A History of Economic Doctrines / from the time of the physiocrats to the present day

by Charles Gide; Charles Rist

CHAPTER III: THE ASSOCIATIVE SOCIALISTS

The name “Associative Socialists” is given to all those writers who believe that voluntary association on the basis of some preconceived plan is sufficient for the solution of all social questions. Unfortunately the plans vary very considerably, according to the particular system chosen.

They differ from the Saint-Simonians, who sought the solution in socialisation rather than in association,[506] and thus became the founders of collectivism, which is quite another thing. The advocates of socialisation always thought of “Society” with a capital S, and of all the members of the nation as included in one collective organisation. The term “nationalisation” much better describes what they sought. Associationism, on the other hand, more individualistic in character and fearing lest the individual should be merged in the mass, would have him safeguarded by means of small autonomous groups, where federation would be entirely voluntary, and any unity that might exist would be prompted from within rather than imposed from without.

On the other hand, the Associationists must be carefully distinguished from the economists of the Liberal school. Fortunately this is not very difficult, for by means of these very associations they claim to be able to create a new social milieu. They are as anxious as the Liberals for the free exercise of individual initiative, but they believe that under existing conditions, except in the case of a few privileged individuals, this very initiative is being smothered. They believe that liberty and individuality never can expand unless transplanted into a new environment. But this new environment will not come of itself. It must be created, just as the gardener must build a conservatory if he is to secure a requisite environment. Each one has his own particular recipe for this, and none of them is above thinking that his own is the best.[507] It is this conception of an artificial society set up in the midst of present social conditions, bound by strict limitations which to some extent isolate it from its surroundings, that has won for the system its name of Utopian Socialism.

Had the Associationists only declared that the social environment can and ought to be modified, despite the so-called permanent and immutable laws, just as man himself is capable of modification, they would have enunciated an important truth and would have forestalled all those who are to-day seeking a solution of the social question in syndicalism, in co-operation, and in the garden-city ideal.

On the other hand, had they succeeded in carrying out their plans on an extensive scale, if we may judge by the desire to evade them on the part of those experimented on, it seems probable that the new kind of liberty would have proved less welcome than the liberty which is enjoyed under the present constitution of society.

They would have been very indignant, however, if anyone had charged them with desiring to create an artificial society. On the contrary, their claim was that the present social environment is artificial, and that their business was not to create but merely to discover that other environment which is already so wonderfully adapted to the true needs of mankind in virtue of its providential, natural harmony. At bottom it is the same idea as the “natural order” of the Physiocrats, much as their conception differs from that of the Physiocrats—an incidental proof that the order is anything but “natural,” seeing that it varies with those who define it. Some of their sayings, however, might very well have been borrowed directly from Quesnay or Mercier de la Rivière—for example, that of Owen’s in which he speaks of the commune as God’s special agent for bringing society into harmony with nature. It is just the “good despot” of the Physiocrats over again. Or take Fourier’s comparison in which he ranks himself with Newton as the discoverer of the law of “attraction of passion,” and believes that his “stroke of genius,” as Zola calls it, lies in knowing how to utilise the passions which God has given us to the best advantage.

What is still more interesting is that this newer socialism marks a veritable reaction against the principles of 1789.[508] The Revolutionists hated every form of association, and suspected it of being a mere survival of the old régime, a chain to bind the individual. Not only was it omitted from the Declaration of the Rights of Man,[509] but it was formally prohibited in every province—prohibitions which have been withdrawn only quite recently. It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast to the spirit of the Revolution than the beliefs which inspired Owen, Fourier, and Cabet, the founders of the new order.

But the men of 1789 were not so far wrong, nor were they deceived by their recollections of corporations and guilds, when they expressed the belief that any form of association was really a menace to liberty. There is an old Italian proverb which states that every man who has an associate has also a master. The Liberal school has to a certain extent always shared these apprehensions, and ample justification might be found for them in the many despotic acts of associates, whether capitalists or workmen.

But the “associative” socialists of the early part of the last century were impressed, even more than Sismondi and Saint-Simon were, by the new phenomenon of competition. The mortal struggle for profit among producers and the keen competition for wages among working men which immediately ensued upon the disappearance of the old framework of society seemed to them to wear all the hideousness of an apocalyptic beast. With wonderful perspicacity they predicted that such breakneck competition must inevitably result in combination and monopoly.[510] Voluntary association of a co-operative character (they paid hardly any attention to the possibilities of corporative association) appeared to supply the only means of suppressing this competition without either endangering liberty or thwarting the legitimate ambitions of producers. And it is not very clear as yet that they were altogether mistaken in their point of view.

The two best known representatives of this school are Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. Although they were contemporaries—the one was born in 1771, the other in 1772[511]—it does not appear that they ever became known to one another. Owen never seems to have paid any attention to Fourier’s system, and Fourier never refers to “Owen’s communistic scheme” without showing some trace of bitterness. Indeed, it is doubtful whether he knew anything at all about it except from hearsay.[512]

Such reciprocal ignorance does little credit to their powers of observation. Still it is easily explained. Despite a certain similarity in their plans for social regeneration—for example, they both proceed to create small autonomous associations, the microcosms which were to serve as models for the society of the future, or the yeast which was to leaven the lump—and notwithstanding that after their deaths they were both hailed as the parents of one common offspring, co-operation, they spent their whole lives in two very different worlds. Without any rhetorical exaggeration and without making any invidious distinctions we may truthfully say that Owen was a rich, successful manufacturer and one of the greatest and most influential men of his day and country, while Fourier was a mere employee in the realm of industry, or a “shop-sergeant,” as he liked to call himself. Later on Fourier became the recipient of a small annuity; but his reputation only spread slowly and with much difficulty among a small circle of friends. Contrary to what might have been expected, the millionaire manufacturer was the more ardent socialist of the two. A militant communist and an anti-cleric, he loved polemics, and advanced his views both in the Press and on the platform. His humble rival was just a grown-up boy with the habits of an old woman. He scarcely ever left his house except to listen to a military band; he wrote sedulously, attempting to turn out the same number of pages each day, and spent most of his life on the look-out for a sleeping partner, who, unfortunately, never turned up.

Other writers of whom we shall have something to say in connection with this school are Louis Blanc, Leroux, and Cabet.

