Fourier was to France what Owen was to England. There is a great difference between the position of men like Owen and Fourier and the one assumed by those who accepted Karl Marx, whose doctrines are best represented by Wilhelm Weitling. The communism of the first group was merely the communal possession of goods produced by communal effort with no thought of class conflict or the confiscation of goods produced by other means. This group sought to deny hostility and hatred between classes saying that the wealthy had the same desire to create a perfect society as did those who labored for a living. Marx held to the view that constant conflict between classes was fundamental.
Frederick Engels in evaluating the Utopian socialist wrote:
To all these Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason, and justice, and has only to be discerned to conquer all the world by virtue of its own power.[7]
Marxian socialism, on the other hand, is in direct contrast to the Utopian. He says:
From this time forward Socialism was no longer an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes—the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.[8]
Thus, it came about that the United States was fortunate in receiving whatever socialistic contributions it has received from the English and French Utopian socialism of reason rather than from the ruthless Marxian socialism of conflict which never has had any great influence in the United States.[9] All the colonies established by the followers of Fourier and Owen have disappeared. La Réunion, a French colony in Texas, furnishes a splendid opportunity to analyze the reasons for these failures.
Bust of Victor Considerant erected in his native village of Salins, France. From Maurice Commanget, Victor Considerant, sa Vie, son Oeuvre, 1929, Paris France.
CHAPTER I
FOUNDERS OF THE COLONY
La Réunion, a French settlement in Texas, was the result of the efforts and teachings of three men: Albert Brisbane, Charles François Fourier, and Victor Prosper Considerant. These men were all middle-class and all were Utopian socialists. Both Brisbane and Considerant visited the colony but Fourier’s contribution was confined to the promulgation of the ideas and theories which formed a basis of the colony.