Intro
Despite its assumed differences with modern liberal society, 19th century socialism often excluded the totalitarian and imperialistic tendencies of its 20th century offspring. Classical socialists were often champions of free trade, freed markets, and a tolerable administration of Justice.
However, what a truly “socialist” society would look like depends on the individual in question. While early socialists welcomed the Smithian blueprint as a step in the right direction, they all sought to take it a step farther. From utopian communities, to enemies of the state, to democratic movements — the socialist system of natural liberty was destined to unleash mankind’s true potential.
Utopian Socialism
The phrase “Utopian Socialism” emerged as an insult and was never actually used by the group of people most commonly associated with the name. It was first coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who wanted to distinguish their own “Scientific Socialism” from their predecessors.
While they were inspired by the the so called “utopian socialists”, they denounced them for ignoring the material conditions of their time. In his pamphlet, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels writes:
Scientific “Socialism is, in its essence, the direct product of the recognition, on the one hand, of the class antagonisms existing in the society of today between proprietors and non-proprietors, between capitalists and wage-workers; on the other hand, of the anarchy existing in production.
[…] The Utopians' mode of thought has for a long time governed the Socialist ideas of the 19th century, and still governs some of them. […]
To all these, Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice, and has only to be discovered to conquer all the world by virtue of its own power. And as an absolute truth is independent of time, space, and of the historical development of man, it is a mere accident when and where it is discovered.
With all this, absolute truth, reason, and justice are different with the founder of each different school. And as each one's special kind of absolute truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, there is no other ending possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutually exclusive of one another.
Hence, from this nothing could come but a kind of eclectic, average Socialism, which, as a matter of fact, has up to the present time dominated the minds of most of the socialist workers in France and England. Hence, a mish-mash allowing of the most manifold shades of opinion: a mish-mash of such critical statements, economic theories, pictures of future society by the founders of different sects, as excite a minimum of opposition; a mish-mash which is the more easily brewed the more definite sharp edges of the individual constituents are rubbed down in the stream of debate, like rounded pebbles in a brook.
[…] This historical situation also dominated the founders of Socialism. To the crude conditions of capitalistic production and the crude class conditions correspond crude theories. The solution of the social problems, which as yet lay hidden in undeveloped economic conditions, the Utopians attempted to evolve out of the human brain. Society presented nothing but wrongs; to remove these was the task of reason.
It was necessary, then, to discover a new and more perfect system of social order and to impose this upon society from without by propaganda, and, wherever it was possible, by the example of model experiments.
These new social systems were foredoomed as Utopian; the more completely they were worked out in detail, the more they could not avoid drifting off into pure phantasies.”
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels also criticize the utopian socialists for appealing “to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. […] Hence they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new Social Gospel.”
(The Communist Manifesto. Marx & Engels. 117-118)
Ironically, it was for these very reasons that the liberal economist, Ludwig Von Mises, acknowledged that the Utopian Socialists were able to operate within the liberal framework. He writes:
“there can very well be differences of opinion concerning the best way to achieve the liberal aim of assuring peaceful social cooperation, and these differences of opinion must join issue as conflicts of ideas. Thus, in a liberal society there could be socialist parties too. Even parties that seek to have a special legal position conceded to particular groups would not be impossible under a liberal system. […] Thus, some of the pre-Marxist "utopian" socialists fought for socialism within the framework of liberalism.”
(Liberalism. Mises. 122-123).
Though heavily scrutinized, all three utopians would leave their mark on 20th century socialist countries — and by doing so — cement their place in history.
Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon
Godfather of Central Planning
Henri de Saint-Simon was born in 1760 to an aristocratic family claiming to be directly descended from Charlemagne. At 18 years old he joined the French army and was sent to assist the Americans in their struggle for independence against Great Britain; During the war effort, he served under General Washington. Reflecting on his time in service, Saint-Simon wrote:
“The war in itself did not interest me, but its aim interested me greatly, and that interest led me willingly to support its cause.”
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 39).
He later returned to France to support the revolution of 1789 — The next year, he became President of the municipal assembly. Unfortunately, Robespierre's Reign of Terror threatened his activities and he was eventually arrested for “counter-revolutionary offenses”. The end of the reign of terror and the execution of Robespierre led to his release in 1794. He emerged enormously rich due to currency speculation, but subsequently lost his fortune to his business partner. Thereafter, he began his writings that would earn his place in socialist canon.
