The reception of Francis Charles Marie Fourier
By the time Charles Fourier was in his thirties, he had come to the conclusion that a whole economic system that was predicated on the anarchy of free market competition was inherently flawed. It was important to make a major shift, but it was also imperative that this transformation be productive, orderly, and peaceful. Fourier despised social strife since the Parisian soldiers who had destroyed his entire store of commodities during the French Revolution had robbed him of his inheritance. As a result, he yearned for a society that would ensure class peace via scientific organization. During the same period that his fellow utopian thinkers Henri de Saint- Simon in France and Robert Owen in Scotland were formulating their ideas of social transformation. Fourier came to the conclusion that the best remedy for the ills of competitive civilization was the formation of meticulously planned cooperative communities known as “phalanxes.” These communities would gather people of varying social classes and personalities from all over the world.
There would be one enormous central dwelling, known as a “phalanstery,” in each of the communities. This dwelling would be situated on a sizable piece of land in the countryside and would be surrounded by cultural institutions, fields, and workshops that offered a diverse and satisfying existence for every resident. In the year 1828, Albert Brisbane, the spoiled and rather headstrong son of a wealthy landowner from upstate New York set off on a student’s tour of Europe. His quest for faith led him to Victor Cousin’s lectures at the Sorbonne, to Hegel’s in Berlin, to Saint-Simonian soirees in Paris, and ultimately in 1832 to Fourier himself. Within two months of taking Fourier’s individual teachings, the American became a devout phalansterian. Upon arriving back in New York, he began speculating on real estate in an effort to amass enough money to personally fund the establishment of the first Fourierist commune in the United States.
American reformers looking for a clear communal plan were impressed by Fourier’s big and all-too-specific vision of the phalanx, but this ended up hurting the Fourierist cause. Since the Fourierists had been led to anticipate such opulent accommodations, they were greatly let down to find themselves in struggling little towns that had no resemblance to Fourier’s phalanx. Movement leaders were misled by Fourier’s “immediate” rather than progressive approach to communalism when they were presented with realistic, manageable initiatives and choices. At the end of the day, commanders like Brisbane and the loyal rank and file found it difficult to embrace the possibility that the American phalanxes would never catch up to Fourier’s gigantic plan. But as Arthur Bestor and Jonathan Bleecher, among others, point out, the Fourierist movement was about far more than just phalanxes, only a minority of writers have acknowledged this. Outside the phalanxes, the Fourierists set up a reform network of local clubs, mutual insurance organizations, cooperative businesses, and urban communes to show cooperative ideas and expand their influence in the greater community. These transitional initiatives were a significant adjustment made by Fourier’s followers to his concept of the “immediate community,” to which Fourier himself had given only passing consideration
The Fourierist phalanxes are a notable example of American communist utopia. They epitomize the nineteenth-century philosophy that Marx and Engels mockingly referred to as “utopian socialism” in contrast to the “scientific” kind they promoted. A more neutral term, “communitarian socialism,” was provided by Arthur Bestor. The goal, regardless of the title, was the same: to replace the current social order with new communities that followed a well-thought-out set of rules. Communitarianism arose as a reform agenda in the wake of the Enlightenment that sought to sidestep the need for gradual political transformation and the potential bloodshed associated with revolution.
In the end, the Fourierists attempted to promote their idea as a unifying and comprehensive alternative. Brisbane and the American Fourierists appealed especially to evangelical and liberal Protestants, notwithstanding their declaration that theirs was a non-sectarian endeavor to which members of all faiths were welcome. In response, they said that the phalanx was an embodiment of Christian love and that its spread would usher in the millennium that many 19th-century Americans hoped was just around the corner.[1] The Fourierists showed support for anti-smoking, pro-peace, and anti-slavery reformers and said that communitarianism was essential to achieving their aims.[2] Concerned conservatives were reassured by the Fourierists’ arguments that their program would not threaten the status quo since it was peaceful, would protect the rights of capital, and would result in a genuine “harmony of interests” among different social groupings and classes. In order to win over skeptics who were reluctant to pledge loyalty to a single philosopher’s philosophy, the Fourierists rebranded their ideology as “Association” rather than “Fourierism” and argued that the ideas of “social science” were applicable across disciplines.
With an eye on American success and a lack of patience for failure, Brisbane simplified Fourier’s plan for a domestic audience. His famous book Association (1843) argued for small rural phalanxes of a few hundred people located not too distant from large towns and included a sample constitution. American ideas of self-governance, individual freedom, fairness, and social development were highlighted by Brisbane as reasons to support the phalanx plan. An equally basic and useful phalanx design does not exist elsewhere in French Fourierist literature. Just three years after opening up to the public, Brisbane was rewarded with two decisive triumphs. The first was the famed New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley’s transformation. Reading the copy of Social Destiny of Man that Brisbane had given him, Greeley saw in Fourier’s concept the type of collaboration between workers and business owners that he had been advocating for as a Whig propagandist.
After hearing Brisbane’s ideas, Greeley quickly gave him a column in his newspaper, and on March 1, 1842, the first installment of a series titled “Association; or, Principles of a True Organization of Society” was published. Brisbane’s column in the Tribune and other journals that took it up reached thousands of reform-minded families throughout the northern states, spreading his understanding of Fourier’s theory. Greeley continued to promote the Associationist movement, defend it against detractors, attend its conventions, and spend thousands of dollars in its phalanxes long after the editorial agreement had expired. As Brook Farm joined the Fourierist movement, Brisbane achieved its second big victory. An influential group of Transcendentalist ministers, reformers, and authors, led by George Ripley, established Brook Farm in 1841 in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The young author Nathaniel Hawthorne was one among them; he later used his time at Brook Farm as inspiration for his work Blithedale Romance (1852).
Sources:
Beecher, Jonathan. Charles Fourier: The visionary and his world.
Bestor, Arthur Eugene. “Albert Brisbane—Propagandist for Socialism in the 1840s.” New York History. Vol. 28,