I: ROBERT OWEN

Robert Owen of all socialists has the most strikingly original, not to say unique, personality. One of the greatest captains of industry of his time, where else have we such a commanding figure? Nor is his socialism simply the philanthropy of the kind-hearted employer. It is true that it is not revolutionary, and that he could not bring himself to support the Chartist movement, which seems harmless enough now.[513] He never suggested expropriation as an ideal for working men, but he exhorted them to create new capital, and it is just here that the co-operative programme differs from the collectivist even to this day. But for all practical purposes Owen was a socialist, even a communist. Indeed, he was probably the first to inscribe the word “socialism” on his banner.[514]

His passion for Utopias did not prevent him initiating a number of reforms and establishing several institutions of a thoroughly practical character. Special mention ought to be made of his interest in the welfare of his workers, an inspiration that has been caught by several manufacturers since.

Nor must we imagine, simply because we have placed him along with the Associative socialists, that association was the only solution that met with his approval. As a matter of fact there is scarcely a solution of any description which was not to some extent tried by him.

Beginning with the establishment of model workshops in his factory at New Lanark, there is hardly a suggestion incorporated in his exposition of socialism which was not attempted and even successfully applied in the course of his experiments there. Among them are included such important developments as workmen’s dwellings, refectories, the appointment of officials to look after the social and moral welfare of the workers, etc.

These experiments had the further distinction of serving as a model for the factory legislation of the next fifty years. We have only to glance at the following programme of reforms effected by him to realise this:

1. He reduced the hours of labour from seventeen to ten per diem.

2. No children under ten years of age were employed, but free education was supplied them in schools built for the purpose.

3. All fines—then a common feature of all workshops—were abolished.[515]

Seeing that neither his experiments nor his prestige as an employer was sufficient to influence his fellow employers, he now tried to gain the sympathetic attention of the legislature. He turned first of all to the British Government, and then to that of other countries, looking to legislation to provide what he believed should have been supplied by the goodwill of the ruling classes themselves.

Even before the days of Lord Shaftesbury he had inaugurated a campaign in favour of limiting the hours of children working in factories. In 1819 the first Factory Act was passed, fixing the minimum age at which children might be employed at nine years, although Owen himself would have put it at ten.

Discouraged by the little support which he obtained for his projects, and having satisfied himself as to the impotence both of patronage and legislation as forces of social progress, he turned his attention to a third possibility, namely, association. Association, he imagined, would create that new environment without which no solution of the social question was ever possible.

1. The Creation of the Milieu

The creation of a social milieu was the one impelling force that inspired all Owen’s various experiments. This was his one desire, whether he asked it of the masters, the State, or of the workers themselves.

He has thus some claim to be regarded as the father of etiology—etiology being the title given by sociologists to that part of their subject which treats of the subordination and adaptation of man to his environment. His theory concerning the possibility of transforming the organism by influencing its surroundings occupies the same position in economics as Lamarck’s theory does in biology. By nature man is neither good nor bad. He is just what his environment has made him, and if at the present moment he is on the whole rather bad, it is simply because his environment is so detestable. Scarcely any stress is laid upon the natural environment which seemed of such supreme importance to writers like Le Play. Owen’s interest was in the social environment, the product of education and legislation or of deliberate individual action.[516] Change the environment and the individual would be changed. He failed to see that this meant begging the whole question. If man is simply the product of his environment, how can he possibly change that environment? It is like asking a man to raise himself by the hair of his head. But the futility of such criticism will be readily appreciated if we remind ourselves that it is to such insignificant beginnings as these that we owe the conception of the garden city. It was Owen’s concern for the worker and his great desire to provide him with a home where some degree of comfort and some measure of beauty might be obtainable that gave the earliest impetus to that movement.

From a moral point of view this deterministic conception resulted in the absolute denial of all individual responsibility.[517] Every noble or ignoble deed, every act, whether deserving of praise or blame, of reward or punishment, reflects neither credit nor discredit upon its author, for the individual can never be other than he actually is.

There was all the more reason, then, why all religious influences, especially that of Christianity, should be excluded. This contempt for religion explains why Owen found so little support in English society, which revolted against what appeared like cynical atheism, although Owen himself was really a deist.[518]

Economically, the doctrine of payment according to work rather than capacity was to result in absolute equality. For why should higher intelligence, greater vigour or capacity for taking pains entitle a man to a greater reward if it is all a question of environment? Hence Owen’s associations were to be communal.

We need not here detail the history of his experiments in colonisation. It is the usual story of failure and disappointed hopes. At last Owen himself was driven to the conclusion that his attempt to mould the environment which was to recreate society had proved unsuccessful. He renounced all his ambitions for building up a new social order, and contented himself with an attempt to rid society as at present constituted of some of the more potent evils that were sapping its strength. And this brings us to his second essential idea, the abolition of profit.

2. The Abolition of Profit

The first necessity, if the environment was ever to be changed, was to get rid of profit. There was the essential evil, the original sin. Profit was the forbidden fruit which had compassed the downfall of man and caused his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Its very definition conveyed an implication of injustice, for it was always defined as whatever was over and above cost of production. Products ought to be sold for what they cost; the net price is the only just price. But profit is not merely an injustice, it is a perpetual menace. Economic crises resulting from over-production, or rather from under-consumption,[519] may always be traced back to an unhealthy desire for profit. The existence of profit makes it impossible for the worker to repurchase the product of his toil, and consequently to consume the equivalent of what he produced. Immediately it is completed the product is snatched up by a superior body which makes it inaccessible either to the maker or to the men who could furnish an equivalent amount of labour or who could offer as the price of acquiring it a value equal to that labour.

The problem is to abolish this parasitism, and the first question that suggests itself is whether the ordinary operation of competition, assuming it were altogether free and perfect, would be sufficient to get rid of it. The economists declare that it would, and the Hedonistic school makes bold to affirm that under a régime of perfect competition the rate of profit would fall to zero. But Owen believed nothing of the kind.[520] He regarded competition and profit as inseparable, and if one was war the other was simply the spoils of conflict.