History and the Power of Ideas
Simon’s ideas were a direct product of the French Revolution. Because the revolution offered a clear demonstration of what social disorganization looked like, it prompted Simon to ask how organization could be promoted to prevent further outbreaks of anarchy. Keith Taylor writes:
Simon “was convinced that the degree of certainty achieved in the natural sciences could also be attained in social science if systematic observation of social phenomena were undertaken; and he founded his entire philosophy on this conviction. […] Man would be able to promote the construction of the very best form of social organisation. In this sense the realisation of utopia could be regarded as a practical possibility.”
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 47-48).
This led Simon to develop his own theory of history. Its starting principle was that changes in social organisation become necessary due to the development of human knowledge and beliefs. Moral beliefs were especially important, he argued, because a society’s organizational structure was a direct reflection of its prevailing moral code — and this code was intrinsically linked to the state of scientific knowledge. Taylor continues:
“The values which underpinned the social organisation of ancient Greece and Rome were seen by Saint-Simon to be in harmony with the supernatural, polytheistic beliefs of that age. But with the transition from polytheism to theism, a transition set in motion by Socratic science, a new moral code and with it a new social order were necessitated. This was the major cause of the rise of the theological-feudal system, which reached its zenith under Charlemagne's rule in Europe.
In its turn Christian theism was now in decline, being replaced by positivism, which rejected all forms of supernatural belief and relied entirely on the sciences of observation. This explained the gradual collapse of feudalism since the Middle Ages, culminating in the chaos of the French Revolution. According to Saint-Simon's theory of history, because the social order of feudalism was founded on a theological system of ideas, it could survive only as long as theology remained scientifically valid. In actual fact theology gradually lost its validity as a result of the rise of positive sciences of observation, first of all astronomy, then physics and chemistry, and finally physiology. The inevitable consequence of this was first of all that the Catholic Church, which exercised spiritual power under feudalism, began to lose its authority; and then that the military lords, the holders of temporal power, found their superiority challenged more and more by their subjects.
This process of disintegration proceeded most rapidly in France, where it reached its climax in the eighteenth century with the collapse of the ancient régime, precipitated by the social criticism of Enlightenment philosophy. […] The French Revolution represented the final act of this drama. It brought to an end the theological-feudal era, and paved the way for the construction of a new social order appropriate to the level of enlightenment attained by man.”
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 51-52).
Simon believed that the attempts of the revolutionaries in France to establish a new system were inadequate because they were based on the belief in certain fundamental rights of man which could not possibly serve as the basis of a new form of social organization because they were too negative. The question then, was what should serve as the basis of modern organization?
The Idle Class Vs. The Industrial Class
According to Simon, history could be interpreted as a conflict between what he called: the idle class and the productive class. The idle class is made up of useless members of society who enrich themselves by exploiting others, while the productive class is made up of productive members of society who enrich themselves by advancing scientific knowledge.
In ancient times, the idle class maintained their supremacy through the institution of slavery; but overtime, producers slowly gained their emancipation — First through the feudal system and finally through the creation of parliamentary government. Simon’s writings on the idle class caused a temporary sensation after he directly named members of the royal family who served no useful function to society. This was not to the benefit of Simon, who was temporarily imprisoned after a man assassinated a member of the royal family he had named. Fortunately, the court reversed its decision and eventually released him.
Simon’s views on the productive class were related to his initial attraction towards a philosophy rooted in the liberal doctrines of people such as Jean-Baptiste Say, Benjamin Constant, Charles Comte, and Charles Dunoyer. He was particularly interested in their economic doctrine which emphasized the importance of industry. No advocate of Laissez-faire, Simon was impressed by the industrial class’s organizational abilities:
He “anticipated that with the rise to leadership of the captains of industry, government in the traditional sense of a repressive force, as embodied in the militaristic feudal state, would disappear, to be replaced by a system of administration whose main function would be to supervise productive operations.”
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 55).
To achieve this end, spiritual power must pass into the hands of the most enlightened members of society, Scientists and artists, since only they surpassed the theologians in terms of knowledge and understanding. Thus, a religion of Newton should be created to inspire and educate the masses. The leading producers of industry should be given temporal power over how to allocate public expenditure, since only they had the knowledge and skill to organize society.
Saint-Simon recognized the potential conflict between the men who were employers and managers of labour (directing industrials) and employees who were performing most of the physical labor (executive industrials). However, he believed that these two groups shared a common interest in production. So, conflict could be minimized as long as society's leaders provided for the basic moral and physical needs of the whole population and society was organized such as to give all men equal opportunities to advance based on their proven abilities.
