There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the
Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun only in 1793, giving the
date as either 5 September, June or March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. Others, however, cite the earlier time of the September Massacres in 1792, or even July 1789, when the first killing of the revolution occurred.
The term of "Terror" to describe the period was introduced by the Thermidorian Reaction who took power after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, to discredit Robespierre and justify their actions.
Today there is consensus amongst historians that the exceptional
revolutionary measures continued after the death of Robespierre, now
called the period of "White Terror".
By then, 16,594 official death sentences had been dispensed throughout
France since June 1793, of which 2,639 were in Paris alone; and an additional 10,000 died in prison, without trial, or under both of these circumstances.
There was a sense of emergency among leading politicians in France in
the summer of 1793 between the widespread civil war and
counter-revolution. Bertrand Barère exclaimed on 5 September 1793 in the convention: "Let's make terror the order of the day!"
This quote has frequently been interpreted as the beginning of a
supposed "system of Terror", an interpretation no longer retained by
historians today. Under the pressure of the radical sans-culottes,
the Convention agreed to institute a revolutionary army, but refused to
make terror the order of the day. According to French historian Jean-Clément Martin
there was no "system of terror" instated by the Convention between 1793
and 1794, despite the pressure from some of its members and the
sans-culottes. The members of the convention were determined to avoid street violence such as the September Massacres of 1792 by taking violence into their own hands as an instrument of government.
What Robespierre
calls "terror" is the fear that the justice of exception shall inspire
the enemies of the Republic. He opposes the idea of terror as the order
of the day, defending instead "justice" as the order of the day.
In February 1794 in a speech he explains why this "terror" is necessary
as a form of exceptional justice in the context of the revolutionary
government:
If the basis of popular government
in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a
revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is
baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing
more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation
of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the
general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of
the patrie [homeland, fatherland].
Some historians argue that such terror was a necessary reaction to the circumstances. Others suggest there were additional causes, including ideological and emotional.
Enlightenment thought emphasized the importance of rational thinking and began challenging legal and moral foundations of society, providing the leaders of the Reign of Terror with new ideas about the role and structure of government.
Rousseau's Social Contract
argued that each person was born with rights, and they would come
together in forming a government that would then protect those rights.
Under the social contract, the government was required to act for the general will, which represented the interests of everyone rather than a few factions. Drawing from the idea of a general will, Robespierre felt that the French Revolution could result in a Republic built for the general will but only once those who fought this ideal were expelled. Those who resisted the government were deemed "tyrants"
fighting against the virtue and honor of the general will. The leaders
felt that their ideal version of government was threatened from the
inside and outside of France, and terror was the only way to preserve
the dignity of the Republic created from French Revolution.
The writings of Baron de Montesquieu, another Enlightenment thinker of the time, greatly influenced Robespierre as well. Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws defines a core principle of a democratic government: virtue—described as "the love of laws and of our country." In Robespierre's speech to the National Convention
on 5 February 1794, titled "Virtue & Terror", he regards virtue as
being the "fundamental principle of popular or democratic government."
This was, in fact, the same virtue defined by Montesquieu almost 50
years prior. Robespierre believed that the virtue needed for any
democratic government was extremely lacking in the French people. As a
result, he decided to weed out those he believed could never possess
this virtue. The result was a continual push towards Terror. The
Convention used this as justification for the course of action to "crush
the enemies of the revolution…let the laws be executed…and let liberty
be saved."
After the beginning of the French Revolution, the surrounding monarchies did not show great hostility towards the rebellion. Though mostly ignored, Louis XVI was later able to find support in Leopold II of Austria (brother of Marie Antoinette) and Frederick William II of Prussia. On 27 August 1791, these foreign leaders made the Pillnitz Declaration,
saying they would restore the French monarch if other European rulers
joined. In response to what they viewed to be the meddling of foreign
powers, France declared war on 20 April 1792. However, at this point, the war was only Prussia and Austria
against France. France began this war with a large series of defeats,
which set a precedent of fear of invasion in the people that would last
throughout the war.