Accordingly some form of combination must be devised which will suppress profit, together with “all that gives rise to that inordinate desire for buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest.” But the instrument of profit is gold or money. Profits are always realised in the form of money.[521] Gold is an intermediary in every act of exchange, and its intervention goes a long way towards explaining the anomaly of selling a commodity for more than cost price. The objective, then, must be money, and it must be replaced by labour notes, which will supply us with a measure of value altogether superior to money. Seeing that labour is the cause and substance of value, it is only natural that it should afford us the best means of measuring value. It is quite obvious that ample homage is paid to the Ricardian theory of value, but conclusions both novel and unproved are drawn from it.

The producer who wishes to dispose of his produce will be given labour notes in proportion to the number of hours which he has worked. In the same way the consumer who wishes to buy that product will be called upon to pay an equivalent number of labour notes, and so profit will be eliminated.

The condemnation of money was not new, but what was original was the discovery that labour notes could supply the place of money, a discovery which Owen considered “more valuable than all the mines of Mexico and Peru.” It has truly been a wonderful mine, and has been freely exploited by almost every socialist. But it hardly squares with Owen’s communistic ideal, which aimed at giving to each according to his needs. The labour notes evidently imply payment according to the capacity of each. Besides, what is the use of any system of exchange that is not to be employed for purposes of distribution?[522]

It remained to be seen whether this elimination of money could actually be realised in practice. An experiment to that effect was tried in London with the establishment of the National Equitable Labour Exchange. This was the most interesting experiment in the whole movement, although Owen himself was not very proud of his connection with it. It took the form of a co-operative society with a central depot where each member of the society could deposit the product of his labour and draw the price of it in labour notes, the price depending upon the number of hours of work the product had cost, which the member himself was allowed to state. These products, or goods as they were now called, marked with a figure which indicated the number of hours they had taken to produce, were at the disposal of any member of the Exchange who wished to buy them. All that a member had to do was to pay the ticketed price in labour notes. And so every worker who had taken, say, ten hours to make a pair of stockings was certain of being able to buy any other article which had also cost ten hours’ labour. In this fashion everyone got whatever his product had cost him, and every trace of profit automatically disappeared. The profit-maker, whether industrial or commercial or merely an intermediary, was effectively removed, because producers and consumers were brought into direct contact with one another, and so the problem was apparently solved.[523]

The experiment, which had about the same measure of success as the attempts to establish a communal colony in America, did not last very long. The slightest acquaintance with the laws of value would have convinced the reformer of the futility of his attempt. But it marks an important departure in the history of economic doctrines as being the first of a long line of experiments designed to solve the same problem, but with very different methods. It is the same idea that inspires Proudhon’s Bank and Solvay’s Comptabilisme social.

The particular mechanism wherewith the elimination of profit was essayed is really of quite secondary importance. But the essential idea which lay behind the whole attempt—namely, the abolition of profit—is at least partly realised in that solid and useful institution which is now found all over the world, and which was bequeathed to us by this experiment of Owen’s—the co-operative stores. Their first appearance dates from 1832, the year of the Bank of Exchange experiment, but it was not until ten years later that they assumed their present form as the outcome of the efforts of the Rochdale Pioneers.

The co-operative retail societies have as their rule either to make no profits or to restore any profit that may accrue to their members in proportion to the amount of their purchases at the stores. In reality there is no profit, but simply a cancelling of insurance against risks which has been shared in by all the members. The process of elimination is strictly in accordance with Owen’s method of putting producer and consumer in direct contact with one another with a view to getting rid of the middleman. But the elimination of profit is accomplished without eliminating money.[524] That close relation which Owen and a number of other socialists believed to exist between money and profit is purely imaginary. We know as a matter of fact that the highest profits are to be got under the truck system, in the African equatorial trade, for example, where guns are exchanged at five times their value for caoutchouc reckoned at a third of its value, representing a profit of 1500 per cent. The employment of money has brought such definiteness into the method of valuation that the rate of profit per unit on a yard of cloth, say, has become almost infinitesimal. Such exactness of calculation would have been impossible under either the truck or the labour note system.

The co-operative association, with its system of no profits, will for ever remain as Owen’s most remarkable work, and his fame will for ever be linked with the growth of that movement. But he was hardly conscious of the important part which he was playing in the inauguration of the new movement. It is seldom that we meet with the word “co-operation” in his writings, although that is not a matter of any great consequence, because the term at that time had not the significance which it has to-day, being then simply synonymous with communism. Not only was Owen unwilling to assume any parental responsibility for the co-operative society, his latest offspring, but he expressly refused to consider it as at all representative of his system. Shops of that description seemed to him little better than philanthropic institutions, quite unworthy of his great ideal.[525] Before passing judgment upon him it is only fair to remember that since those early days the character of the co-operative stores has been completely changed. He lived to see the establishment of the Rochdale society, with its twenty-eight pioneers, six of whom were ardent disciples of Owen himself, and two of these, Charles Howarth and William Cooper, were the very soul of that immortal association. But Owen was by this time seventy-three years of age, and he scarcely realised that a child had been born to him. This somewhat late arrival was to perpetuate his name, and more than any of his other schemes was to save it from oblivion.

Owen had founded no school, unless of course we consider that the co-operators are deserving of the title. There were, however, a few disciples who attempted to apply his theories. One of these was William Thompson, whose writings, forgotten for many years, have recently come in for a good deal of extravagant praise. His principal work, An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth, was published in 1824. As compared with Owen he reveals a greater depth of thought and shows a more thorough acquaintance with economic science, and he ought perhaps to be given premier place as the founder of socialism. But, as we have pointed out in the Preface, we cannot readjust the judgment of history, and we are bound to accept the names which tradition has made sacred. And if a person’s rank in history is to be measured by his influence rather than his talent, then Thompson’s influence was nil, for at the time his work seems to have passed almost unnoticed.