Overtime, Saint-Simon became Increasingly disillusioned with liberal politics. He came to believe:
“The problem of social re-organization must be solved for the people. The people themselves are passive and listless and must be excluded in any consideration of the question. The best way is to entrust public administration to the care of the industrial chiefs, who will always directly attempt to give the widest possible scope to their undertakings, with the result that their efforts in this direction will lead to the maximum expansion of the amount of work executed by the mass of the people."
He turned to the monarch in hopes that the king would Institute his reforms and lead as the nation’s first industrial.
The Saint-Simonians and the New Christianity
As the years passed, Saint Simon felt that his views were not taken seriously. Despair gradually turned into a life threatening depression when he attempted suicide by firing a pistol, aimed at his head, in rapid succession. Somehow he survived, but with a deep wound and the loss of his right eye. After his recovery, he launched another periodical, The Industrials' Catechism (Catéchisme des industriels), with the assistance of a new group of supporters — the most notable being the father of sociology, August Comte, whom he had known since Comte was a teenager.
Overtime, Simon entirely abandoned his early liberal influences and began describing industrialism as a new, definitive Christianity. He claimed that industrial planning alone could improve the situation of the worst off in society, fulfilling the true teachings of Christ. Intending to write three texts on the subject of religion, Saint-Simon’s work was cut short when he fell ill with gastro-enteritis; Six weeks later he passed away. At his funeral, his followers applauded his achievements in life. However, his death was recognized as the birth of the Saint-Simonian movement
Many critics, ranging from Charles Fourier to F.A. Hayek, have accused Saint-Simon of advocating a kind of totalitarianism. Keith Taylor argues:
“While it is true that [Saint-Simon’s] social theory does have some authoritarian implications, the view that he favoured a form of social organisation involving the exercise of a limitless, i.e. totalitarian, power over the individual by a coercive elite goes too far. […] Such views are the result, I would suggest, of a combination of factors: a tendency to confuse the terms 'authoritarian' and 'totalitarian'; a fundamental misinterpretation of Saint-Simon's thought; and also a failure to distinguish carefully enough between his own ideas and those of his disciples, the Saint-Simonians, many of whom were much more authoritarian in outlook than their master.”
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 56-57).
Saint-Simon thought the industrial class should interfere as little as possible and insisted that industrialism would guarantee the highest degree of liberty for all. He predicted that public expenditure would actually be cut and taxation thereby reduced as a consequence of efficient administration. The Anglo-French free trade treaty of 1869 can also be described as a Saint-Simonian achievements, since its chief architect on the French side was Michel Chevalier.
Amand Bazard and Barthélemy-Prosper Enfantin developed Simonian ideas toward a more collectivist critique of private property.
“On different occasions the Saint-Simonians chose to depict future society as a church, a family, or even - particularly in the writings of Isaac Pereire, [who began identifying Simonianism with the label socialism], - as an army. In each case the dominant characteristic was that of discipline, a discipline, however, which was always seen to be based on voluntary consent from below rather than physical coercion from above.“
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 158).
Here, Saint-Simon and the Simonians can be Interpreted as precursors to 20th century command economies. They derided the inheritance of property and envisioned control of economic planning to a supreme state bank which would delegate certain planning functions to a secondary group of banks, each one concerned with a particular geographical area or a specific branch of production.
“These industrial development banks, then, would be public rather than private institutions, and they would be under the direct control of the governmental hierarchy. They would determine the distribution of the means of production, and would be the sole source of financial credit in society. […] the long-term aim was to abolish interest payments altogether. […] with the replacement of economic competition by central organisation and planning, interest rates would become redundant.
[…] In the future industrial society envisaged by the Saint- Simonians the economy would be subject to such comprehensive planning that money would gradually become redundant as a medium of exchange. The long-term aim was to do away with buying or selling in the orthodox sense. The means of production, in any case, would be distributed directly by the state, and the state would also provide essential goods and services, and would allocate a range of rewards for work done by different groups in society.
Eventually payment of all wages or salaries would be made in the form of ration coupons, entitling the holders to specific quantities of goods to be provided by local merchants. In this way a perfect balance between production and consumption would always be maintained.”
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 152-156).
Unlike other socialists condemned as utopians, the Saint-Simonians were never interested in establishing small associations or isolated experimental communities. They mocked the Owenites and Fourierists who sought to establish a new way of life for a few hundred people in an unknown valley or riverbank. Aided by a deterministic view of history, the Simonians predicted that the whole world would soon adopt the ideas of their master.
