Charles Fourier

Fourier, Charles (1772–1837)

Fourier was a French utopian socialist who criticized the economic and domestic structures of the modern social world for their failure to respect human nature. He discerned twelve basic human `passions' which combined to generate 810 basic personality types. On the basis of this account of human diversity, he advocated the establishment of small voluntary communities organized to provide fulfilling work and sexual liberation. Some of the more extravagant elements of his `social' theory (his views on cosmogony, metempsychosis and `universal analogy') were played down by his followers.

Fourier was born in Besançon, in the French province of Franche-Comté. His childhood was dominated by the commercial background and religiosity of his family, against which he later rebelled. In adulthood, Fourier earned a modest living from a variety of commercial jobs (mainly in the silk and textile industry of Lyon), but increasingly he devoted his energies to a torrent of idiosyncratic brochures, multi-volume treatises, letters and polemics. The founding statement of his social theory was first published (anonymously) as the Théorie des quatres mouvements (Theory of the Four Movements) in 1808. Despite Fourier's reputation for being a difficult and suspicious person, he attracted followers and gradually established a school of thought complete with its own periodicals. He lived in Paris for the last fifteen years of his life and is buried in Montmartre.

Fourier held that, given the nature of God, it was impossible that He had not provided for the terrestrial happiness of humankind. The role of the social theorist was to discover the divinely underwritten code which made that earthly paradise available. Fourier acknowledged that he appeared an unlikely prophet, but averred that God had once before chosen the `obscurest' man to bring the `most important' message to the world.

Fourier's `science' of social organization was based on a model of human nature, according to which individuals were born with different innate dispositions and propensities. He discerned twelve basic human drives or `passions': five `luxurious' passions based on the senses, four `affective' passions based on the need for other people, and three `distributive' passions which governed the gratification of the others (the `Cabalist' passion for intrigue; the `Butterfly' passion for variety; and the `Composite' passion requiring both spiritual and physical gratification). These `passions' could be combined to generate 810 basic personality types. On this foundation, Fourier advanced a critique of `civilization', a term he used pejoratively, and an account of an ideal community, the `societary order'.

Fourier attacked the social institutions of `civilization' for failing to fit human nature. In particular, the economic and domestic structures of the modern social world repressed, rather than liberated, the `passions'. He denounced the waste, poverty, parasitism and deceit that accompanied the `anarchic' competition of the contemporary economy. (An opponent of Jewish emancipation, Fourier identified Jews with the fraudulent excesses of the commercial world.) He also criticized the unhappiness, expense, monotony, sterility and other ills that he associated with the bourgeois family. (Endlessly categorizing, he offered a typology of the seventy-two varieties of cuckold.)

Fourier's ideal community (the `phalanx') consisted of 1,620 individuals (one male and one female of each of the basic personality types) sharing accommodation, workshops and banqueting halls, in a rural setting. The social arrangements of the community included (constrained) private ownership and inheritance, communal childrearing and education, and the provision of a guaranteed `social minimum' income. He rhapsodized interminably about the many details of communal life, from the architecture of the buildings to the diet of the inhabitants.

Within the community, individuals (of different wealth, status, and talent) would belong to numerous small groups organized in series, with a variety of internal offices and titles. These groups, bound internally by a shared liking for a task and an `esprit de corps', combined in an ordered manner to produce both individual happiness and collective gain. These complex arrangements provided great variety (no activity was to last longer than two hours), and harnessed, rather than denied, the instinct for competition.

Fourier insisted that work was not inherently unattractive. Under the right conditions, labour would be transformed into a source of pleasure and self-realization, talents would multiply and productivity increase. His imaginative solution to the problem of dirty jobs utilized the enthusiasm of some children for getting dirty–a corps of suitable youngsters (the `little hordes') would collect rubbish and clean slaughterhouses.

Fourier's detailed account of the `amorous' arrangements of the ideal society, Le nouveau monde amoureux (The New Amorous World ) , remained unpublished until 1967. He proposed a `sexual minimum' to parallel the `social minimum' income; `no-one', he insisted, `will suffer from a lack of physical gratification'. What Fourier characterized as the most unorthodox sexual passions (homosexuality, incest, and flagellation, are mentioned in this context) would be channelled into socially useful forms. Monogamy would be an early victim of this liberation of the passions, from which women as well as men would benefit.

Fourier demonstrated a sustained interest in, and concern for, the position of women in society. He criticized `civilization' for forcing all women into domestic labour for which only a quarter of them had any aptitude and enthusiasm, and famously advanced the dictum that social progress could be measured by the extent to which privileges had been extended to women.

Suspicious of revolution, Fourier believed that social transformation would follow the establishment of a trial community financed by a wealthy benefactor. The nineteenth century saw numerous attempts (from Texas to Romania) to establish small voluntary communities along Fourierist lines. However, none of these followed Fourier's guidelines precisely, and (consequently, his defenders would claim) none of them flourished.

Less influential were some of Fourier's more extravagant beliefs. These include his views on cosmogony, metempsychosis and `universal analogy'.

Fourier propounded a cosmogony in which planets copulated, the earth would develop five new moons and its oceans acquire the flavour of lemonade. The earth had a life-cycle of 80,000 years, containing thirty-two stages of human history. (`Civilization' was only the fifth and most wretched of the ten stages of unhappiness which framed the beginning and ending of this historical account.) He predicted the physical transformation of both human beings and animals. Human beings would grow taller, live longer, learn to breathe under water, and develop a strong and dexterous tail (the notorious `archibras'). Dangerous animals would become domesticated; lions, for example, would be replaced by `anti-lions' keen to carry passengers at speed and in comfort.

Fourier also endorsed metempsychosis, describing the repeated transmigration of souls between the material and `aromal' worlds (of which the Christian heaven was a pale reflection). Each individual soul would live 810 lives (765 happy and 45 miserable ones) before being absorbed by the earth's own soul (which would itself be reborn in a new planet).

Finally, Fourier advocated a science of `universal analogy' identifying correspondences between the natural world and the `crimes and virtues' of humankind. The peacock, for example, was revealed as a complex hieroglyph – its tail representing the splendour of the societary order, its cry symbolizing the discordant nature of the individual apart from the community, its ugly feet signifying the two historical stages of poverty, and so on.

Although Fourier regarded these extravagant views as an integral part of his `social' theory, his followers frequently played down what they saw as the less acceptable aspects of his thought, and edited his writings accordingly. Others were even more selective. Karl Marx, for example, whilst commending Fourier's critical insight into the limitations of the commercial and sexual relations of bourgeois civilization, dismissed his positive schemes for social and political reconstruction.

However, to suggest that Fourier's more constructive proposals have nothing to recommend them is perhaps to underestimate his idiosyncratic but prescient utopian vision. Few have endorsed that vision in its entirety, but its individual elements are not without appeal or influence. Not least, Fourier's positive view of productive activity, endorsement of the emancipation of women, insistence that individuals flourish only as part of a community and vision of sexual liberation, have all found an echo with subsequent generations.