We will only remark that Thompson’s grasp of the idea that labour does not enjoy all it produces is much firmer than Owen’s. This meant opening the way for a discussion of surplus value and unproductive labour, of which more anon. He agrees with Owen in thinking that expropriation would not remedy the evil, and he also would rather build up a new form of enterprise in which the worker would be able to retain for himself all the produce of his labour. This was precisely the co-operative ideal.[526]

II: CHARLES FOURIER

Owen’s practical influence has been much greater than Fourier’s, for most of the important socialistic movements of the last century can easily be traced back to Owen. But Fourier’s intellectual work, when taken as a whole, though more Utopian and less restrained in character than Owen’s, has a considerably wider outlook, and combines the keenest appreciation of the evils of civilisation with an almost uncanny power of divining the future.[527]

To some writers Fourier is simply a madman, and it is difficult not to acquiesce in the description when we recall the many extravagances that disfigure his work, which even his most faithful disciples can only explain by giving them some symbolic meaning of which we may be certain Fourier would never have thought.[528] The term “bourgeois socialist” seems to us to describe him fairly accurately, but its employment lays us open to the charge of using a term that he himself would never have recognised. But what are we to make of one who speaks of Owen’s communistic scheme as being so pitiable as to be hardly worth refuting; who “shudders to think of the Saint-Simonians and of all their monstrosities, especially their declamations against property and hereditary rights[529]—and all this in the nineteenth century”; who in his scheme of distribution scarcely drew any distinction between labour, capital, and business ability, five-twelfths of the product being given to labour, four-twelfths to capital (which is probably more than it gets to-day), and three-twelfths to management; who outbid the most brazen-faced company promoter by offering a dividend of 30 to 36 per cent., or for those who preferred it a fixed interest of 8 per cent.;[530] who held up the right of inheritance as one of the chief attractions that would be secured by the Phalanstère; and who finally declared that inequality of wealth and “even poverty are of divine ordination, and consequently must for ever remain, since everything that God has ordained is just as it ought to be”?[531]

To the men of his time, and to every one who has not read him, which means practically everybody, Fourier appears as an ultra-socialist or communist. That opinion is founded not so much upon the extravagance of his view or the hyperbolical character of his writing as upon the popular conception of the Phalanstère, which was the name bestowed upon the new association he was going to create. Visions of a strange, bewildering city where the honour of women as well as the ownership of goods would be held as common property are conjured up at the mention of that word. Our exposition of his system must obviously begin with an examination of the Phalanstère, upon the understanding of which everything turns.

1. The Phalanstère

As a matter of fact nothing could be more peaceful than the prospect which the Phalanstère presents to our view. Anything more closely resembling Owen’s New Harmony or Cabet’s Icaria or Campanella’s Civitas Solis or More’s Utopia would be difficult to imagine. Externally it looks for all the world like a grand hotel—a Palace Hotel on a gigantic scale with 1500 persons en pension. One is instinctively reminded of those familiar structures which have lately become such a feature of all summer and winter resorts, containing all manner of rooms and apartments, concert halls and lecture rooms, etc. All of this is described by Fourier with the minutest detail. No restrictions would be placed upon individual liberty. Anyone so choosing could have a suite of rooms for himself, and enjoy his meals in the privacy of his own room—that is, if he preferred it to the table d’hôte. Hotel life is generally open only to the few. The Phalanstère would have rooms and tables at all prices to suit all five classes of society, with a free table in addition.

A number of people living under the same roof and eating at the same table, and adopting this as their normal everyday method of living, sums up the element of communism which the scheme contained. And the question is naturally asked, Why should Fourier attach such supreme importance to this mode of existence as to make it the sine qua non of his whole system and the key to any solution of the problem? The answer lies in the conviction, which he fully shared with Owen, that no solution is possible until the environment is changed, and so changed that an entirely new type of man will result from it.

Economically, of course, life under the same roof can offer to the consumer the maximum of comfort at a minimum of cost. Cooking, heating, lighting, etc., would under such conditions be cheaper and more efficient, and all the worries and anxieties of individual housekeeping would be swept aside.

Socially a common life of this kind would gradually teach different persons to appreciate one another. Sympathy would take the place of mutual antipathy, which under the present régime, as Fourier eloquently remarks, shows an “ascending scale of hatred and a descending scale of contempt.” Besides, the multiplicity of relations and interests, and even of intrigues, which would occasionally enliven this little world would at any rate make life more interesting.

On this double series of advantages Fourier is quite inexhaustible. He reckons up the economies with the painstaking care of an old clerk, and boasts the superiority of the table d’hôte over the family meal with the enthusiasm of an old bachelor. The social and moral advantages seem somewhat more doubtful. It is not very obvious that contact with the rich would make the poor more polished or amicable, nor is it very clear that either would be much happier for it. Fourier’s Utopia is already in operation in the United States, where, owing to the increase in the cost of living, the economic advantages of a communal life are more fully taken advantage of. Not only are there a great number of bachelors living at the clubs, but young couples have recently made a practice of taking up their abode at the hotels. They are already on the way to the Phalanstère.

This shows that Fourier was considerably in advance of his time, and those who hold that doctrines, after all, are always suggested by facts would find it difficult to discover anything pointing towards such communal experiments in the earlier part of the nineteenth century.

His solution of the servant problem, which is becoming more difficult every day, is one that is likely to be adopted in the near future. His suggestion was the substitution of collective for individual services as being more compatible with human dignity and independence, and the development of industrial rather than domestic production. This has already taken place in the case of bread-making and laundry work, and there are signs of its extension to house-sweeping (by means of the vacuum cleaner), carpet-cleaning, etc. A further extension to the art of cooking may also be expected.[532]

2. Integral Co-operation

Careful scrutiny of the internal arrangements of the Phalanstère shows it to be something other than an ordinary hotel after all. It may perhaps be regarded as a kind of co-operative hotel, belonging to an association and accommodating members of that association only. It is much more thoroughgoing than the ordinary co-operative society, which is just content to buy commodities as an association without making any real attempt to practise communism, except in those rare cases where a co-operative restaurant is set up alongside of a co-operative warehouse.

The “Phalange,” not content to remain a mere consumers’ association, was to attempt production as well. Around the hotel was to be an area of 400 acres, with farm buildings and industrial establishments that were to supply the needs of the inmates. The Phalange was to be a small self-sufficing world, a microcosm producing everything it consumed, and consuming—as far as it could—all it produced. Occasionally, no doubt, there would be occasional surpluses or some needs would remain unsatisfied, and then recourse would be had to exchange with other Phalanges. Every Phalange was to be established as a kind of joint-stock company. Private property was not to be extinguished altogether, but to be transformed into the holding of stock—a transformation of a capitalistic rather than of a socialistic nature. M. de Molinari states that the future will witness the almost universal application of the joint-stock principle, and he for one would welcome its extension. Fourier has forestalled his prophecy by three-quarters of a century, with an insight that is truly remarkable for the time in which he wrote, for joint-stock undertakings were then exceedingly rare. He enumerates the many advantages which would result from such a transformation in the nature of property, and he roundly declares that “a share in such concerns is really more valuable than any amount of land or money.”

