Socialism and Democracy in Europe. Samuel Peter Orth
Engels, Notes on the Communist Manifesto, 1888.
[2] See Sombart, Socialism and the Social Movement, Introduction, for discussion of the class movement.
[3] The Socialist Movement, p. 147.
[4] The all-embracing character of Socialism was eloquently phrased by Millerand in 1896: "In its large synthesis Socialism embraces every manifestation of life, because nothing human is alien to it, because it alone offers to-day to our hunger for justice and happiness an ideal, purely human and apart from all dogma." See Ensor, Modern Socialism, p. 53.
[5] Garantieen der Harmonie und Freiheit, pp. 57–58, edition of 1845.
[6] Letter I, addressed to David Ricardo.
[7] Tract No. IV.
[8] Socialism, pp. 71–72.
[9] Wells, New Worlds for Old, p. 36.
[10] Mill, Socialism, p. 72.
[11] Louis Blanc, The Right to Labor, p. 63.
[12] Organization of Labor, p. 87, 1847.
CHAPTER II
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIALISMToC
I
Socialism began in France, that yeast-pot of civilization. It began while the Revolution was still filling men's minds with a turbulent optimism that knew no limit to human "progress."
Saint-Simon (Count Henri de) may be considered the founder of French Socialism. He was of noble lineage, born in 1760, and died in 1825. He took very little part in the French Revolution, but was a soldier in our Continental army, and always manifested a keen interest in American affairs. Possessed of an inquiring mind, an ambitious spirit, and a heart full of sympathy for the oppressed, he devoted himself to the study of society for the purpose of elaborating a scheme for universal human betterment.
Before he began his special studies he amassed a modest fortune in land speculation. Not that he loved money, he assures us, but because he wished independence and leisure to do his chosen work. This money was soon lost, through unfortunate experiments and an unfortunate marriage, and the most of his days were spent in penury.
He attracted to himself a number of the most brilliant young men in France, among them De Lesseps who subsequently carried out one of the plans of his master, the Suez Canal; and Auguste Comte, who embodied in his positivism the philosophical teachings of Saint-Simon.
Saint-Simon believed that society needed to be entirely reorganized on a "scientific basis," and that "the whole of society ought to labor for the amelioration of the moral and physical condition of the poorest class. Society ought to organize itself in the manner the most suitable for the attainment of this great end."[1]
The two counteracting motives or spirits in society are the spirit of antagonism and the spirit of association. Hitherto the spirit of antagonism has prevailed, and misery has resulted. Let the spirit of association rule, and the evils will vanish.
Under the rule of antagonism, property has become the possession of the few, poverty and misery the lot of the many. Both property and poverty are inherited, therefore the state should abolish all laws of inheritance, take all property under its dominion, and let society be the sole proprietor of the instruments of labor and of the fund that labor creates.
Through the teachings of Saint-Simon runs a constant stream of religious fervor. In Christianity he found the moral doctrine that gave sanction to his social views. He sought the primitive Christianity, stripped of the dogmas and opinions of the centuries. In his principal work, Nouveau Christianisme (New Christianity), he subjects the teachings of Catholicism and Protestantism to ingenious criticism, and finds in the teachings of Christ the essential moral elements necessary for a society based on the spirit of association.
Saint-Simon was a humanitarian rather than a systematic thinker. His analysis of society is ingenious rather than constructive. His teachings were elaborated by his followers, who organized themselves into a school called the "Sacred College of the Apostles," with Bazard and Enfantin as their leaders. They were accused, in the Chamber of Deputies, of promulgating communism of property and wives. Their defense, dated October, 1830, and issued as a booklet, is the best exposition of their views. They said that: "We demand that land, capital, and all the instruments of labor shall become common property, and be so managed that each one's portion shall correspond to his capacity, and his reward to his labors." "Like the early Christians, we demand that one man should be united to one woman, but we teach that the wife should be the equal of the husband."
On the question of marriage, however, the sect split soon after this defense was written. Enfantin became a defender of free love, and inaugurated a fantastic sacerdotalism which drove Bazard from the "Sacred College."[2]
The second French social philosopher of the Utopian school was François Marie Charles Fourier (1772–1837). He was a bourgeois, son of a draper, and brought as keen an intellect as did his noble fellow-countryman, Saint-Simon, to the analysis of society, and a much more practical experience. In his youth he had been employed in various business enterprises. He recalls, in his works, several experiences which he never forgot. As a lad, he was reproached for telling a prospective customer the truth about some goods in his father's shop. When a young man of twenty-seven he was sent to Marseilles to superintend the destruction of great cargoes of rice that had been held for higher prices, during a period of scarcity of food when thousands of people were suffering from hunger. The rice had spoiled in the waiting. The event made so profound an impression upon his mind that he resolved to devote his life to the betterment of an economic system that allowed such wanton waste.
To his mind the problem of rebuilding society was practical, not metaphysical. But underlying his practical solution was a fantastic cosmogony and psychology. He reduced everything to a mathematical system, and even computed the number of years the world would spin on its axis. He believed that God created a good world, and that man has desecrated it; that the function of the social reformer is to understand the design of the Creator, and call mankind back to this original plan, back to the original impulses and passions, and primitive goodness.
This could be done only under ideal environment. Such an environment he proposed to create in huge caravansaries, which he called phalansteries. Each group, or phalange, was composed of 400 families, or 1,800 persons, living on a large square