Shall we then turn back in despair, and give it up that Association on the large scale is impossible? This seems to have been the reaction of all the leading Fourierists. Greeley sums up the wisdom he gained from his socialistic experience in the following invective:
"A serious obstacle to the success of any socialistic experiment must always be confronted. I allude to the kind of persons who are naturally attracted to it. Along with many noble and lofty souls, whose impulses are purely philanthropic, and who are willing to labor and suffer reproach for any cause that promises to benefit mankind, there throng scores of whom the world is quite worthy—the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle, and the good-for-nothing generally; who, finding themselves utterly out of place and at a discount in the world as it is, rashly conclude that they are exactly fitted for the world as it ought to be. These may have failed again and again, and been protested at every bank to which they have been presented; yet they are sure to jump into any new movement as if they had been born expressly to superintend and direct it, though they are morally certain to ruin whatever they lay their hands on. Destitute of means, of practical ability, of prudence, tact and common sense, they have such a wealth of assurance and self-confidence, that they clutch the responsible positions which the capable and worthy modestly shrink from; so responsibilities that would tax the ablest, are mistakenly devolved on the blindest and least fit. Many an experiment is thus wrecked, when, engineered by its best members, it might have succeeded."
Meeker gloomily concludes that "generally men are not prepared; Association is for the future."
And yet, to contradict these disheartening persuasions and forbid our settling into despair, we have a respectable series of successes that can not be ignored. Mr. Greeley recognizes them, though he hardly knows how to dispose of them. "The fact," he says, "stares us in the face that, while hundreds of banks and factories, and thousands of mercantile concerns managed by shrewd, strong men, have gone into bankruptcy and perished, Shaker Communities, established more than sixty years ago, upon a basis of little property and less worldly wisdom, are living and prosperous to-day. And their experience has been imitated by the German Communities at Economy, Zoar, the Society of Ebenezer, etc. Theory, however plausible, must respect the facts."
Let us look again at these exceptional Associations that have not succumbed to the disorganizing power of general depravity. Jacobi's record of their duration and fortunes is worth recapitulating. Assuming that they are all still in existence, their stories may be epitomized as follows:
Beizel's Community has lasted one hundred and fifty-six years; was at one time very rich; has money at interest yet; some of its grand old buildings are still standing.
The Shaker Community, as a whole, is ninety-five years old; consists of eighteen large societies; many of them very wealthy.