Charles Fourier
The Messiah of Reason
If anyone can be described as a source of both grand inspiration and endless humiliation — it is Charles Fourier. The son of a small businessmen, Fourier would develop a distaste for commerce that would last throughout his life. Reflecting on his youth, Fourier wrote:
“I was taught the catechism and at school that one must never lie; then I was taken to the store to be trained from an early age in the noble occupation of lying, that is, in the art of selling. […] And in fact I conceived a secret aversion for commerce, and at the age of seven I swore the oath which Hannibal had sworn at nine against Rome: I swore an eternal hatred for commerce.”
(The Teachings of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 3)
Despite his oath, Fourier labored as a minor employee in the commercial world until his mothers death. After her passing, he received an annual stipend that would grant him the time and resources to focus on what he truly cared about: Saving humanity.
Death to Civilization; Long Live Harmony
Fourier thought himself a child of the enlightenment; denoting Issac Newton his sole inspiration. While he welcomed the progress brought by scientific advancement, he lambasted civilization for continuing to suppress mankind’s passions. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky comments how:
“One of Fourier’s recurrent images was that of our sick and demented planet, whirling alone in space, quarantined, as a leper would be, by all other celestial bodies.”
(The Teachings of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 16)
Fourier argued that history evolved through various stages, with the death of our planet following the 32nd. The 19th century took place in the 5th stage of history, which Fourier called “civilization”. While this period was to usher in economic advancement, he described this period in the bleakest of terms.
Civilization was based on coercive institutions such as the family. According to Fourier, fathers were not leaders, but tyrants, picking and choosing amongst their children whom to spoil or whom to neglect. The fatal flaw in familial arrangements is that Individuals are not free to pick and choose their families the way they choose friends or lovers. More so, the family as an institution brought about the subjugation of women by designating them the sole mistress of the household — beholden to the father. A radical for his time, Fourier went so far as to argue for absolute equality between the sexes, not only before the law, but before morality. In 1808, he wrote:
“there is no cause which produces social progress or decline as rapidly as a change in the condition of women.”
Fourier is even credited by historians for coining the term “feminism”. Likewise, Fourier mocked white nations for their claims of racial superiority, and argued that the problem of race would disappear if his system was adopted. (However, Fourier did believe most people would slowly acquire a white skin, with the sun bleaching it rather than tanning it. This view certainly complicates Fourier’s thoughts in regard to race).
Fourier’s mission was to help humanity skip into the 8th stage of history, which he dubbed “Harmony” — this stage would usher in a period of scientific, economic, as well as spiritual progress.
“A Northern Crown would encircle the Pole, shedding a gentle dew, the sea would become lemonade; six new moons would replace the old solitary satellite; and new species would emerge, better suited to Harmony: an anti-lion, a docile and most serviceable beast; an anti-whale, which could be harnessed to ships; an anti-bear; anti-bugs; and anti-rats. We could live to be one hundred and forty-four years old, of which one hundred and twenty years would be spent in the unrestricted pursuit of sexual love. All this plus a firsthand description of the inhabitants of other plantets.”
(The Worldly Philosophers. Heilbroner. 122-123)
Unlike others who criticized modern society, Fourier emphasized how he had developed a plan to usher in immediate and radical change.
The Phalanx
Fourier was obsessed with categorizations and sub-categorizations — Going so far as to write a pamphlet on the eighty different types of cuckoldry! Most notably, he distinguished between 12 common passions which resulted in 810 types of character; Thus, the ideal community would consist of about 1,620 people (about 2 people for every character). According to Fourier, salvation depended upon implementing these communities/phalanxes which could achieve the correct combination of man’s passions.
All members of a phalanx were to live in a single, six story building known as a phalanstery. Activities in a phalanx were to be based on the series — meaning, it’s people were never to engage in their work or pastimes alone or as part of a random gathering, but as members of scientifically operating series. Fourier envisioned that individuals (especially women) with similar interests would form into groups and groups with similar occupations would combine into a series. Economic life would consist of a ratio of 3:1 for agriculture over industry, with fewer resources devoted to industry more than compensated for in their high durability.
Children would play an important role as well, with Little Hordes cleaning, repairing roads, guard animals, police wrong-doers, etc. Kids not accustomed to these duties would join Little Bands, who are tasked with gardening, caring for animals and insects, flower arrangement, enforcing correct linguistic usage, and etc. Fourier envisioned a world without soldiers, without policemen, and without crime.
