Louis Blanc (1813-82), the first philosopher of the new movement, struck out boldly for a democratic organization of the government. This differentiates him from Fourier and Saint-Simon, and links him with the leading Socialist writers of our day. He published his _Organisation du Travail_ (Organization of Labor) in 1839. It immediately gave him an immense popularity with the working classes. It is a brilliant book, as fascinating in its phrases as it is forceful in its denunciation of existing society. He said that it is vain to talk of improving mankind morally without improving them materially. This improvement would not come from above, from the higher classes. It would come from below, from the working people themselves. Therefore, a prerequisite of social reform was democracy. The proletarian must possess the power of the state in order to emancipate himself from the economic bondage that holds him in its grasp. This democratic state should then establish national workshops, or associations, which he called "social workshops," the capital to be provided by the state and the state to supervise their operation. He believed that, once established, they would soon become self-supporting and self-governing. The men would choose their own managers, dispose of their own profits, and take care that this beneficent system would spread to all communities. He was careful to explain that "genius should assert its legitimate empire"--there must be a hierarchy of ability. Louis Blanc believed in revolution as the method of social advancement. He was himself a leader in the abortive revolution of 1848, the revolt of the people against a weak and careless monarch. As a member of the provisional government, he may be called the first Socialist to hold cabinet honors. And, like his successors in modern cabinets, he accomplished very little towards the bringing in of a new social order. It is true that national workshops were built by the French government at his suggestion; but not according to his plans. His enemies saw to it that they served to bring discredit rather than honor to the system which he had so carefully elaborated.[12] Louis Blanc did not entirely free himself of the earlier utopian conception that man was created good and innocent. He blames society for allowing the individual to do evil. But he does take a step toward the Marxian materialistic conception when he affirms that man was created with certain endowments of strength and intellect and that these endowments should be spent in the welfare of society. The empire of service, not the "empire of tribute," should be the measure of man's greatness.