On this double series of advantages Fourier is quite inexhaustible. He reckons up the economies with the painstaking care of an old clerk, and boasts the superiority of the _table d’hôte_ over the family meal with the enthusiasm of an old bachelor. The social and moral advantages seem somewhat more doubtful. It is not very obvious that contact with the rich would make the poor more polished or amicable, nor is it very clear that either would be much happier for it. Fourier’s Utopia is already in operation in the United States, where, owing to the increase in the cost of living, the economic advantages of a communal life are more fully taken advantage of. Not only are there a great number of bachelors living at the clubs, but young couples have recently made a practice of taking up their abode at the hotels. They are already on the way to the Phalanstère. This shows that Fourier was considerably in advance of his time, and those who hold that doctrines, after all, are always suggested by facts would find it difficult to discover anything pointing towards such communal experiments in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. His solution of the servant problem, which is becoming more difficult every day, is one that is likely to be adopted in the near future. His suggestion was the substitution of collective for individual services as being more compatible with human dignity and independence, and the development of industrial rather than domestic production. This has already taken place in the case of bread-making and laundry work, and there are signs of its extension to house-sweeping (by means of the vacuum cleaner), carpet-cleaning, etc. A further extension to the art of cooking may also be expected.[532] 2. INTEGRAL CO-OPERATION Careful scrutiny of the internal arrangements of the Phalanstère shows it to be something other than an ordinary hotel after all. It may perhaps be regarded as a kind of co-operative hotel, belonging to an association and accommodating members of that association only. It is much more thoroughgoing than the ordinary co-operative society, which is just content to buy commodities as an association without making any real attempt to practise communism, except in those rare cases where a co-operative restaurant is set up alongside of a co-operative warehouse.