Charles Fourier

“ The germ of this revolution is developed in the writings of Charles Fourier.” In March, 1842, he began publishing, under a contract with a number of New York Fourierites, one column daily on the first page of the “Tribune” on Fourierite topics, from the pen of Albert Brisbane. The theories here advanced were also occasionally defended in the editorial columns. Mr. Greeley became a subscriber to one or two Fourierite associations, notably that of the “American Phalanx” at Red Bank, N. J., and occasionally addressed public meetings on the subject. ”

“ Having earnestly studied the system of industrial organization and social reform propounded by Charles Fourier, and been led to recognize in it a beneficent, expensive and practical plan for the melioration of the condition of man and his moral and intellectual elevation, they most heartily adopted that system as the basis and guide of their operations. Holding meetings from time to time, and through the press informing the public of their enterprise and its objects, their numbers steadily increased ”

“ By nature a humanitarian and by earnest study a profound scholar, he recognized a germ of truth in the theory of the Transcendentalists that humanity is suffering from evils which if not remedied must result in disaster. The remedy he found in Socialism. While sojourning in France he came under the personal influence of Charles Fourier and, was a member of the circle of converts drawn around the founder of Socialism—not the political Socialism of to-day, be it again said, but the Socialism of 1840, devoted to the reorganization of civilized society, on a scientific basis ”

“ A.—It originated partly in New York City and partly in Albany, in the winter of 1842-3. We first held meetings in Albany, and agitated the subject of Socialism till we formed an Association. Our original object was to read and explain the doctrines of Charles Fourier, the French Socialist; to have lectures delivered, and arouse public attention to the consideration of those social questions which appeared to us, in our new-born zeal, to have an important bearing upon the present, and more especially upon the future welfare of the human [240] family. ”

“ Every human being desires happiness. Minor premise: Socialism provides for the happiness of every human being. Conclusion: Demonstrate this truth and every human being will become a socialist. Q. E. D.
The socialists were at first called Fourierites but this rather long title very soon gave place to the more convenient word here used. The science of right living was evolved by Charles Fourier, a French savant who gave his life to humanitarian studies. His fundamental concept was that the Creator and Ruler of the Universe instituted one law ”

“ The faults of existing institutions presented themselves to him in an altogether distorted manner, and he never appears to have recognized that the evils of actual society are immeasurably less serious than the consequences of his arbitrary scheme. Out of the chaos of human passion he supposed harmony was to be evolved by the adoption of a few theoretically disputable principles, which themselves impose restraints even more irksome than those due to actual social facts. ”

“ With them, if man was the creature of circumstances, those circumstances were at least defined for him by external laws which he had not created: while the Socialists, with Fourier at their head (as it has always seemed to me) , fell into the extraordinary paradox of supposing that though man was the creature of circumstances, he was to become happy by creating the very circumstances which were afterwards to create him. But both of them erred, surely, in ignoring that self-arbitrating power of man, by which he can, for good or for evil, rebel against and conquer circumstance. ”

“ Also Charles A. Dana, in old times a Fourierist and withal a Brook Farmer, now chief of The New York Sun, says in an editorial on the Brocton Association (May 1 1869) :
"Communities based upon peculiar religious views, have generally succeeded. The Shakers and the Oneida Community are conspicuous illustrations of this fact; while the failure of the various attempts made by the disciples of Fourier, Owen, and others, who have not had the support of religious fanaticism, proves that [139] without this great force the most brilliant social theories are of little avail." ”

“ With regard to the economic aspects of his proposed new method, it is of course to be granted that co-operation is more effective than individual effort, but he has nowhere faced the question as to the probable consequences of organizing society on the abolition of those great institutions which have grown with its growth. ”

“ Repton,—just come over with us to Paris,—and see if what I am telling you be so far from the fact. You 'll find, too, that it is not merely the low-born, the ignoble, and the poor who profess these opinions, but the great, the titled, and the wealthy men of fourteen quarterings and ancient lineage; and who, sick to death of a contest with a rich bourgeoisie, would rather start fair in the race again, and win whatever place their prowess or their capacity might giye them. You 'll hear very good socialism from the lips of dukes and princesses who swear by Fourier. ”

“ Fourier, overhearing this remark, jumped out of bed, to which he had been confined by indisposition, opened the room door, and facing the courtier, exclaimed, "Joseph, tell the gentleman, that if I were a minister, I should receive everybody, because such would be my duty: as a private individual, I receive whom I think fit, and when I think fit." ”

“ With ample, that is, vast resources, and some years to prepare the domain, erect buildings, and make all necessary arrangements, so as to thoroughly prepare the field of operations before the members or operators entered, then with men of organizing capacity to test fairly the principles which he has laid down, a fair trial could be made.
"I repeat, let us be just to those who have labored patiently and conscientiously for the social elevation of humanity. Fourier's was a great soul. To a powerful intellect he added nobility and goodness of heart. ”

“ Fournier was in person short, thin, and pale, but his melancholy and pensive physiognomy bore traces of his long, unquiet, and ungrateful labours. A simple clerk, he did not venture, when he published his writings, to sign them with any other name than that of Charles, declaring himself ready, under that name, to answer any objections that might be addressed to him. Alas! there were few objections addressed to him; Charles got no readers; men pitied or ridiculed him as a visionary. ”

