Charles Fourier

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Charles Fourier bigraphy, stories - French utopian socialist and philosopher

Charles Fourier : biography

April 7, 1772 – October 10, 1837

François Marie Charles Fourier (born 7 April 1772 in Besançon, France; died 10 October 1837 in Paris, France) was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier’s social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become mainstream thinking in modern society. Fourier is, for instance, credited with having originated the word feminism in 1837.Goldstein 1982, p. 92.

Fourier’s views inspired the founding of the community of Utopia, Ohio; La Reunion near present-day Dallas, Texas; the North American Phalanx in Red Bank, New Jersey; Brook Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts (where Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the founders); the Community Place and Sodus Bay Phalanx in New York State, and several other communities in the United States.

Biography

Fourier was born in Besançon, France on April 7, 1772.Serenyi 1967, p. 278. The son of a small businessman, Fourier was more interested in architecture than in his father’s trade. He wanted to become an engineer, but the local military engineering School accepted only sons of noblemen. Fourier later said he was grateful that he did not pursue engineering, because it would have consumed too much of his time and taken away from his true desire to help humanity.Pellarin 1846, p. 14.

When his father died in 1781, Fourier received two-fifths of his father’s estate, valued at more than 200,000 francs.Pellarin 1846, p. 7. This inheritance enabled Fourier to travel throughout Europe at his leisure. In 1791 he moved from Besançon to Lyon, where he was employed by the merchant M. Bousquet.Pellarin 1846, p. 236. Fourier’s travels also brought him to Paris, where he worked as the head of the Office of Statistics for a few months. Not satisfied with making journeys on behalf of others for their commercial benefitPellarin 1846, p. 15. and desiring to seek knowledge in everything he could, Fourier would often change business firms and residences in order to explore and experience new things. From 1791 to 1816 Fourier was employed in Paris, Rouen, Lyon, Marseille, and Bordeaux.Pellarin 1846, pp. 235-236. As a traveling salesman and correspondence clerk, his research and thought was time-limited: he complained of "serving the knavery of merchants" and the stupefaction of "deceitful and degrading duties". He took up writing, and his first book was published in 1808.

Fourier died in Paris in 1837.Pellarin 1846, p. 213.

==Ideas==

Fourier declared that concern and cooperation were the secrets of social success. He believed that a society that cooperated would see an immense improvement in their productivity levels. Workers would be recompensed for their labors according to their contribution. Fourier saw such cooperation occurring in communities he called "phalanxes", based around structures called Phalanstères or "grand hotels." These buildings were four level apartment complexes where the richest had the uppermost apartments and the poorest enjoyed a ground floor residence. Wealth was determined by one’s job; jobs were assigned based on the interests and desires of the individual. There were incentives: jobs people might not enjoy doing would receive higher pay. Fourier considered trade, which he associated with Jews, to be the "source of all evil" and advocated that Jews be forced to perform farm work in the phalansteries.Richard H. Roberts. Religion and the Transformations of Capitalism: Comparative Approaches. Routledge, 1995, p. 90.

Fourier characterized poverty (not inequality) as the principal cause of disorder in society, and he proposed to eradicate it by sufficiently high wages and by a "decent minimum" for those who were not able to work.Cunliffe 2001, p. 461. Fourier used the word civilization in a negative sense and as such "Fourier´s contempt for the respectable thinkers and ideologies of his age was so intense that he always used the terms philosopher and civilization in a pejorative sense. In his lexicon civilization was a depraved order, a synonym for perfidy and constraint…Fourier´s attack on civilization had qualities not to be found in the writing of any other social critic of his time." Johnathan Beecher. Charles Fourier: The Visionary and His World. University of California Press. 1986, pp. 195-196.