Lenin points to the practical conclusions from Sismondi's ideas, in which, for example, he argues in defence of those old feudal and guild monopolies that capitalist competition had swept aside.
“These arguments of Sismondi’s already reveal his astonishing lack of historical sense: he has not the faintest idea that liberation from medieval regulation constituted the entire historical significance of the period contemporary to him. He does not realise that his arguments bring grist to the mill of the defenders of the ancien régime, who at that time were still so strong even in France, not to speak of the other countries of the West-European continent where they ruled.” (p 236)
And the same is true, today, of those that want to skulk behind all kinds of protectionist barriers. It was seen some months ago in relation to the opposition to the development of a new European Super League for football, a development which recognises both that the old nation state is dead, and that, in Europe, the relevant structure is the EU, and also recognises that, in a global economy, the spectators of games, and the fans of clubs are spread across the globe, numbering in their millions. The opponents not only hid behind narrow nationalism, but even medieval parochialism, ridiculously portraying fans as being only that handful who physically attend matches from the team's home town! And, then its wondered why so much tribalism is seen!!
Many of those who argued for Brexit, also made no secret of the fact that, in addition, they sought the erection of protective national barriers, as well as a return to the old monopolies and privileges that Britain enjoyed in trade with the Empire. They seem not to have noticed that the Empire is long since dead, and that some of those former colonies are now more economically powerful than Britain itself, but in any case, have formed far more important trade relations with other countries and economic blocs in their own regions. But, the point is that those Brexit arguments gave grist to the mill of all those reactionaries who hankered for the days of Empire.
Sismondi lived at a time of tremendous social change, as all of the society based on small scale production, of previous centuries, was ripped apart by the industrial revolution of the 18th century. Lenin quotes Engels' account from The Condition of the Working-class to illustrate just just how profound this change was. Sismondi looked on in horror, and wanted it to stop. He wanted to protect all of those forms of production and society that were being destroyed, but such a venture was both Utopian and reactionary. He looked for measures that would protect the small scale producer.
He relates the example of the statutes pursued under Elizabeth I that said that no cottage should be built that did not come with a four acre plot of land, so that the cottager could at least provide for their own basic requirements. The measure was never enforced, but, in any case, 4 acres would have been inadequate for a peasant family to provide for itself to anything other than a miserable standard. An equivalent, today, is the proposals for a Universal Basic Income (UBI). Firstly, what any such measure does is simply lift the zero baseline up to this new minimum. It would lead to an inflation that continuously erodes the real value of the minimum. But, the other basis of the measure is that it would enable recipients to engage in other small-scale economic activities. In other words its aim is to promote a growth of that very same petty-bourgeois production and mindset described by Sismondi. It is to look to a return to the conditions of the 18th century peasant society that capitalism and the industrial revolution rescued us from.
“The reader will see that the proposals of romanticism are absolutely identical with the proposals and programme of the Narodniks: they too ignore actual economic development, and in the epoch of large-scale machine industry, fierce competition and conflict of interests they fatuously presume the preservation of conditions which reproduce the patriarchal conditions of the hoary past.” (p 238-9)
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