SOURCE: "The France of Napoleon and the Restoration," in The General History of Socialism and Social Struggles, Vol. I, Russell & Russell, Inc., 1957, pp. 103-33.

[In the following excerpt, Beer discusses Fourier's conception of nature and human history.]

WAR, IMPERIAL POLICY, AND COMMERCIAL SPECULATION

After the execution of Babeuf and Darthé and the banishment of Buonarroti and his comrades, the French socialist revolutionary movement disappeared from the surface of politics for three decades. The Directory repressed all opposition and prepared the way for the rule of Napoleon. In 1799 he overthrew the Directory, and in 1804 he was invested with imperial dignities. The French enjoyed equality—equality before the despotism which, however, filled their imaginations with bloody wars and glorious victories and their pockets with the chinking and paper results of commerce, of war contracts and war industry. For traders, speculators, money-lenders and stock-brokers the years of the Revolution and of the Napoleonic Wars were very lucrative and exciting. The buying-up of the confiscated property of the Church and of the emigrés, the rise in the prices of cereals, the capitalist monopolizing of native and overseas raw materials, especially in consequence of the blockade of French ports by the English fleet, made the rise of Napoleon to coincide with the rise of the French bourgeoisie.

Imperial policy supplanted all home and constitutional questions; the geographical conditions of imperialist successes, of economic prosperity and of military complications, and the significance of sea power, etc., were investigated with ardour. Even in Fichte's "Self-Sufficing Commercial State" we find noteworthy observations upon these subjects, tracing the antagonism between England and France to the insular position of the former. Yet more remarkable are the observations of Charles Fourier, who, among other things, infers from Japan's insular position that this Empire is destined to play a great maritime and economic part, and detects in it a future competitor of Russia with regard to China. Fourier also describes the wild orgies of swindling speculations, the predatory price manipulations, the Stock Exchange manœuvres of the financial magnates and merchants during that period. False war news was the means for causing a rise or fall in the French securities.

The French bourgeoisie enriched themselves and forgot the revolutionary struggles and constitutions as long as Napoleon's star shone undimmed, that is until about 1811.

CHARLES FOURIER

The intellectual product in the social sphere of this extraordinarily agitated time (1792-1810) was Charles Fourier (1772-1837), a man who combined exuberant imagination, boundless optimism and senseless vanity with acute intelligence, a gift of penetrating observation, and great courage. His was a character of wholly unequal parts. Originally a merchant and shop assistant, during his sojourn in the industrial centre of Lyons he was prompted to social criticism by the sharp competition and the disintegration of the economic life, which caused the downfall of many small existences—including his own—while the co-operative projects then published by L'Ange (Lange) seemed to point to a way out from the chaos. This gives us the whole of Fourier at a glance. As a destructive critic he attacked competition and disintegration; as a constructive reformer he advocated associated labour by means of co-operative joint-stock undertakings. He expounded his ideas in his work, Quatre Mouvements, which was, apparently, printed at Leipzig and was published in the year 1808. What he afterwards wrote was only by way of amplification and commentary.

His whole life's work is permeated by the following basic ideas. (1) Human motives and passions are on the whole good, and, given proper scope, would conduce to happiness: the social task consists in affording them this scope by means of appropriate social institutions. (2) Commerce is morally and materially pernicious, and corrupts human dispositions: it is the base soul of the civilization that is approaching its term and that will be replaced by the associated and co-operative mode of economy and life. (3) Marriage is general hypocrisy and involves the slavery of woman; it must be replaced by free love. (4) Civilization; the present stage in the history of mankind is full of evils; nevertheless it creates the forces requisite to raise mankind to the stage of association and harmony, where human motives will find scope for their free play and will create wealth, amenities and peace.

Fourier makes the claim that he has at length penetrated into the secrets of divine creation and of nature. What Columbus, Copernicus and Newton accomplished for the perception of the material world, he (Fourier) accomplished for the perception of the laws of movement of the organic and social world. He regards his "discovery" as more important than "all the scientific labours since the emergence of the human race." "Shall we lament," he asks, "that the Platos and Senecas, the Rousseaus and Voltaires and the whole of the spokesmen of ancient and modern ignorance—so far as their works are concerned with politics and moral philosophy—will vanish into oblivion?" He asks the philosophers what their ideology is good for:

I, who am ignorant of the whole mechanism of thought, and have read neither Locke nor Condillac, have I not enough ideas to discover the whole system of general movement, of which you have only discovered a quarter, that is, the material part? And this, moreover, after 2,500 years of scientific efforts. Me alone will present and future generations have to thank for inaugurating their immense happiness. As possessor of the book of definitions, I disperse the political and moral-philosophical fog, and on the ruins of precarious sciences I build the theory of universal harmony.

These new truths were prompted by his reflexion upon the agricultural association which was put forward by L'Ange in 1793. Starting from this idea, Fourier believed he had discovered the whole mathematical secret of human determinations. The redemption of mankind depends upon the transition to association, to co-operation.

And this transition will soon be accomplished. We shall be eye-witnesses of a spectacle which can never be repeated on this earth: the sudden transition from incoherence to social combination: it is the most dazzling effect of movement that can be executed on earth; the anticipation of it must compensate the present generation for all its calamities. Every year through which the metamorphosis extends will be worth centuries.

But enough of quotations. They fully confirm our description of Fourier as a man of unequal parts. Let us pass to his doctrines.