How were the extravagant dividends which he promised when propounding his scheme to be paid out? The usual method in financial and commercial transactions is to distribute them according to the holding of each individual. But such was not to be his plan. Capital was to have a third of the profits, labour five-twelfths, and ability three-twelfths. “Ability,” which signifies the work of management, was to devolve upon those individuals who were chosen by the society and were considered best fitted for the work. Fourier never realised that there was a possibility of the wrong man being chosen. He had no experience of universal suffrage, and he believed that within such a tiny group the election would be perfectly bona-fide.

Associations known as Phalanges have actually been established in Paris, and to some extent at any rate they have realised the ideal as outlined by Fourier. The profits are divided in almost strict accordance with Fourier’s formula,[533] and in order to emphasise their descent from him the members have caused a statue to be raised to his memory in their quarter of the town—the Boulevard de Clichy.

Not content with giving us an outline of a co-operative productive society, Fourier has also left us an admirably concise statement of the problem that faces modern society. “The first problem for the economist to solve,” says he, “is to discover some way of transforming the wage-earner into a co-operative owner.”[534]

The necessity for such transformation consists in the fact that this is the only way of making labour at once attractive and productive, for “the sense of property is still the strongest lever in civilised society.”[535] “The poor individual in Harmony who only possesses a portion of a share, say a twentieth, is a part proprietor of the whole concern. He can speak of our land, our palaces and castles, our forests and factories, for all of them belong partly to him.”[536] “Hence the rôle of capitalist and proprietor are synonymous in Harmony.”[537]

The worker will draw his share of the profits not merely as a worker, but also as a capitalist who is a shareholder in the concern, and as a member of the directorate, in which every shareholder has a voice. The administration of the business will form a part of his responsibilities. It is just what we are accustomed to call co-partnership. He will, moreover, participate in the privileges and management of the Phalange as a member of a consumers’ association.

All this seems very complicated, but it was a part of Fourier’s policy to transmute the divergent interests of capitalists, workers, and consumers by giving to each individual a share in these conflicting interests.[538] Under existing conditions they are in conflict with one another simply because they are focused in different individuals. Were they to be united in the same person the conflict would cease, or at any rate the battle-ground would be shifted to the conscience of each individual, where reconciliation would not be quite such a difficult matter.

A programme which aims, not at the abolition of property, but at the extinction of the wage-earner by giving him the right of holding property on the joint-stock principle, which looks to succeed, not by advocating class war, but by fostering co-operation of capital with labour and managing ability, and attempts to reconcile the conflicting interests of capitalist and worker, of producer and consumer, debtor and creditor, by welding those interests together in one and the same person, is by no means commonplace. Such was the ideal of the French working classes until Marxian collectivism took its place, and it is quite possible that its deposition may be only temporary after all. The programme which the Radical Socialists swear allegiance to, and which they set against the purely socialistic programme, is the maintenance and extension of private property and the abolition of the wage-earner. By taking this attitude they are unconsciously following in the wake of Fourier.[539]

3. Back to the Land

The title at the head of this section is to-day adopted as a motto by several social schools. It also figured in Fourier’s programme long ago. Fourier, however, employed the phrase in a double sense.

In the first place, he thought that there must be a dispersion of the big cities and a spreading out of their inhabitants in Phalanstères, which would simply mean moderate-sized villages with a population of 1600 people, or 400 families. Great care was to be exercised in choosing a suitable site. Wherever possible the village was to be placed on the bank of a beautiful river, with hills surrounding it, the slopes of which would yield to cultivation, the whole area being flanked by a deep forest. It was not, as some one has remarked, intended as an Arcadia for better-class clerks.[540] It was simply an anticipation of the garden cities which disciples of Ruskin and Morris are building all over England. These are designed, as we know, not merely with a view to promoting health and an appreciation of beauty, but also to encouraging the amenities of life and to solving the question of housing by counteracting the high rental of urban land.

In the second place, industrial work of every description, factory and machine production of every kind, were to be reduced to the indispensable minimum—a condition that was absolutely necessary if the first reform was ever to become practicable. Contrary to what might have been expected, Fourier felt no antipathy towards capitalism, but entertained the greatest contempt for industrialism, which is hardly the same thing.[541] A return to the land, if it was to mean anything at all, was to mean more agriculture. But care must be taken not to interpret it in the old sense of tillage or the cultivation of cereals. It was in no measured terms that he spoke of the cultivation of corn and the production of bread, which has caused mankind to bend under the cruellest yoke and for the coarsest nourishment that history knows. The only attractive forms of cultivation, in his opinion, were horticulture and arboriculture, apple-growing, etc., joined, perhaps, with poultry-keeping and such occupations as generally fall to the lot of the small-holder.[542] The inhabitant of the Phalanstère would be employed almost exclusively in looking after his garden, just as Adam was before the Fall and Candide after his misfortunes.

4. Attractive Labour

The attractiveness of labour was made the pivot of Fourier’s system. Wherever we like to look, whether in the direction of so-called civilised societies or towards barbarian or servile communities, labour is everywhere regarded as a curse. There is no reason why it should be, and in the society of the future it certainly will not be, for men will then labour not because they are constrained to either by force or by the pressure of need or the allurement of self-interest. Fourier’s ideal was a social State in which men would no longer be forced to work, whether from the necessity of earning their daily bread or from a desire for gain or from a sense of social or religious duty. His ambition was to see men work for the mere love of work, hastening to their task as they do to a gala. Why should not labour become play, and why should not the same degree of enthusiasm be shown for work as is shown by youth in the pursuit of sport?[543]

Fourier thinks this would be possible if everyone were certain that he would get a minimum of subsistence by his work. Labour would lose all its coercive features, and would be regarded simply as an opportunity for exercising certain faculties, provided sufficient liberty were given everyone to choose that kind of work which suited him best, and provided also the labour were sufficiently diversified in character to stimulate imagination and were carried on in an atmosphere of joy and beauty. The sole object of the Phalanstère, as we have already seen, was to make labour more attractive by creating a new kind of social life in which production as well as distribution would be on a co-operative basis and horticulture would take the place of agriculture. But Fourier was not content to stop at that, and he proceeds to show the importance of combining different kinds of employment. Some of his suggestions are very ingenious; others, on the other hand, are equally puerile. The most notable of these is his proposal to bring individuals together into what he calls groups and series. A person would be allowed to join these groups according to his own individual preferences, and as it would not involve his spending his whole life in any one of them, he would be free to “flit” from one to the other.