“Whereas the new system would reduce the weight of the state, government, or any other public power upon the Individual to a vanishing point, it would establish an enormous social pressure. Indeed education, work, social classification, advancement of every kind, and life itself in Harmony would consist of little else but coordination and competition with as well as judgment by one’s peers or immediate superiors. […] Far from being crushed or deformed by social pressure—a common enough occurrence in Civilization—a Harmonian would experience this pressure only as helpful and rewarding aid and spur to his natural development.”
(The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 55).
As for commerce, a phalanx would likely depend on trade with the outside world for some needs — though they would tend towards autarky in that its members would produce most of their own food and services. While he supported the abolition of all tariffs, he also supported the nationalization of commerce, with public interest and fair prices replacing avaricious anarchy. Butchers, bakers, and other workers would form cooperatives to cut expenses and reap profits. However, Riasanovsky highlights:
“Fourier’s Anglophobia and anti-semitism must also be considered in connection with his hatred for commerce. […] The English developed the disastrous doctrine of Laissez-faire which meant the subjugation of the entire world to commerce. […] the Jews were, perhaps paradoxically, the people of commerce. […] On the basis of his evaluation of the Jews, Fourier violently objected to their emancipation, advocated by the philosophes and then rapidly gaining ground in western and Central Europe.
Freed from all restrictions, the Jews would simply invade new areas, promoting everywhere noxious commerce and their own parasitic gains. […] He proposed to tie them to the land and make them scrape it, with no more than one Jewish family entitled to enter commerce for every fifth engaged in agriculture.”
(The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 164-167).
While Fourier can be accused of wanting to centrally plan the economy, his critics mostly highlight his desire to centrally plan all of society. Due to his obsession with his formula, Fourier naturally created a schedule for which members of a phalanx were to follow precisely.
“Whereas hostile critics and other outsiders accused Fourier of a minute, petty, and at the same time overwhelming tyranny, of regulating every second of a person’s life and every step he took in any direction, the theoretician of Harmony and his true followers remained convinced that they meant to impose nothing on anyone: their only intention was to provide arrangements which would enable human nature to attain its full expression.
As Abel Transon, a follower who left Saint-Simon and joined Fourier, put it, the system was that of ‘absolute order by means of absolute freedom.’ Everything depended, to be sure, on the efficacy of Fourier’s formula. […] To call this formula fantastic, chimeric, or even mad, is merely to describe Fourier’s system.”
(The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 52, 86).
Utopian Capitalist?
Although Fourier is mostly known as precursor to Marx, it may be surprising to note that he never called himself a socialist. Many scholars have even questioned whether Fourier can be classified as a socialist at all. Riasanovsky writes:
“One major issue has resided in the fact that Fourier, after all, retained in his ideal society a restricted but in its own way highly developed system of private property with the result that his blueprint for the future did not entirely agree with the classic definition of socialism as public ownership of the means of production. Indeed, and much to the chagrin of many of his socialist admirers, Fourier’s writings displayed a veritable passion for private property as well as for inequality.”
(The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 185).
A phalanx would not abolish class distinction; rather, it would contain the rich, the middle class, and the poor. It has been speculated that Fourier was concerned with making his system attractive to all people, especially the rich, who could finance the implementation of his ideas. For example, he insisted that the first phalanxes should only admit the proper and polite poor. More fundamentally, Fourier believed in the beneficial role of differences between people. So, disparities in income would likely correlate with character, ability, desire, and individual preference. Of course, Fourier suggested that the poor in Harmony would have the standards of the middle class in civilization, the middle class would have the standards of the rich, and the rich would have the standards of the ultra rich.
Fourier even claimed that one of his greatest discoveries was the right principle of remuneration: 5/12’s to labor, 4/12’s to capital, and 3/12’s to talent. He favored a system which incentivized productivity by rewarding labor in direct proportion to its unpleasantness and social significance. The high standard of life and easy savings would enable workers to purchase shares and join the capitalists — and all people would enjoy the full freedom of inheritance.
Proto-Socialist
If Fourier’s idea do not fit under the common definition of socialism, then why is he interpreted as both a utopian socialist and a precursor to Marx? Riasanovsky stresses two primary contributions Fourier made to socialist thought: the primacy of the social group over the isolated individual, and the construction of future societies.
“The integral beaver, bee, or man required a sufficient number of the species, properly organized, and provided with the setting necessary for their activities. Numbers alone, while requisite, did not suffice. Thus there could be no beehive without flowers.
