French and German Socialism in Modern Times

by Richard T. Ely

Saint-Simon was a man of impulse and feeling; Fourier was a man of the understanding and logic. The former founded a religion; the latter a science.

Charles Fourier was born in 1772 in Besançon. He came of an ordinary family and represented the middle-class. His father was a cloth-merchant in his native city, and he himself spent the greater part of his life in mercantile pursuits of one kind or another. Fourier seems to have been a bright boy, for when only eleven years of age he took prizes for excellence in French and Latin. He liked the study of geography, spending a considerable part of his pocket-money for maps and globes, and was passionately fond of music and flowers. It is said that he was himself a good musician. His mechanical ability was remarkable enough to attract attention at an early period in his life. As a commercial traveller he visited Germany and Holland, and was thus able to gratify his desire to see the world. Upon the death of his father, he inherited about one hundred thousand francs at an early age, invested the money in foreign trade, and lost it in the siege of Lyons in 1793, during the Reign of Terror, when his bales of cotton were used to form barricades and his provisions to feed the soldiers. But Fourier’s misfortunes did not end here. He was taken prisoner, and kept in confinement for some time, expecting daily to be led forth to execution. Release, however, enabled him to join the army, for which he had some taste. It is, indeed, stated that he was able to make suggestions concerning military operations which were followed to advantage by his superiors. But ill-health obliged him to retire from the army at the expiration of two years, and return to a business life.

Fourier was never greatly prospered, nor did he ever, so far as I know, give evidence of ability to achieve a large amount of worldly success. In this he was unlike almost every other great communist or socialist. However, it must be acknowledged that his mind was from childhood engaged with other thoughts than the means of acquiring wealth, so that we are scarcely in a position to say what he might have done in this direction if he had devoted himself heartily to business. It is certain that to him the words idler and bungler do not apply, and that he had no desire to fork out his penny and pocket another’s shilling. On the contrary, it was to give, and not receive, that he desired. This trait of all large souls was manifested in a touching way when he was a small boy. There came one morning to the door of his father’s house a poor cripple, asking if little Charles was ill. When he was told that Charles was not ill, but had left the city, he burst into tears. Inquiry disclosed the fact that while on his way to school, and without the knowledge of others, the little fellow had every day given half of his lunch to the poor man.

Two events occurring to Fourier in early life led him to a train of thought which ended in his condemnation of the economic organization of society as a disastrous failure.

When he was five years of age he proved himself an enfant terrible by telling the truth in an innocent and childlike manner to some customers, about certain goods in his father’s shop; and for this he was punished. The falsehood which his father or some person connected with the shop was accustomed to tell the customers appears to have been one of the kind common in some parts of the mercantile world, and which many might to-day regard as not very sinful—as not worse, at any rate, than the white lies of society.

The other incident occurred when he was nineteen years of age. He was connected with a business house in Marseilles, and was required to assist in throwing overboard rice, which his employer had kept for speculative purposes and had allowed to remain in the hold of a ship until it was spoiled. Prices were high, owing to a famine, and it was feared they would fall if the rice were thrown on the market. Young Fourier argued that a system which forced children to lie and men to allow food needed by hungry people to rot must be radically defective.

He began to elaborate a social scheme which should promote truth, honesty, economy of resources, and the development of our natural propensities. This became the one aim of his life. He constructed an ideal world, and in this he ever lived. Association with its imaginary creatures was his company; the fancy that he had benefited them was his consolation in adversity, and the unwavering belief that the creations of his brain were good, enabled him to persevere to the end. Yet at times he must have felt the severity of his struggle against self and the world. He had published[66] what he considered a weighty work, “La Théorie des Quatre Mouvements,” containing a prospectus and an outline of his system, five years before he found even one supporter. Think what that means! A reformer presents to mankind plans which he knows will save men from poverty, selfishness, hypocrisy, corruption, intrigue, deceit, crime, and all manner of misfortune and wickedness, and for five years his projects are not so much as noticed. Like Luther of old, he offers to maintain his theses against all comers, and no one thinks it worth while to engage in the controversy. The sufferings of humanity pain his large heart, but year after year slips by and brings not one sympathizer, not one helper, in his endeavors to save the world. It is easy to speak the words “five years,” but such a period has often seemed endless to those who have been obliged to live it.

Fourier’s first supporter was not such a one as he desired to promote his plans. Slowly others came, but he never had a large following. He wrote to Robert Owen, the English communist, but received no encouragement, while the Saint-Simonians treated him with contempt. He did not desire so much the adherence of personal disciples as men of property, who could enable him to make a trial of his scheme; for he thought the practical workings of one experiment would convince the world. He announced publicly that he would be at home every day at noon to meet any one disposed to furnish a million francs for an establishment based on the principles which he had published, and it is said that for twelve years he repaired to his house daily at the appointed hour. The philanthropist whom he awaited never came. Only one experiment was made in his lifetime. In 1832 a member of the Chamber of Deputies offered an estate near Versailles as the basis of an association, and the offer was accepted by a few converts. Fourier was never satisfied with the management, which seems to have been defective, and the experiment soon failed.

Fourier died at the age of sixty-five, without having had the satisfaction of seeing any decided measures taken for the realization of his plans. He had, however, succeeded in gaining the appreciation and friendship of a number of followers, and he passed his last days in the enjoyment of every comfort.

His tombstone bears this characteristic inscription, expressive of his faith and his hope: