History of American SocialismsNoyes, John Humphrey
History
History of American Socialisms
Noyes, John Humphrey
Communism -- United States; Socialism -- United States
The southern states were represented by only one Association--that of
Nashoba, in the Owen group--and that was little more than an
eleemosynary attempt of Frances Wright to civilize the negroes.
The two groups combined were distributed as follows: in Ohio, 10; in
New York, 9; in Pennsylvania, 7; in Indiana, 5; in Massachusetts, 3;
in Illinois, 3; in New Jersey, 2; in Michigan, 2; in Wisconsin, 2; in
Tennessee, 1; in Iowa, 1.
2. _Number of members._ The figures in our epitome (reckoning five
persons to a family when families are mentioned), give an aggregate of
4,801 members: but these belong to only twenty-five Associations. The
numbers of the remaining twenty are not definitely reported. The
average of those reported is about 192 to an Association. Extending
this average to the rest, we have a total of 8,641.
The numbers belonging to single Associations vary from 15 to 900; but
in a majority of cases they were between 100 and 200.
3. _The amount of land_ reported is enormous. Averaging it as we did
in the case of the number of members, we make a grand total of 136,586
acres, or about 3,000 acres to each Association! This is too much for
any probable average. We will leave out as exceptional, the 60,000
acres reported as belonging to New Harmony and the McKean Co.
Association. Then averaging as before, we have a grand total of 44,624
acres, or about 1,000 acres to each Association.
Judging by our own experience we incline to think that this fondness
for land, which has been the habit of Socialists, had much to do with
their failures. Farming is about the hardest and longest of all roads
to fortune: and it is the kind of labor in which there is the most
uncertainty as to modes and theories, and of course the largest chance
for disputes and discords in such complex bodies as Associations.
Moreover the lust for land leads off into the wilderness, "out west,"
or into by-places, far away from railroads and markets; whereas
Socialism, if it is really ahead of civilization, ought to keep near
the centers of business, and at the front of the general march of
improvement. We should have advised the Phalanxes to limit their
land-investments to a minimum, and put their strength as soon as
possible into some form of manufacture. Almost any kind of a factory
would be better than a farm for a Community nursery. We find hardly a
vestige of this policy in Macdonald's collections. The saw-mill is the
only form of mechanism that figures much in his reports. It is really
ludicrous to see how uniformly an old saw-mill turns up in connection
with each Association, and how zealously the brethren made much of it;
but that is about all they attempted in the line of manufacturing.
Land, land, land, was evidently regarded by them as the mother of all
gain and comfort. Considering how much they must have run in debt for
land, and how little profit they got from it, we may say of them
almost literally, that they were "wrecked by running aground."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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