Human beings too required, in addition to numbers, both the necessary material means and the proper organization. A million Civilized people, with all their activities and groupings, came nowhere near forming the integral man. In fact, while Savagery provided freedom without industrial organization, and Barbarism and Civilization industrial organization without freedom, none of these conditions enabled humans to fulfill their destiny which was the free and full exercise of all material and passional faculties.
One had to look to the phalanx to discover the integral man. […] The tragedy of humidity was, of course, that the human beehive, the phalanx, had as yet never been formed.”
(The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 187, 189)
Fourier is important to the socialist canon not only because he was an early participant in a major intellectual trend, but because he was its most daring architect of what a future devoid of exploitation would look like — not just between economic classes, but in the family, between genders, and even races. At times, he went so far as to define civilization as a system in which 1/8 of its members were satisfied at the expense of the remaining 7/8. In Harmony, everyone would achieve their true self.
Finally, the economic historian Charles Gide classifies Fourier as an early inspiration of the cooperative movement, which sought to replace private ownership of the means of production with collective-ownership. While previous cooperatives were centered around production, Fourier helped to introduce the importance of consumer cooperatives. The phalanx itself would have essentially been a cooperative association of production and consumption. Gide also notes that Fourier produced blueprints for various cooperative institutions to serve as rural banks, savings banks, stores providing loans for security, employment offices, insurance companies, and associations which would guarantee the interests of sellers on the market and expand into production.
Fourierism after Fourier
While he promised the world everything, Fourier received nothing; Without any family or significant following, he died alone. This sad fact never dissuaded Fourier that he was the messiah of reason.
In fact, Fourier’s relative obscurity seemed only to further convince him “that he had the secret of universal salvation and he was obsessed by the fear of its being stolen, by the fear of plagiarism. From the indication of Leipzig, rather than Lyons, as the place of publication of his first major work and to the time of his death, Fourier made use of little tricks to mislead his imaginary pursuers, and he also turned against them repeatedly in sacred rage in his writings.(20-21)
[…] He was especially incensed at the men of letters and journalists who could so easily destroy reputations and against whom an author without an established position and wealth had no resort. Behind their disregard and disdain the theoretician of the phalanx saw a plot to keep his discovery and system away from the public, whether by a conspiracy of silence or by ridicule.
In fact, they would do anything, from slandering him personally and classifying his teaching with the social panaceas of various charlatans to drawing attention to the alleged wisdom of India, and thus away from Fourier. At the same time they remained ready to pounce on and snatch anything Fourier did not properly secure in order to plagiarize it.”
(The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 111)
Reflecting on his life, Fourier came again and again to a well-known biblical verse: “Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19 lll). However, it would be a massive omission to claim Fourier had no influence; After all, the French theorist had a role in shaping the cooperative movement and was assigned major importance by Marx and Engels.
Before he passed, Fourier even acquired a small group of disciples. The economist Geoffrey Hodgson notes that one disciple, Jean-Baptiste Godin, founded a successful Fourierist experimental cooperative in Guise, Northern France, in 1859, which survived until 1968. Many of these followers were accused of heresy for abandoning his most eccentric positions relating to cosmology, analogy, sexology, and most importantly, his emphasis on radical change. This last view is perhaps his most important contribution to socialist thought.
In a critique of Saint-Simon, Fourier accused “the Count of many faults and inequities including a desire to have humanity retrogress to a particularly oppressive form of the theocratic state. […] Nevertheless, [he suggested] that Saint-Simon’s doctrines pointed to the best stage of the evolution of society, the stage of economic bigness, quasi-monopoly, organization, and hierarchy. If Civilization represented the fifth period in human history, Saint-Simon was moving into the sixth; Fourier, to be sure, wanted to fly into the eighth.”
(The Teaching of Charles Fourier. Riasanovsky. 202).
Robert Owen
The First Socialist
Robert Owen was born in North Wales, 1771. As a young schoolboy, he quickly developed a strong passion for reading, but at the age of nine, he left school and started working as a shop assistant. A year later, he joined his brother for an apprenticeship and soon became a successful businessman and entrepreneur.
Eventually, he was introduced to Anne Caroline Dale, the daughter of David Dale, who eagerly invited Owen to inspect her father's mills at New Lanark. Owen was especially impressed by the New Lanark village, where most of the workers lived.
“‘Of all places I have yet seen', he told a colleague, 'I should prefer this in which to try an experiment I have long contemplated and have wished to have an opportunity to put into practice.’"
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 71).
