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Declaration of the Rights of Man,[509] but it was formally prohibited in every province—prohibitions which have been withdrawn only quite recently.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]