But it is about time we took leave of our guide. We cannot pretend to follow the twists and turns of his labyrinthine psychology, with its dozen passions, of which the three fundamental ones are the desire for change, for order, and for secrecy; nor can we bring ourselves to accept his theodicy, nor his views on climatic and cosmogenic evolution, which was some day to result in sweetening the waters of the ocean, in melting the polar glaciers, in giving birth to new animals, and in putting us in communication with other planets. Yet even this muddy torrent is not without some grain of gold in it.

Take the question of education, for example, which holds a very prominent place in his writings. Old bachelor that he was, he never cared very much for children, but he nevertheless foreshadowed the development of modern education on several important points. Froebel, who conceived the idea of the kindergarten (1837), was among his disciples.[544]

His teaching on the sex question bears all the marks of lax morality, and indicates the fallacy of thinking that untrained passions and instincts can be morally justified.[545] His extreme views on this question, which even go beyond the advocacy of free union, have contributed a great deal to the downfall of Fourierism. Paul Janet remarks somewhere that the socialists have not been very happy in their treatment of the woman question, and we have already shown how this weakness led to the downfall of Saint-Simonism. But even on this subject Fourier has penned a few pithy sentences. “As a general rule,” he says, “it may be said that true social progress is always accompanied by the fuller emancipation of woman, and there is no more certain evidence of decadence than the gradual servility of women. Other events undoubtedly influence political movements, but there is no other cause that begets social progress or social decline with the same rapidity as a change in the status of women.”[546] Unfortunately his feminism was not so much inspired by respect for the dignity of woman as by his hatred of family life, and the liberty which he thought to be the true test of progress was generally nothing better than free love.

The anti-militarists have good claim to regard him as a forerunner. Speaking of present-day society, he said that “it consists of a minority of armed slaves who hold dominion over a majority of disarmed.”

It was not Fourier’s intention to introduce men into the world of Harmony at one stroke. He thought that as an indispensable preliminary they should go through a stage of transition which he calls Garantisme, where each one would be given a minimum of subsistence, security, and comfort—in short, everything that is considered necessary by the advocates of working-class reform.

Fourierism never enjoyed the prestige and never exercised the influence which Saint-Simonism did, but its action, though less startling, and confined as it was to a narrower sphere, has not been less durable. Nothing has been heard of Saint-Simonism these last fifty years, but there is still a Phalanstère school. It is not very numerous, perhaps, if we are only to reckon those who formally adhere to the doctrine, but if we take into consideration the co-operative movement, as we ought at least to some extent, it is seen to be very powerful still. For a long time Fourier’s ideas were scouted by everybody, but during the last fifteen years much more sympathetic attention has been given them.[547]

Among his disciples there are at any rate two who deserve special mention. Victor Considérant, one of the strongest advocates of Fourierism, has left us the best exposition of the doctrine that we have, in his book Doctrine sociale (1834-44). Like Owen, he experimented in American colonisation,[548] and gained a measure of notoriety in the Revolution of 1848 by insisting upon the right to work as a necessary compensation for the loss of property.

André Godin left a monument more permanent than books, in the famous Familistère which was founded by him. It consists of an establishment for the manufacture of heating apparatus at Guise, run entirely on co-partnership lines, the profits being distributed in accordance with the rules of the master.[549] It is not a new co-operative society of the humdrum kind, however. Close to the works, right in the middle of a beautiful park, are one or two huge blocks which contain the “flats” where the co-partners live, as well as schools, crèches, a theatre, and a co-operative stores. But despite its fame, and notwithstanding the fact that it has become a kind of rendezvous for co-operators all the world over, there is nothing very attractive about it, and if one wants to get a good idea of what a real Phalanstère is like it is better to visit either Bournville or Port Sunlight, or Agneta Park in Holland.

III: LOUIS BLANC

It is not the most original work that always attracts most attention. Stuart Mill, writing of Saint-Simonism and Fourierism, claims that “they may justly be counted among the most remarkable productions of the past and present age.” To apply such terms to the writings of Louis Blanc would be entirely out of place. His predecessors’ works, despite a certain mediocrity, are redeemed by occasional remarks of great penetration; but there is none of that in Louis Blanc’s. Moreover, his treatment is very slight, the whole exposition occupying about as much space as an ordinary review article.[550] And there is no evidence of exceptional originality, for the sources of its inspiration must be sought elsewhere—in the writings of Saint-Simon, of Fourier, of Sismondi, and of Buonarotti, one of the survivors of the Babeuf conspiracy,[551] and in the democratic doctrines of 1793. In short, Blanc was content to give a convenient exposition of such socialistic ideas as the public had become accustomed to since the Restoration.

Nevertheless, no sooner was the Organisation du Travail published in 1841 than it was read and discussed by almost everybody. Several editions followed one another in rapid succession. The title, which is borrowed from the Saint-Simonians, supplied one of those popular formulæ which conveniently summed up the grievances of the working classes in 1848, and during the February Revolution Louis Blanc came to be regarded as the best qualified exponent of the views of the proletariat. Even for a long time after 1848 the work was considered to be the most characteristic specimen of French socialistic writing.

Its success was in a measure due to the circumstances of the period. The brevity of the book and the directness of the exposition made the discussion of the theme a comparatively easy matter. The personal notoriety of the author also had a great deal to do with the interest which his work aroused. During the short career of the July monarchy, Blanc, both in the press and on the platform, had found himself one of the most valiant supporters of the advanced democratic wing. His Histoire de Dix Ans gave him some standing as a historian. Later on the rôle which he played as a member of the Provisional Government of 1848, and afterwards at the inauguration of the Third Republic, contributed to his fame as a public man. And, last of all, his unfortunate experience in connection with the failure of the national workshops, for which he was unjustly blamed, added to the interest which the public took in him.

All this, however, would not justify his inclusion in our history were it not for other reasons which give to the Organisation du Travail something more than a mere passing interest.