Owen’s most important belief was that man’s character is shaped by the environment in which he lives. Thus, to improve man’s character, one must improve his environment. When Owen heard that Dale wished to retire and sell New Lanark Mills, Owen jumped at the opportunity to institute his dream experiment. First, he phased out the employment of pauper apprentices; Then, he improved existing houses and streets; Next, he commissioned the building of new homes and infrastructure; Later on, he introduced modern machinery into factories; improved sanitation was required; and lastly, new stores and shops were opened to supply the workers with all the goods they needed at cost price.
“At first the workers resisted all these innovations, but they soon realized that they were bound to benefit from them. Any remaining doubts about Owen's sincerity were removed in 1806 ,when for four months he continued to pay his workers full wages even though production had to cease owing to a steep rise in the price of cotton (the consequence of an American embargo on exports to Britain).
Confidence in Owen had now reached such heights that he was able, without any opposition, to introduce direct checks on the conduct of individual workers, most notably a system of 'silent monitors' - wooden indicators displaying four colours to denote four grades of character, from bad to excellent, which were suspended in prominent positions near to each employee to show his conduct at work during the previous day. Apparently the effects and progress of this simple plan of preventing bad and inferior conduct were far beyond all previous expectations.”
(The Political Ideas of the Utopian Socialists. Taylor. 72).
Owen’s reforms were so popular that an Owenite movement began to spread across Europe in the 1820s, though Owen himself had little to do with it. His disinterest with European cooperative movements can be shown with the fact that when the opportunity arose for Owen to purchase some land in the United States, he did not hesitate to pursue his experiments elsewhere.
New Harmony
Robert Owen did not build New Harmony; rather, He bought the 30,000 acres from a previous religious Community with communist sympathies. Because of the popularity of his reforms in New Lanark, news spread far and wide that Robert Owen was conducting a new experiment. In his public lectures, Owen invited the industrious and well disposed of all nations to emigrate to New Harmony — though the first constitution of New Harmony specifically excluded “persons of color”. In only a few short weeks, about 900 people volunteered to join Owen’s community.
New Harmony was Owen’s opportunity to demonstrate that a person’s character is entirely determined by their surrounding environment — especially by the structure and distribution of property. According to Owen:
“The institutions of private property meant forming society into a machine too complex to be understood by almost any mind, in consequence of the innumerable laws, customs, and regulations. […] “Virtue and happiness could never be attained in any system in which private property was admitted. […] Evil lay in competition and the pursuit of profit, which encouraged people to place their own greed above the social good.
People should be educated and united in associations of combined interests, which would provide sufficient incentives for productive work and good behavior. In these communities, the natural wants of human nature may be abundantly supplied; and the principle of selfishness … will cease to exist.”
(Wrong Turnings. Hodgson. 68-71).
These ideas came to be known as the central tenants of “socialism”, a term first coined in 1827 in the Co-operative Magazine, by the London followers of Robert Owen. At the same time, Owen understood that it would be unreasonable to presume the people of New Harmony could fundamentally transform themselves without proper preparation:
So, “he tendered them a Constitution, of which we find no definite account, except that it was not fully Communistic, and was to hold the people in probationary training three years, under the title of the Preliminary Society of New Harmony. After these proceedings Mr. Owen left New Harmony for Europe, and the Society was managed by the Preliminary Committee.”
(History of American Socialisms. Noyes. 36).
Despite having some 900 persons, New Harmony experienced a shortage of labor which was greatly felt across various industries in the village as output plummeted. The historian Arthur Bestor traces this collapse to a lack of skilled laborers and supervisors, who would have been compensated much less in New Harmony compared to the surrounding economy. One member, William Pelham, blamed their conditions on the previous owners of the land for leaving the gardens unprotected from hogs and cows. Thomas Pears remarked:
“Instead of striving who should do most, the most industry was manifested in accusing others of doing little”
(Heaven on Earth. Muravchik. 40).
In January 1826, Owen finally returned to New Harmony. Despite the worries of its residents, he declared that he was pleased with their progress and announced that he would dissolve the Preliminary Society and draft a constitution of community. However, some members did not agree with the new constitution and formed a second community, two miles from the town.
The new government was to be led by an executive council, made up of six men appointed by the community; but after two short weeks, the governing committee unanimously voted to given Owen dictatorial powers for one year. One month later, more members of the community broke off, forming a third covenant known as Feiba Peveli. Joshua Muravchik notes:
“The new constitution contained a provision reminiscent of Owen’s “silent monitors” at New Lanark. A record was to be kept of “the Intendants opinion of the daily character of each person attached to their Occupation." Then, at public meetings each Sunday, Owen would read aloud the character ratings and the amount of work performed by each member of the society. […] He banned liquor, but never succeeded in making the ban stick. […] Some of the parents were unhappy with the forced separation from their children, and undoubtedly many of the children shared this feeling.”
