Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1Roscher, Wilhelm
History
Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1
Roscher, Wilhelm
Economics
395 The socialistic utopia of _Ch. Fourier_ (Théorie des quatre
Mouvements, 1808. Théorie de l’Unité universelle, 1822. Le nouveau
Monde industriel et sociétaire, 1829) are based upon the following
fundamental ideas. A. The present civilization is that of a
topsy-turvy world, especially in so far as it ascribes a “moral” (a
word always used by him in an ironical sense) self-government to
man. In Fourier’s world, on the other hand, every man is supposed,
at all times, to give free rein to every _passion_; and the play of
these gratifications constitutes the _harmonie_, in which the
poorest find more enjoyment than do kings at the present time. (See
§ 207 of this work.) B. The main thing to further this is a radical
reform in the division and cooperation of labor as they exist at
present. Instead of the present villages and cities, we should have
only phalansteries, each with 2,000 inhabitants, and situated in the
center of the land cultivated by them. Instead of the present
nations and states, we should have a universal confederate republic,
hierarchically graded, with French as the universal language.
According to the demands of the _passion papillonne_, each one
should carry on the most different kinds of business side by side,
and each one of them at most two hours per day; i.e., every one
should be a dilettante, no one a master, and everything should be
done as badly as possible. _Proudhon_, Contradictions économiques,
ch. 3, objects to this, that a workman must, in some way, be held
responsible for his work. _Fourier_ himself calculates that, in his
_harmonie_ all pleasures are productive labor; and that by this
constant change, one might be satisfied with from 4-½ to 5-½ hours
of sleep, and that even children 2-½ years old might take part in
the work. Thus, there would be a great rivalry between apple-growers
and pear-growers, so great “that more intrigues in attack and
defense [_passion cabaliste_] would arise there than in all the
cabinets of Europe,” in the settling of which the growers of quinces
would act as intermediaries. There are, in addition to all this,
wonderful aids; a fructifying crown of light rises over the north
pole; oranges bloom in Siberia; the sea becomes as delicious as
lemonade; dangerous animals die, and in their stead anti-lions and
anti-whales come into being, animals useful to man, which draw his
ships for him during calms. These ideas are by no means retracted in
_Fourier’s_ later works, See Nouveau Monde (Oeuvres) IV, 447. The
propositions of _Robert Owen_, A new View of Society (1812), have
much similarity with those of Fourier. They differ only in the
absence of the French barrack-like character of the phalanxes, and
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