In no other work is the opposition between competition and association so trenchantly stated. Every economic evil, if we are to believe Blanc, is the outcome of competition. Competition affords an explanation of poverty and of moral degradation, of the growth of crime and the prevalence of prostitution, of industrial crises and international feuds. “In the first place,” writes Blanc, “we shall show how competition means extermination for the proletariat, and in the second place how it spells poverty and ruin for the bourgeoisie.”[552] The proof spreads itself out over the whole work, and is based upon varied examples gleaned from newspapers and official inquiries, from economic treatises and Government statistics, as well as from personal observations carried on by Blanc himself. No effort is spared to make the most disagreeable facts contribute of their testimony. Everything is arranged with a view to one aim—the condemnation of competition. Only one conclusion seems possible: “If you want to get rid of the terrible effects of competition you must remove it root and branch and begin to build anew, with association as the foundation of your social life.”

Louis Blanc thus belonged to that group of socialists who thought that voluntary associations would satisfy all the needs of society. But he thinks of association in a somewhat different fashion from his predecessors. He dreams neither of New Harmony nor of a Phalanstère. Neither does he conceive of the economic world of the future as a series of groups, each of which forms a complete society in itself. Fourier’s integral co-operation, where the Phalanstère was to supply all the needs of its members, is ignored altogether. His proposal is a social workshop, which simply means a co-operative producers’ society. The social workshop was intended simply to combine members of the same trade, and is distinguished from the ordinary workshop by being more democratic and equalitarian. Unlike Fourierism, it does not contain within itself all aspects of economic life. By no means self-contained, it merely undertakes the production of some economic good, which other folk are expected to buy in the ordinary way. Louis Blanc’s is simply the commonest type of co-operative society.[553] The schemes of both Owen and Fourier were much more ambitious, and attempted to apply the principle of co-operation to consumption as well as to production.

Nor was the idea altogether a new one. A Saint-Simonian of the name of Buchez had already in 1831[554] made a similar proposal, but it met with little success. Workers in the same trade—carpenters, masons, shoemakers, or what not—were advised to combine together, to throw their tools into the common lot, and to distribute among themselves the profits which had hitherto gone to the entrepreneur. A fifth of the annual profits was to be laid aside to build up a “perpetual inalienable reserve,” which would thus grow regularly every year. “Without some such fund,” says Buchez, with an unerring instinct for the future, “association will become little better than other commercial undertakings. It will prove beneficial to the founders only, and will ban everyone who is not an original shareholder, for those who had a share in the concern at the beginning will employ their privileges in exploiting others.”[555] Such is the destiny that awaits more than one co-operative society, where the founders become mere shareholders and employ others who are simply hirelings to do the work for them.

Whereas Buchez was greatly interested in petite industry,[556] Blanc was in favour of the great industry, and that seems to be the only difference between his social workshop and an ordinary co-operative society. But in Blanc’s opinion the social workshop was just a cell out of which a complete collectivistic society would some day issue forth. Its ultimate destiny did not really interest him very much. The ideal was much too vague and too distant to be profitably discussed. The important thing was to make a beginning and to prepare for the future in a thoroughly practical fashion, but “without breaking altogether with the past.” That seemed clearly to be the line of procedure. To give an outline of what that future would be like seemed a vain desire, and would simply mean outlining another Utopia.

It is just because his plan was precise and simple that Louis Blanc succeeded in claiming attention where so many beautiful but quite impossible dreams had failed. Here at last was a project which everyone could understand, and which, further, would not be very difficult to adopt. This passion for the concrete rather than the ideal, for some practical formula that might possibly point the way out of the morass of laissez-faire, may be discovered in more than one of his contemporaries. It is very pronounced in Vidal’s work, for example. Vidal was the author of an interesting book on distribution which unfortunately seems to be now quite forgotten.[557] Much of the success of the project, like that of the State Socialism of a later period, was undoubtedly due to this feeling.

The projected reform seemed exceptionally simple. A national workshop was to be set up forthwith in which all branches of production would be represented. The necessary capital was to be obtained from the Government, which was expected to borrow it. Every worker who could give the necessary moral guarantee was allowed to compete for this capital. Wages would be equal for everybody, a thing which is quite impossible under present conditions, largely because of the false anti-social character of a good deal of our education. In the future, when a new system of education will have improved morality and begotten new ideas, the proposal will seem a perfectly natural one. Here we come across a suggestion that seems common to all the associationists, namely, the idea of a new environment effecting a revolution in the ordinary motives of mankind. As to the hierarchy of the workshop, that will be established by election, except during the first year, when the Government will undertake to conduct the organisation, because as yet the members will hardly be sufficiently trained to choose the best representatives. The net revenue will be divided into three portions, of which the first will be distributed between the various members of the association, thus contributing to a rise in their wages; the second portion will go towards the upkeep of the old, the sick, and the infirm, and towards easing the burdens of some other industries; while the third portion will be spent in supplying tools to those who wish to join the association, which will gradually extend its sway over the whole of society. The last suggestion inevitably reminds us of Buchez’s “inalienable and perpetual capital.”

Interest will be paid on the capital employed in founding the industry, such interest being guaranteed against taxation. But we must not conclude that Blanc favoured this condition because he believed in the legitimacy of interest, as Fourier did. He was too pronounced a disciple of the Saint-Simonians ever to admit that it was legitimate. The time will come, he thinks, when it will no longer be necessary, but he gives no hint as to how to get rid of it. For the present at any rate it must be paid, were it only to enable the transition to be made. “We need not with savage impatience destroy everything that has been founded upon the abuses which as a whole we are so anxious to remove.” The interest paid, along with the wages, will form a part of the cost of production. The capitalists, however, will have no share in the net profit unless they have directly contributed to it.

It seems that the only difference between the social workshop and the present factory is its somewhat more democratic organisation, and the fact that the workers themselves seize all the profit (i.e. over and above net interest), instead of leaving it, as was hitherto the case, to the entrepreneur.

