had grand ideas for a continent- wide federation— this time in the form of
a call, in 1844, for a reor ga ni za tion of the Spanish American republics into a
single federation. He envisaged that boundaries between the countries
would be altered in the interest of rationalization. “America is poorly put
together,” he contended. “We must redraw her geo graph i cal map.” He
proposed the formation of a regime of law to govern the river systems of the
continent and also favored a continent- wide program of tariff unifi cation,
on the model of the Zollverein that the German states were putting together
at the time. Th ere was to be cooperation on patents and copyrights, a high-
way and postal system, and a central university. A scheme of general disar-
mament for the continent was another part of his program, along with the
outright abolition of standing armies. Finally (as if all this were not enough),
“an international peace court” was to be established for the continent. In
general, the scheme was to have as its guiding consideration “the leaguing of
non- political interests” of the Spanish- speaking countries. Alberdi’s
grand plan did not, to put it mildly, come to fruition. But it showed the di-
rection in which at least some of the most advanced minds in the region
were thinking.
Alberdi’s ideas, like those of St.- Simon, were too wide- ranging to be con-
fi ned to a mere single continent. He was a fervent believer in the human race
as constituting a single body— with, ultimately, one single body of law to
govern it. “Th at which is called the law of nations,” he proclaimed, “is the
human law seen in its most general, most elevated, [and] most interesting
aspect.” He envisaged the eventual “union of the nations into a vast social
body of so many heads of states, governed by a thought, by an opinion, by a