Fourier's conception of nature is that of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All phenomena present themselves to him as mathematically executed movements. These movements—he says—are four in number: social, animal, organic and material. Newton discovered the law of material movement. It is the law of gravitation. Now the law of social movement has to be discovered. In social life individual passions conceal the law of movement. These passions are directed to definite ends, which are the "destinées sociales" (social objectives). If our passions are given their proper scope we need not hesitate to follow them, for in giving effect to them, in the "passional attraction," as Fourier is always asserting, we shall find our goal and the full satisfaction of our highest desires. Consequently the teaching of moralists and philosophers about the necessity of repressing our impulses and passions is extremely pernicious; these teachings have never availed anything; they remain ineffective, and their only result is the accumulation of libraries of books which are nothing but waste paper. The moralists were followed by the economists, who advocated commerce and, therefore, only gave an impetus to swindling, forestalling, bankruptcies and Stock Exchange manipulations, causing total demoralization and much misfortune.

There are three centres of attraction around which human passions gravitate.

(1) Sensual (or the five senses). (2) Intellectual passions (friendship, reverence, love, family feeling). (3) Refined passions (emulation, love of change or novelty, organization).

Thus the first group has five passions, the second group has four, the third has three—making twelve in all. These are like twelve needles, which drive the soul towards the three crucibles or goals of attraction. The most important is group 3, for these aim at general and social unity, but only provided they express themselves, not individually but in group organizations, in associations, and there find full scope.

From the mixture of the twelve passions arise the most diverse characters. A combination of twelve passions yields about eight hundred different characters, so that all perfection would be potential in an assembly of eight hundred men; and if these men were properly educated from childhood they would manifest the greatest talents: men like Homer, Caesar, Newton, etc. "If, for example, the population of France, numbering thirty-six millions, be divided by eight hundred, we should find among them 45,000 individuals capable of equalling a Homer, a Demosthenes, a Molière, etc."

All this, however, is based upon the assumption that these passions and talents are developed under a co-operative mode of life and according to Fourier's ideas.

And this new order of mankind is coming. The stage of association follows the stage of civilization, which is now visibly approaching its end.

Mankind has so far passed through the following stages.—(1) State of Nature: The age of Paradise in the Garden of Eden, or Edenism, where there was freedom and equality and an abundance of fruits, fish and wild animals. In every relationship of life men lived in common and were organized in groups. (2) Savagery: Owing to the increase of the human race and the absence of deliberately rational unions, there arises a shortage of food, which provokes quarrels, attacks and plunderings. (3) Patriarchate: The strong and brutal set up families, degrade woman, and introduce exclusive property, as may be observed among all peoples who have lived or still live under the patriarchal order; in Biblical times among the Jews, and also in China and other parts of Asia. (4) Barbarism: that is the Middle Ages, where feudalism developed, the only good point of which was that many women were honoured. For the rest, feudalism developed the germs of civilization, commerce and industry. (5) Civilization: the utter incoherence and atomization of men, who regard each other as enemies and behave accordingly. Entire absence of organization; all the higher sensibilities destroyed by the commercial spirit—humanity, fatherland, justice, mutuality disappeared; forestallers; market fluctuations; crises; cheating; hypocrisy; enrichment of the rich; impoverishment of the poor; contempt for non-possessors; competition; disintegration; economic anarchy; disappearance of family feeling; the son struggling against the father; oppression of labour by capital; domination of government by the wealthy; rebellions and revolutions of the despairing—such are the characteristics of civilization. Woman in particular suffers thereunder; she is bought and sold, for marriage is nothing more than the purchase of girls, who from youth upwards are trained to look for a purchaser; but the sexual instinct will not be suppressed; the "honest" women have their house friends, the men their mistresses; cuckoldry and prostitution are the inevitable accompaniments of monogamic hypocrisy. Nevertheless, civilization has achieved some good: it has promoted science and technology, revealed the possibilities of raising the productivity of labour, and given the rich entrepreneurs the opportunity of conducting agriculture and manufacture upon more rational business lines.

It prepared the way for a commercial and industrial feudalism. A small number of the rich manage the economic forces of the country, or the State establishes comprehensive agricultural undertakings, where a certain degree of organization and co-ordination finds a place, and the workers are guaranteed an existence. Accordingly, civilization is followed by the sixth stage, which Fourier calls Guaranteeism—a sort of social and political epoch to serve as a transition to the seventh stage: to Socialism—Fourier calls this Sociantism—which will inaugurate complete harmony and happiness. Men will then dwell in phalansteries: in large hotels run on co-operative lines, and will work co-operatively in groups of 1,600 to 1,800 (twice 800 and something over, in order to ensure the best mixture of characters, where the three "refined passions"—emulation, variety and concentration of forces—will have full scope).

The socialization of the means of production was outside the range of Fourier's ideas. The phalansteries were to be free associations of capitalists, workers and talented officials, and the product of labour was to be divided in the following manner: Labour to receive five-twelfths, Capital four-twelfths, and Talent three-twelfths.

Free love, education of the children at the cost of the group, seven meals daily, opera and drama, joy of life—all this would be made possible by the phalanstery system, so that men might hope to attain an average age of 144 years and a height of seven feet.

Fourier was politically indifferent, hated the Revolution and the Jews, revered Napoleon, and was always seeking a great, rich, good man, who would take up his projects. His writings are only partly readable. The best exposition of Fourierism is given by Victor Considérant in his book Destinée Sociale, which appeared in 1837, the year of Fourier's death, and is dedicated to the King, Louis Philippe, the ruler and greatest proprietor of France. But this book contains more than Fourierism: it is a very important conspectus of the social critical work that was performed in France up till Marx's arrival in Paris (1843). . . .