But this social workshop, as we have said, is a mere cell out of which a new society is expected to form. The amusing feature is this, that the new society can only come into being through the activity of competition—competition purged of all its more abominable features, that is to say. “The arm of competition must be strengthened in order to get rid of competition.” That ought not to be a very difficult task, for the “social workshop as compared with the ordinary private factory will effect greater economies and have a better system of organisation, for every worker without exception will be interested in honestly performing his duty as quickly as possible.” On every side will private enterprise find itself threatened by the new system. Capital and workers will gravitate towards the social workshop with its greater advantages. Nor will the movement cease until one vast association has been formed representing all the social shops in the same industry. Every important industry will be grouped round some central factory, and “the different shops will be of the nature of supplementary establishments.” To crown the edifice, the different industries will be grouped together, and, instead of competing with one another, will materially help and support each other, especially during a time of crisis, so that the understanding existing between them will achieve a still more remarkable success in preventing crises altogether.

Thus by merely giving it greater freedom the competitive régime will gradually disappear, to make way for the associative régime, and as the social workshops realise these wonderful ideals the evils of competition will disappear, and moral and social life will be cleansed of its present evils.

The remarkable feature of the whole scheme is that hardly anything new is needed to effect this vast change. Just a little additional pressure on the part of Government, some capital to set up the workshops, and a few additional regulations to guide it in its operations, that is all.

This is really a very important point in Louis Blanc’s doctrine, which clearly differentiates it both from Owen’s and Fourier’s. They appeared to think that the State was not necessary at all: private initiative seemed quite sufficient. It was hoped that society would renew itself spontaneously without any extraneous aid, and this is still the working creed of the co-operative movement. Wherever the co-operative movement has flourished the result has been entirely due to the efforts of its members. But Louis Blanc’s attention was centred on the highly trained artisan, and the problem was to find capital to employ him. Were they to rely upon their own savings, they would never make a beginning.[558] Moreover, somebody must start the thing, and power is wanted for this. That power will be organised force, which will be employed, however, not so much as an ally, but rather as a “starter.” Intervention will necessarily be only temporary. Once the scheme is started its own momentum will keep it going. The State, so to speak, “will just give it a push: gravity and the laws of mechanics will suffice for the rest.” That is just where the ingenuity of the whole system comes in, and as a matter of fact the majority of the producing co-operative societies now at work owe their existence to the financial aid and administrative ability of public bodies, without which they could hardly keep going.

Louis Blanc, accordingly, is one of the first socialists to take care to place the burden of reform upon the shoulders of the State. Rodbertus and Lassalle make an exactly analogous appeal to the State, and for this reason the French writer deserves a place among the pioneers of State Socialism.

This appeal of the socialists is beautifully naïve. On the one hand they invite the adherence of Government to a proposal that is frankly revolutionary, in which case it is asked to compass its own destruction—naturally not a very attractive prospect. On the other hand the project seems harmless enough, and the support which the Government is asked to extend further emphasises the modest nature of the undertaking. State socialism cannot escape the horns of this dilemma by proclaiming itself frankly conservative, as it has done in Germany.

Louis Blanc, like Lassalle after him, was much concerned with immediate results, and he failed to notice this objection. He paid considerable attention to another line of criticism, however, and one that he considered much more dangerous. He sought a way of escape by using an argument which was afterwards frequently employed by the State Socialists, as we shall see by and by.

The question was whether State intervention is contrary to liberty or not. “It clearly is,” says Louis Blanc, “if you conceive of liberty as an abstract right which is conferred upon man by the terms of some constitution or other. But that is no real liberty at all. Full liberty consists of the power which man has of developing and exercising his faculties with the sanction of justice, and the approval of law.”[559] The right to liberty without the opportunity of exercising it is simply oppression, and wherever man is ignorant or without tools he inevitably has to submit to those who are either richer or better taught than himself, and his liberty is gone. In such cases State intervention is really necessary, just as it is in the case of inferior classes or minors. Lacordaire’s saying is more pithy still: “As between the weak and the strong, liberty oppresses and law sets free.” Sismondi had already employed this argument, and much capital has been made of it by every opponent of laissez-faire.[560]

In the writings of Louis Blanc may be found the earliest faint outline of a movement that had assumed considerable proportions before the end of the century. State socialism, which was as yet a temporary expedient, by and by becomes an important economic doctrine with numerous practical applications.

The events of 1848 gave Louis Blanc an opportunity of partly realising his ideas. We shall speak of these experiments when we come to discuss the misdirected efforts of the 1848 socialists. But the ideas outlined in the Organisation du Travail were destined to a more permanent success in the numerous co-operative productive societies which were founded as a result of its teaching. They are still quite popular with a certain class of French working men.

Though inferior to both Fourier and Owen, Blanc gave considerable impetus to the Associative movement, and quite deserves his place among the Associative socialists.

Beside Louis Blanc it may be convenient to refer to two other writers, Leroux and Cabet, who took part in the same movement right up to the Revolution of 1848.

Pierre Leroux exercised considerable influence over his contemporaries. George Sand’s works are full of social dissertations, and she herself declares that most of these she owed to Leroux. However, one can hardly get anything of the nature of a definite contribution to the science from his own writings, which are vaguely humanitarian in character. We must make an exception, perhaps, of his advocacy of association,[561] and especially of the idea of solidarity, a word that has been exceedingly fortunate in its career. Indeed, it seems that he was the first to employ this famous term in the sense in which it is used to-day—as a substitute for charity.[562]

Apparently, also, he was the first to contrast the word “socialism” with its antithesis “individualism.”[563] The invention of these two terms is enough to save his name from oblivion in the opinion of every true sociologist.

Cabet had one experience which is rare for a socialist: he had filled the office of Attorney-General, though only for a short time it is true. Far greater celebrity came to him from the publication of his novel, Le Voyage en Icarie. There is nothing very original in the system outlined there. He gives the usual easy retort to those who question him concerning the fate of idlers in Icaria: “Of idlers in Icaria there will be none.” In his enthusiasm for his ideal he went farther than either Owen or Considérant by personally superintending the founding of a colony in the United States (1848). Despite many a grievous trial the settlement managed to exist for fifty years, finally coming to grief in 1898.[564]

Cabet is frankly communistic, and in that respect resembles Owen rather than Fourier, although he always considered himself a disciple of the latter. But this was perhaps due to his admiration for Fourier, with whom he was personally very well acquainted. Although he was a communist he was no revolutionist. He was a good-natured fellow who believed in making his appeal to the altruistic feelings of men, and was sufficiently optimistic to believe that moral conversion was not a difficult process.[565]