History of American SocialismsNoyes, John Humphrey
History
History of American Socialisms
Noyes, John Humphrey
Communism -- United States; Socialism -- United States
1. Fourier, though not responsible for Brisbane's administration, was
responsible for tantalizing the world with a magnificent theory,
without providing the means of translating it into practice. Christ
and Paul did no such thing. They kept their theory in the back-ground,
and laid out their strength mainly on execution. The mistake of all
"our incomparable masters" of the French school, seems to have been in
imagining that a supreme genius is required for developing a theory,
but the experimenting and execution may be left to second-rate men.
One would think that the example of their first Napoleon might have
taught them, that the place of the supreme genius is at the head of
the army of execution and in the front of the battle with facts.
2. Brisbane, though not altogether responsible for the inadequate
attempts of the poor Sylvanians and the rest of the rabble volunteers,
must be blamed for spending all his energy in drumming and recruiting;
while, to insure success, he should have given at least half his time
to drilling the soldiers and leading them in actual battle. One
example of Fourierism, carried through to splendid realization, would
have done infinitely more for the cause in the long run, than all his
translations and publications. As Fourier's fault was devotion to
theory, Brisbane's fault was devotion to propagandism.
3. The rank-and-file, as they were strictly volunteers, should have
taken better care of themselves, and not been so ready to follow and
even rush ahead of leaders, who were thus manifestly devoting
themselves to theorizing and propagandism without experience.
It may be a consolation to all concerned--officers, privates, and
far-off spectators of the great "Bull Run" of Fourierism--that the
cause of Socialism has outlived that battle, and has learned from it,
not despair, but wisdom. We have found by it at least _what can not be
done_. As Owenism, with all its disasters, prepared the way for
Fourierism, so we may hope that Fourierism, with all its disasters,
has prepared the way for a third and perhaps final socialistic
movement. Every lesson of the past will enter into the triumph of the
future.
CHAPTER XXI.
OTHER PENNSYLVANIA EXPERIMENTS.
Our memoirs of the Phalanxes and other contemporary Associations, may
as well be arranged according to the States in which they were
located. We have already disposed of the Sylvania, which was the most
interesting of the experiments in Pennsylvania during the Fourier
epoch. Our accounts of the remaining half-dozen are not long. The
whole of them may be dispatched at a sitting.
THE PEACE UNION SETTLEMENT.
This was a Community founded by Andreas Bernardus Smolnikar, whose
name we saw among the Vice Presidents of the National Convention.
Macdonald says nothing of it; but the _Phalanx_ of April 1844, has the
following paragraph:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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