“ Fourier assumed that he himself was the average man, and yet he had abandoned business because he had found it dishonest! He forgot that his father had punished him for telling the truth. At the end of his life he was patiently waiting—he had waited for ten years—convinced that some honest wealthy man would knock at his door and supply him with the money necessary for making his scheme a success. Through such transparent spirits the social doctrines of the French Revolution were focused and the Socialist theory was the result. ”

“ Now, under the Empire and the Restoration, the economic system of the bourgeoisie based on unlimited competition began to bear its fruit: undoubted increase of wealth, but with it immorality, trickery, perpetual warfare, disorder, and oppression. Fourier's stroke of genius was to conceive that it was possible to remedy the confusion, to purge the social system without hampering the production of wealth, but on the contrary increasing it. ”

“ C may report five hundred and fifty bushels in the coming year. This demonstrates the existence of a rivalry of a valuable kind, of which much might be made. But Fourier pushed things to an extreme when he thought that the productiveness of labor might thereby be increased fourfold, or even fivefold. He held that a man could produce enough under his social régime from his eighteenth to twenty-eighth year, so that he could pass the remainder of his life in elegant leisure. ”

“ If in Saint Simon we find a comprehensive breadth of view, by virtue of which almost all the ideas of later Socialists, that are not strictly economic, are found in him in embryo, we find in Fourier a criticism of the existing conditions of society genuinely French and witty, but not upon that account any the less thorough. Fourier takes the bourgeoisie, their inspired prophets before the Revolution, and their interested eulogists after it, at their own word. ”

“ The views just stated are not unwarranted by the historic socialism. Amidst much that is most extravagant, Fourier has the merit at least of offering the strongest safeguards for individual and local freedom. Fourier provided that every worker should have the opportunity of gaining and maintaining a capital of his own, but under such social regulation that it would no longer involve wrong to others; and further, he arranged that the owner should have perfect freedom to transfer his services and his capital from one association to another. ”

“ He, like Saint- Simon, attacks idlers, but the two thinkers look upon the capitalist manager as a worker. The intense class- antagonism of capitalist and labourer had not yet formulated itself and was not felt strongly until voiced on behalf of the proletariat by Proudhon and Marx. Fourier’s proposals were those of a bourgeois business man who knew the commercial world intimately, who criticised it and condemned the existing system of civilisation. ”

“ Thus M. Blanc asks for State aid and the establishment of national workshops; thus Fourier asked for six million francs, and his followers are still engaged today in collecting that sum; thus the communists place their hope in a revolution which shall give them authority and the treasury, and exhaust themselves in waiting for useless subscriptions. Capital and power, secondary organs in society, are always the gods whom socialism adores: if capital and power did not exist, it would invent them. ”

“ In order to give effect to this principle and obtain the resulting social harmony, it was needful that society should be reconstructed; for, as the social organism is at present constituted, innumerable restrictions are imposed upon the free development of human desire. As practical principle for such a reconstruction Fourier advocated co-operative or united industry. ”

“ As to social science, here is the germ of Fourierism, in the Confessions of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, fifteen hundred years before Fourier: "And many of us friends, conferring about and detesting the turbulent turmoil of human life, had debated and now almost resolved on living apart from business and the bustle of men ”

“ Raymond was the victor, and the Fourierite movement from that date began its decline in America. Mr. Greeley was always careful to mark his dissent from many of Fourier's propositions. In the discussion Mr. Raymond endeavored to force him into the position that no man can rightfully own land (substantially the doctrine of which Henry George has since been the apostle) , but Mr. Greeley indignantly repudiated it. In later years he dwelt upon the principle of association as the only one in Fourier's scheme that particularly attracted him ”

“ According to the demands of the passion papillonne, each one should carry on the most different kinds of business side by side, and each one of them at most two hours per day; i.e., every one should be a dilettante, no one a master, and everything should be done as badly as possible. Proudhon, Contradictions économiques, ch. 3, objects to this, that a workman must, in some way, be held responsible for his work. Fourier himself calculates that, in his harmonie all pleasures are productive labor ”

“ We are convinced that we can never succeed with an onerous debt upon us. We trust those who attempt it may be more successful than we could hope to be.
"We are also convinced that we can not advance one step toward associative unity, while in a state of anarchy and confusion, and that such a state of things must be avoided. We will therefore not attempt even a unitary subsistence, until we have the number necessary to enable us to organize upon scientific principles, and in accordance with Fourier's admirable plan of industrial organization. ”

“ I determined to know more of the principles of this new school, and I passed from that to the study of Fourier. I admitted everything, although I did not very clearly distinguish their contradictions, and it still saddened me to see the ancient world crumble under the weight of theories invincible in their system of criticism, confused and incomplete in their principles of organization. It was not until five or six years ago that I accepted with perfect disinterestedness and great mental satisfaction the principle of a social revolution. ”

“ Facts, in a word, proved to be contrary to all expectations; and this at first produced a profound discouragement among the disillusioned, which, notwithstanding, gave rise to the desire and the need of new investigations. We know that Saint Simon and Fourier, in whom operated precisely at the beginning of the century, in the exclusive forms of the ideas of premature genius, the reaction against the immediate results of the politico-economic revolution, arose resolutely, the first against the jurists, and the second against the economists. ”

“ The provision of Mutual Guarantees will insure to each a good home, good living, good education for the young, good care for the aged and good opportunities for work and for recreation while life lasts. Each one will be perfectly free to follow those congenial pursuits the attractions of which are proportioned to his destiny. The final consummation as announced by Fourier in his third axiom, will be the Unity of Man with God, with Man, and with Nature.
The apostle of Fourierism in America was Albert Brisbane. ”