(Heaven on Earth. Muravchik. 43-44).
Realizing that his community required a lifting of the spirits, Owen delivered a speech on July 4th, known as the Declaration of Mental Independence. In this speech he attacked the three systems plaguing the world: Private property, irrational systems of religion, and marriage founded on some combination of the previous two systems. In its place, Owen advocated for collective property to enrich the masses; a rational religion to unite man’s passions; and marriage, based upon affection and community — not individualism and superstition.
In May 1827, Owen left for England once more. Before leaving, he triumphantly congratulated his community for firmly establishing the social system. Ten months later, Owen returned to New Harmony and found that most of the residents had either left or returned to a system of individualism.
After New Harmony
Each resident of New Harmony has their own explanation for its failure. Donald Macdonald blamed its collapse on Owen’s absence during its first year, which could have prevented the fermenting of conflict between community members.
Another resident, William Thompson, faulted Owen’s authoritarian and undemocratic tendencies, believing that the workers in any co-operative community should have ownership of both the community's land and capital.
Josiah Warren became convinced that Owen was simply wrong to attack private property. Reflecting on his time in New Harmony, he admits:
“We could not get things into working order. The people, having no land of their own, could not set themselves to work, but must wait for orders from superintendent; and superintendents must be appointed by the committee, and the committee were not sufficiently familiar with the business to be done nor with the qualifications of persons for superintendents, and besides they were busy with other matters, equally embarrassing.
[…] That phrase, "the general good," is a harmless and useful one, providing there is no necessity of agreeing as to its meaning. Why was it necessary to agree as to its signification? The necessity evidently arose out of our connected interests. If each one interpreted the word only for himself, the great diversity of views would not only have been harmless but might have been profitable; but in communism, some one view must prevail over all Communism, then, was the root of the trouble here.
[…] My thoughts went back to many more instances similar to these, and in every case could come to no other conclusion than that Communism was the matter, and that it was false and wrong in principle.”
In response to the cries of his community, Owen pointed his finger both at the school teacher Maclure for failing to educate the people and the people themselves for failing to learn. Still under the belief that man is entirely a product of his environment, Owen proclaimed:
"This proves that families trained in the individual system have not acquired those moral characteristics of forbearance and charity necessary for confidence and harmony."
(Heaven on Earth. Muravchik. 47).
His faith in socialism never wained, though his policy slightly changed. Now, Owen was less interested in local experiments and more interested in transforming nations. Only months after leaving New Harmony, he tried to persuade the Mexican government to grant him the state of Texas as a location to begin his experiment anew — and on a much larger scale. His request was denied, though he was given an offer to purchase some land.
In the mid-1830s, Owen and his followers adopted more spiritual inclinations. They founded the Association of All Classes of All Nations, later renamed the Rational Society, and gave Owen the title of Preliminary Father; They even erected church like structures which they dubbed, halls of science — and appointed six paid missionaries known as the “socialist bishops”. These services included readings of Owen’s work, sermons, and the singing of hymns.
In the last few years of Owens life, he embraced spiritualism, meaning the practice of communicating with the dead through the assistance of mediums. While he was aware that many doubted the possibility, he insisted that he had tested it and communicated with spirits such as Jefferson, Franklin, Shakespeare, Shelley, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, the prophet Daniel, and the Duke of Kent.
The significance of Owen’s ideas depend on who is asked. At the age of twenty-two, Friedrich Engels was first introduced to the ideas of Robert Owen at the Hall of Science in Manchester. Though he later criticized much of Owen’s work, he readily acknowledged:
“Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen”
(Heaven on Earth. Muravchik. 28).
Fifteen years after Owen abandoned New Harmony for good, his old disciple, Donald Macdonald, returned. He was cautioned not to speak of Socialism and explained:
“The advice was good; Socialism was unpopular, and with good reason. The people had been wearied and disappointed by it; had been filled full with theories, until they were nauseated, and had made such miserable attempts at practice, that they seemed ashamed of what they had been doing. An enthusiastic socialist would soon be cooled down at New Harmony.”
(History of American Socialisms. Noyes. 42).
More to come on the American Individualist Anarchists and the democratic socialism of Eduard Bernstein.