Massive reforms of military institutions, while very effective in
the long run, presented the initial problems of inexperienced forces
and leaders of questionable political loyalty.
In the time it took for officers of merit to use their new freedoms to
climb the chain of
command, France suffered. Many of the early battles
were definitive losses for the French. There was the constant threat of the Austro-Prussian forces which were
advancing easily toward the capital, threatening to destroy Paris if the
monarch was harmed.
This series of defeats, coupled with militant uprisings and protests
within the borders of France, pushed the government to resort to drastic
measures to ensure the loyalty of every citizen, not only to France but
more importantly to the Revolution.
While this series of losses was eventually broken, the reality of
what might have happened if they persisted hung over France. The tide
would not turn from them until September 1792 when the French won a critical victory at Valmy preventing the Austro-Prussian invasion.
While the French military had stabilized and was producing victories by
the time the Reign of Terror officially began, the pressure to succeed
in this international struggle acted as justification for the government
to pursue its actions. It was not until after the execution of Louis XVI and the annexation of the Rhineland that the other monarchies began to feel threatened enough to form the First Coalition.
The Coalition, consisting of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Holland,
and Sardinia began attacking France from all directions, besieging and
capturing ports and retaking ground lost to France. With so many similarities to the first days of the Revolutionary Wars for the French government, with threats on all sides, unification of the country became a top priority.
As the war continued and the Reign of Terror began, leaders saw a
correlation between using terror and achieving victory. Well phrased by Albert Soboul, "terror, at first an improvised response to defeat, once organized became an instrument of victory."
The threat of defeat and foreign invasion may have helped spur the
origins of the Terror, but the timely coincidence of the Terror with
French victories added justification to its growth.
During the Reign of Terror, the sans-culottes and the Hébertists put pressure on the National Convention delegates and contributed to the overall instability of France. The National Convention was bitterly split between the Montagnards and the Girondins.
The Girondins were more conservative leaders of the National
Convention, while the Montagnards supported radical violence and
pressures of the lower classes.
Once the Montagnards gained control of the National Convention, they
began demanding radical measures. Moreover, the sans-culottes, the urban
workers of France, agitated leaders to inflict punishments on those who
opposed the interests of the poor. The sans-culottes' violently
demonstrated, pushing their demands and creating constant pressure for
the Montagnards to enact reform.
The sans-culottes fed the frenzy of instability and chaos by utilizing
popular pressure during the Revolution. For example, the sans-culottes
sent letters and petitions to the Committee of Public Safety
urging them to protect their interests and rights with measures such as
taxation of foodstuffs that favored workers over the rich. They
advocated for arrests of those deemed to oppose reforms against those
with privilege, and the more militant members would advocate pillage in
order to achieve the desired equality. The resulting instability caused problems that made forming the new Republic and achieving full political support critical.
Religious upheaval
The
Reign of Terror was characterized by a dramatic rejection of long-held
religious authority, its hierarchical structure, and the corrupt and
intolerant influence of the aristocracy and clergy. Religious elements
that long stood as symbols of stability for the French people, were
replaced by views on reason and scientific thought.The radical revolutionaries and their supporters desired a cultural
revolution that would rid the French state of all Christian influence. This process began with the fall of the monarchy, an event that effectively defrocked the State of its sanctification by the clergy via the doctrine of Divine Right and ushered in an era of reason.
Many long-held rights and powers were stripped from the church
and given to the state. In 1789, church lands were expropriated and
priests killed or forced to leave France. A Festival of Reason was held in the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was renamed "The Temple of Reason", and the old traditional calendar was replaced with a new revolutionary one.
The leaders of the Terror tried to address the call for these radical,
revolutionary aspirations, while at the same time trying to maintain
tight control on the de-Christianization movement that was threatening
to the clear majority of the still devoted Catholic
population of France. The tension sparked by these conflicting
objectives laid a foundation for the "justified" use of terror to
achieve revolutionary ideals and rid France of the religiosity that
revolutionaries believed was standing in the way.
On 10 March 1793 the National Convention set up the Revolutionary Tribunal.
