Fourier
Phalanxes
1600-1791 :: 1791-1877 :: 1877-1945 :: glossary :: bibliography :: test #1 :: test #2
Charles Fourier
was a Frenchman who believed in a type of utopian
community that left society to achieve greater
goals. He thought that the best way to utilize talents was to live
together in "phalanxes" which consisted of about 400 families.
These communities took communal ideas mixed with capitalistic manufacturing
to survive. The trend was very short lived.
Fourier's thinking
was prerequisite to one of the earliest proponents of socialism:
Karl Marx.
Phalanxes
(phalansteries)
-400 families/1620 people
-supposedly the minimum number of permutations to achieve every
kind of taste and talent
-no long term success was ever made
Thought
and Ideology
-His philosophy of human want would become the prerequisite of Freudian
philosophy
-Fourier inspired socialism, anarchists, pacifists, and feminists
Excerpt
from Fourier (link)
". . . Until now politics and morality have failed in their
attempts to make men love work. Wage-earners and the entire lower
class are becoming more and more indolent. . . Men work without
enthusiasm, slowly and with loathing.
Aside from slavery, the only means by which society can force men
to work is to make them fear starvation and punishment. Yet if God
has destined us to work, he should not have to use violent means.
How can we believe that He is not able to employ a nobler device,
an enticement capable of transforming work into pleasure. . . .
If it is to attract the people so forcefully, societary[i.e., cooperative]
work must have none of the loathsome aspects that make work in the
present state so odious. For societary work to become attractive
it must fulfill the seven following conditions
Each worker
must be an associate who is compensated by dividend and not by wages.
Each person--man, woman, or child--must be paid in proportion to
his contribution in capital, work, and talent.
Work sessions must be varied about eight times a day because a man
cannot remain enthusiastic about his Job for more than an hour and
a half or two when he is performing an agricultural or manufacturing
task.
These tasks must be performed by groups of friends who have gathered
together spontaneously and who are stimulated and intrigued by very
active rivalries.
Workshops, field, and gardens must offer the worker the enticements
of elegance and cleanliness.
The division of labor must be carried to the supreme degree in order
to allot suitable tasks to people of each sex and of every age.
The distribution of tasks must assure each man, woman, or child
the right to work or the right to take part at any time in any kind
of work for which he or she is qualified"
Important
Dates
1841-46 George Ripley has a go at Fourier Phalanxes in
Massachusetts, called Brook Farm
SEE ALSO
Oneida
Community, New Harmony, Utopian
Communities, Shakers,
Mormons, Transcendentalism
ON
THE WEB
http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob55.html
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/awrm/intro.htm
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1218729&displaytype=printable&lastnode_id=1218729
1600-1791 :: 1791-1877 :: 1877-1945 :: glossary :: bibliography :: test #1 :: test #2
