Utopian and Scientific

Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, The Critical State of Civilization (2 of 2)

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FOURIER, ON THE CRITICAL STATE OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE. There never was a greater want of useful discoveries in the civilized world than at present. Society is now afflicted with four disastrous elements of a comparatively modern date, which aggravate the primithve causes of human suffering. These modern elements of social misery are, 1. The new pestilence and its complications.[1] 2. The insalubrious effects of injudicious culture and the destruction of Forests. 3. The permanency of revolutionary ferment4. The alarming increase of public debts and stock-jobbing speculation. This quadruple plague proves that civilization and refinement are progressing like the lobster, […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Charles Fourier, The Critical State of Civilization (1 of 2)

September 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[This section from The Treatise on Domestic-Agricultural Association immediately follows the material already posted from The Morning Star. It appeared in the November 25, 1840 issue (No. 6) of that paper.] FOURIER ON THE CRITICAL STATE OF CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE. ELEMENTS OF DECLINE IN THE POLITICAL WORLD.. The most recent and the most remarkable elements of decline in the political organization of society in Europe, are, national debts and revolutions, which generate each other. Our political doctors have hitherto failed in devising remedies for these social evils. As a check on the prodigality of national expenditure and the increase of […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Fourier’s response to the Gazette de France — II

July 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
SECOND PART OF FOURIER’S REFUTATION OF THE GAZETTE OF FRANCE. [Part One] For some time past the secret influence of the philosophic Pandemonium had enjoined the discipline of general science in the press, concerning the science of “attractive industry,” but the indiscreet Gazette has disobeyed the word. It is proverbially noted for its gossiping propensity, and notwithstand the tactics of obscurism, one of its scribes, inspired with a new idea, has aimed a fatal blow of calumny against my principle, by charging them with insult to our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The cause of this attack was a speech made by […]
Contr'un

Terrence, “A Short Introduction to the Works of Charles Fourier” (1848)

July 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
A SHORT INTRODUCTION  TO THE  WORKS OF CHARLES FOURIER. BY TERENCE   ————————————————- “In Nature and in State, it is easier to change many things than one.” BACON.—Essay on Health. “Entertain variety of delights rather than surfeit of them.—Idem. “ And let the main portion of the lands employed to gardens or to corn be to a common stock, and to be laid in, and stored up, and then delivered out in proportion.” BACON.—On Plantations. “Fourierism, which is diametrically opposed to Communism.”—Morning Chronicle, March, 1848. ————————————————- LONDON: PUBLISHED BY THE PHALANSTERIAN ASSOCIATION AND TO BE HAD OF P. ROLANOI, 20, […]
Utopian and Scientific

Fourier’s response to the “Gazette de France” (1835)

June 18, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Phalanx, 1 no. 13 (June 29, 1844): 185-187; 1 no. 14 (July 13, 1844): 205-209 FOURIER‘S REPLY TO THE GAZETTE DE FRANCE, in which his doctrines were grossly misrepresented as being anti-christian. “Having been publicly calumniated in the columns of a daily newspaper, by some pseudo-Christians, who are evidently influenced by that false pride which they pretend to condemn, it is my duty to refute their sophistry, and show the inconsistency of those absurd critics and false prophets who publicly admit the want of that very discovery of practical truth, which they blindly calumniate in my theory. “‘Tant de […]
Contr'un

William Henry Channing, “Charles Fourier” (1843)

May 29, 2012
CHARLES FOURIER.  The zeal and ability with which Albert Brisbane has for several years devoted himself to the propagation of Fourier’s doctrines of association, begin to be appreciated as they deserve. And whatever conclusive judgment his countrymen may pass upon this peculiar system, all must admit, that this earnest advocate of social reorganization has hastened and widened the great reform movement of our day. Few who have paid Fourier the respect he merits, of deep study, will deny that he has cast light, much needed and timely, upon the darkest problems, whether they adopt his social science without modification or […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier, “Cosmogony”

May 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] COSMOGONY. FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF FOURIER. Translated for the Harbinger. —— PREAMBLE. Having reached this twenty-first section, I feel the same temptation which Montesquieu did at his twenty-first book. He wanted to address an invocation to the Muses; I read it in a journal which seemed astonished, and with reason, at this weakness. Montesquieu, amongst other complaints, said to the virgins of Pindus: “I have run a long career, and I am overburdened with cares.” Nevertheless he had, to support his labors and distract him from his cares, an income of […]
Utopian and Scientific

Victor Considerant, The Ideal of a Perfect Society

May 27, 2012
THE IDEAL OF A PERFECT SOCIETY. I. Let us in thought construct upon some globe a society, in which social causes of evil shall not exist, and where humanity shall employ its activity and power in the development of the elements needed for the happiness of its members. There would be, on such a globe, an order like that which reigns in the system of the stars. In this system, the worlds of different orders are arranged in hierarchies—the satellites burn around their planets, and the planets around the central sun, which concentrates all the attractions of the group, and […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier on Free Will — I

May 26, 2012
[ezcol_2third] FREE WILL ____ NOTICE ON THE TREATISE ON FREE WILL. ____ The Treatise on Free Will does not appear in the first edition of the Treatise on Universal Unity. It is the first of Fourier’s manuscripts delivered for publication since the death of the author. The notebooks left by Fourier are in general only preliminary sketches that he condensed and published when he published then. Quite a number of these manuscripts date from the period prior to the appearance of the first edition of the Treatise on Universal Unity (1822). The Treatise on Free Will is of this number. […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier on the Antienne, or first repast

May 26, 2012 anarchisms_w4l2ii
Charles Fourier and Charles A. Dana (translator), “An Unpublished Fragment of Fourier,” The Harbinger 3, no. 10 (August 15, 1846): 150-151. Charles Fourier [main page] AN UNPUBLISHED FRAGMENT OF FOURIER. Translated [by Charles A. Dana] from La Democratie Pacifique. Each repast of the day has a special character, a tone which prevails generally at the three classes of tables. I will confine myself to the description of the Antienne, or first repast, which takes place in the morning before leaving the palace. The Antienne cannot be made perfectly regular; — a beautiful disorder will distinguish it. As the hour of […]