Among those charged by the tribunal, about half were acquitted (though
the number dropped to about a quarter after the enactment of the Law of 22 Prairial on 10 June 1794). In March rebellion broke out in the Vendée
in response to mass conscription, which developed into a civil war.
Discontent in the Vendée lasted – according to some accounts—until after
the Terror.
On 6 April 1793 the National Convention established the Committee of Public Safety, which gradually became the de facto war-time government of France.
The Committee oversaw the Reign of Terror. "During the Reign of Terror,
at least 300,000 suspects were arrested; 17,000 were officially
executed, and perhaps 10,000 died in prison or without trial."
On 2 June 1793 the Parisian sans-culottes
surrounded the National Convention, calling for administrative and
political purges, a low fixed-price for bread, and a limitation of the
electoral franchise to sans-culottes alone. With the backing of the national guard, they persuaded the convention to arrest 29 Girondist leaders. In reaction to the imprisonment of the Girondin deputies, some thirteen departments started the Federalist revolts against the National Convention in Paris, which were ultimately crushed.
On 24 June 1793 the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, the French Constitution of 1793. It was ratified by public referendum, but never put into force.
On 13 July 1793 the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat—a Jacobin leader and journalist—resulted in a further increase in Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the king,
was removed from the Committee of Public Safety on 10 July 1793. On 27
July 1793 Robespierre became part of the Committee of Public Safety.
On 23 August 1793 the National Convention decreed the levée en masse:
Les jeunes gens iront au combat ; les hommes mariés forgeront les
armes et transporteront les subsistances ; les femmes feront des tentes
et serviront dans les hôpitaux ; les enfants mettront le vieux linge en
charpie ; les vieillards se feront porter sur les places publiques pour
exciter le courage des guerriers, prêcher la haine des rois et l’unité
de la République
The young men shall fight; the married man shall forge arms and
transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall
serve in the hospitals; the children shall pick rags to lint [for
bandages]; the old men shall betake themselves to the public square in
order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach hatred of kings
and the unity of the Republic.
On 9 September the convention established paramilitary forces, the
"revolutionary armies", to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by
the government. On 17 September, the Law of Suspects
was passed, which authorized the imprisonment of vaguely defined
"suspects". This created a mass overflow in the prison systems. On 29
September, the Convention extended price fixing from grain and bread to other essential goods, and also fixed wages.
On 10 October the Convention decreed that "the provisional government shall be revolutionary until peace." On 16 October Marie Antoinette was executed. On 24 October the French Republican Calendar was enacted. The trial of the Girondins started on the same day, they were executed on 31 October.
Anti-clerical sentiments increased during 1793 and a campaign of
dechristianization occurred. On 10 November (20 Brumaire Year II of the
French Republican Calendar), the Hébertists organized a Festival of Reason.
The execution of Olympe de Gouges, feminist writer close to the Girondins
On 14 Frimaire (5 December 1793) the National Convention passed the Law of Frimaire, which gave the central government more control over the actions of the representatives on mission.
On 16 Pluviôse (4 February 1794), the National Convention decreed the abolition of slavery in all of France and in French colonies.
On 8 and 13 Ventôse (26 February and 3 March 1794), Saint-Just proposed decrees to confiscate the property of exiles and opponents of the revolution, known as the Ventôse Decrees.
By the end of 1793, two major factions had emerged, both threatening the Revolutionary Government: the Hébertists, who called for an intensification of the Terror and threatened insurrection, and the Dantonists, led by Georges Danton,
who demanded moderation and clemency. The Committee of Public Safety
took actions against both. The major Hébertists were tried before the
Revolutionary Tribunal and executed on 24 March. The Dantonists were
arrested on 30 March, tried on 3 to 5 April and executed on 5 April.
On 20 Prairial (8 June 1794) the Festival of the Supreme Being was celebrated across the country; this was part of the Cult of the Supreme Being, a deist national religion. On 22 Prairial (10 June), the National Convention passed a law proposed by Georges Couthon, known as the Law of 22 Prairial, which simplified the judicial process and greatly accelerated the work of the Revolutionary Tribunal. With the enactment of the law, the number of executions greatly increased, and the period from this time to the Thermidorian Reaction became known as "The Great Terror" (French: la Grande Terreur).
