FOURIER, FRANcOIS CHARLES MARIE (1772 1837), French socialist writer, was born at Besancon, Franche Comte, on April 7, 1772. After completing his studies in his native town he travelled for some time in France, Germany and Holland. Fourier entered the army, but after two years' service as a chasseur was discharged on account of ill-health. In 1803 he published a remarkable article on European politics which attracted the notice of Napoleon, some of whose ideas were fore shadowed in it. Inquiries were made after the author, but nothing seems to have come of them. After leaving the army Fourier entered a merchant's office in Lyons, and afterwards earned his living as a broker, devoting his leisure time to study.
He had become deeply impressed with the conviction that social arrangements resulting from the principles of individualism and competition were essentially imperfect and immoral. He proposed to substitute for these principles co-operation or united effort, by means of which full and harmonious development might be given to human nature. The scheme, worked out in detail in his first work, Theorie des quatre mouvements (2 vols., Lyons, 1808, published anonymously), has for foundation a particular psycho logical proposition and a special economical doctrine. Psychologi cally Fourier held what may with some laxity of language be called natural optimism,—the view that the full, free development of human nature or the unrestrained indulgence of human passion is the only possible way to happiness and virtue, and that misery and vice spring from the unnatural restraints imposed by society on the gratification of desire. This principle of harmony among the passions he regarded as his grandest discovery. Throughout his works, in uncouth, obscure and often unintelligible language, he demonstrates the fundamental harmony to be found in the four great departments,—society, animal life, organic life and the material universe. In order to give effect to this principle and obtain the resulting social harmony, society should be recon structed; for, in the existing organization of society innumerable restrictions are imposed upon the free development of human desire. As practical principle for such a reconstruction Fourier advocated co-operative or united industry. But the full realization of his scheme demanded much more than the mere admission that co-operation is economically more efficacious than individualism. Society as a whole must be organized on the lines requisite to give full scope to co-operation and to the harmonious evolution of human nature.
Society, on his scheme, is to be divided into departments or phalanges, each phalange numbering about 1,600 persons. Each phalange inhabits a phalanstere or common building, and has a certain portion of soil allotted to it for cultivation. The phalan steres are built after a uniform plan, and the domestic arrange ments are laid down very elaborately. The staple industry of the phalanges is, of course, agriculture, but the various series and groupes into which the members are divided may devote them selves to such occupations as are most to their taste; nor need any occupation become irksome from constant devotion to it. Any member of a group may vary his employment at pleasure, may pass from one task to another. The tasks regarded as menial or degrading in ordinary society can be rendered attractive if advan tage is taken of the proper principles of human nature. It is not, on Fourier's scheme, necessary that private property should be abolished, nor is the privacy of family life impossible within the phalanstere. Each family may have separate apartments, and there may be richer and poorer members. But the rich and poor are to be locally intermingled, in order that the broad distinction between them, which is so painful a feature in actual society, may become almost imperceptible. Out of the common gain of the phalange a certain portion is deducted to furnish to each mem ber the minimum of subsistence ; the remainder is distributed in shares to labour, capital and talent,—five-twelfths going to the first, four-twelfths to the second and three-twelfths to the third. Upon the changes requisite in the private life of the members Fourier was in his first work more explicit than in his later writings. The institution of marriage is of necessity abolished; a new and ingeniously constructed system of licence is substituted.
The scheme thus sketched attracted no attention when the Theorie first appeared, and for some years Fourier remained in his obscure position at Lyons. In the death of his mother put him in possession of a small sum of money, with which he retired to Bellay in order to perfect his second work. The Traite de l'asso ciation agricole domestique was published in 2 vols. at Paris in 1822, and a summary appeared in the following year. After its publication the author proceeded to Paris in the hope that some wealthy capitalist might be induced to attempt the realization of the projected scheme. Disappointed in this expectation he returned to Lyons. In 1826 he again visited Paris, and as a con siderable portion of his means had been expended in the publica tion of his book, he accepted a clerkship in an American firm. In 1829 and 183o appeared what is probably the most finished exposition of his views, Le Nouveau Monde industriel. In 1831 he attacked the rival socialist doctrines of Saint-Simon and Owen in the small work Pieges et charlatanisme de deux sectes, St. Simon et Owen. His writings now began to attract some attention. A small body of adherents gathered round him, and the most ardent of them was Victor Considerant (q.v.) . In 1832 a news paper, Le Phalanstere ou la réforme industrielle was started to propagate the views of the school, but its success was not great. In 1833 it declined from a weekly to a monthly, and in 1834 it died of inanition. It was revived in 1836 as Le Phalange, and in 1843 became a daily paper, La Democratie pacifique. In 185o it was suppressed.
Fourier did not live to see the success of his newspaper, and the only practical attempt during his lifetime to establish a phalan stere was a complete failure. In 1832 M. Baudet Dulary, deputy for Seine-et-Oise, who had become a convert, purchased an estate at Conde-sur-Vesgre, near the forest of Rambouillet, and pro ceeded to establish a socialist community. The capital supplied was, however, inadequate, and the community broke up in disgust. Fourier was in no way discouraged by this failure, and till his death, on Oct. Jo, 1837, he lived in daily expectation of the realiza tion of his scheme.
Several experiments on the lines laid down by Fourier were made in the United States by American followers of Fourier, whose doctrines were introduced there by Albert Brisbane (1809 1890). Indeed, in the years between 1840 and 185o, during which the movement waxed and waned, no fewer than 41 phalanges were founded, of which some definite record can be found. The most interesting of all the experiments, not alone from its own history, but also from the fact that it attracted the support of many of the most intellectual and cultured Americans was that of Brook Farm (q.v.).