The disciples of Fourier have long seemed to me the most advanced of all modern socialists, and almost the only ones worthy of the name.If they had understood the nature of their task, spoken to the people, awakened their sympathies, and kept silence when they did not understand; if they had made less extravagant pretensions, and had shown more respect for public intelligence,--perhaps the reform would now, thanks to them, be in progress.But why are these earnest reformers continually bowing to power and wealth,--that is, to all that is anti-reformatory? How, in a thinking age, can they fail to see that the world must be converted by DEMONSTRATION, not by myths and allegories? Why do they, the deadly enemies of civilization, borrow from it, nevertheless, its most pernicious fruits,--property, inequality of fortune and rank, gluttony, concubinage, prostitution, what do I know? theurgy, magic, and sorcery? Why these endless denunciations of morality, metaphysics, and psychology, when the abuse of these sciences, which they do not understand, constitutes their whole system? Why this mania for deifying a man whose principal merit consisted in talking nonsense about things whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put upon paper? Whoever admits the infallibility of a man becomes thereby incapable of instructing others.Whoever denies his own reason will soon proscribe free thought.The phalansterians would not fail to do it if they had the power.Let them condescend to reason, let them proceed systematically, let them give us demonstrations instead of revelations, and we will listen willingly.Then let them organize manufactures, agriculture, and commerce; let them make labor attractive, and the most humble functions honorable, and our praise shall be theirs.Above all, let them throw off that Illuminism which gives them the appearance of impostors or dupes, rather than believers and apostles.
I have accomplished my task; property is conquered, never again to arise.Wherever this work is read and discussed, there will be deposited the germ of death to property; there, sooner or later, privilege and servitude will disappear, and the despotism of will will give place to the reign of reason.What sophisms, indeed, what prejudices (however obstinate) can stand before the simplicity of the following propositions:--I.Individual POSSESSION is the condition of social life;five thousand years of property demonstrate it.PROPERTY is the suicide of society.Possession is a right; property is against right.Suppress property while maintaining possession, and, by this simple modification of the principle, you will revolutionize law, government, economy, and institutions; you will drive evil from the face of the earth.
Individual possession is no obstacle to extensive cultivation and unity of exploitation.If I have not spoken of the drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I thought it useless to repeat what so many others have said, and what by this time all the world must know.But I am surprised that the economists, who have so clearly shown the disadvantages of spade-husbandry, have failed to see that it is caused entirely by property; above all, that they have not perceived that their plan for mobilizing the soil is a first step towards the abolition of property.
II.All having an equal right of occupancy, possession varies with the number of possessors; property cannot establish itself.
III.The effect of labor being the same for all, property is lost in the common prosperity.
IV.All human labor being the result of collective force, all property becomes, in consequence, collective and unitary.To speak more exactly, labor destroys property.
V.Every capacity for labor being, like every instrument of labor, an accumulated capital, and a collective property, inequality of wages and fortunes (on the ground of inequality of capacities) is, therefore, injustice and robbery.