On 8 Messidor (26 June 1794), the French army won the Battle of Fleurus, which marked a turning point in France's military campaign and undermined the necessity of wartime measures and the legitimacy of the Revolutionary Government.
The fall of Robespierre was brought about by a combination of those
who wanted more power for the Committee of Public Safety (and a more
radical policy than he was willing to allow) and the moderates who
completely opposed the revolutionary government. They had, between them,
made the Law of 22 Prairial
one of the charges against him, so that, after his fall, to advocate
terror would be seen as adopting the policy of a convicted enemy of the
republic, putting the advocate's own head at risk. Between his arrest
and his execution, Robespierre may have tried to commit suicide by
shooting himself, although the bullet wound he sustained, whatever its
origin, only shattered his jaw. Alternatively, he may have been shot by
the gendarme Merda. The great confusion that arose during the storming
of the municipal Hall of Paris, where Robespierre and his friends had
found refuge, makes it impossible to be sure of the wound's origin. In
any case, Robespierre was guillotined the next day, together with Saint-Just, Couthon and Maximilien Robespierre's brother Augustin Robespierre.
The
reign of the standing Committee of Public Safety was ended. New members
were appointed the day after Robespierre's execution, and limits on
terms of office were fixed (a quarter of the committee retired every
three months). The Committee's powers were gradually eroded.For a long time it was considered that the Terror ended on 9
Thermidor year II (27 July 1794) with the fall of Robespierre and his
supporters and their execution the following day. Today historians are
more nuanced. They recall that only the Law of 22 prairial was abolished
in the days following 9 Thermidor, and that the revolutionary court and
the law of suspects were not abolished for many months, while
executions continued.
Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (French: [o'ɡyst kɔ̃t](listen); 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte's ideas were also fundamental to the development of sociology; indeed, he invented the term and treated that discipline as the crowning achievement of the sciences.
Auguste Comte was born in Montpellier, Hérault on 19 January 1798. After attending the Lycée Joffre and then the University of Montpellier, Comte was admitted to École Polytechnique in Paris. The École Polytechnique was notable for its adherence to the French ideals of republicanism and progress.
The École closed in 1816 for reorganization, however, and Comte
continued his studies at the medical school at Montpellier. When the
École Polytechnique reopened, he did not request readmission.
Following his return to Montpellier, Comte soon came to see unbridgeable differences with his Catholic and monarchist family and set off again for Paris, earning money by small jobs.
In August 1817 he found an apartment at 36 Rue Bonaparte in Paris's 6th arrondissement (where he lived until 1822) and later that year he became a student and secretary to Henri de Saint-Simon,
who brought Comte into contact with intellectual society and greatly
influenced his thought therefrom. During that time Comte published his
first essays in the various publications headed by Saint-Simon, L'Industrie, Le Politique, and L'Organisateur (Charles Dunoyer and Charles Comte's Le Censeur Européen),
although he would not publish under his own name until 1819's "La
séparation générale entre les opinions et les désirs" ("The general
separation of opinions and desires").
In 1824, Comte left Saint-Simon, again because of unbridgeable differences. Comte published a Plan de travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la société (1822) (Plan of scientific studies necessary for the reorganization of society).
But he failed to get an academic post. His day-to-day life depended on
sponsors and financial help from friends. Debates rage as to how much
Comte appropriated the work of Saint-Simon.
Comte married Caroline Massin in 1825. In 1826, he was taken to a mental health hospital, but left without being cured – only stabilized by French alienist Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol – so that he could work again on his plan (he would later attempt suicide in 1827 by jumping off the Pont des Arts). In the time between this and their divorce in 1842, he published the six volumes of his Cours.
Comte developed a close friendship with John Stuart Mill. From 1844, he fell deeply in love with the Catholic Clotilde de Vaux,
although because she was not divorced from her first husband, their
love was never consummated. After her death in 1846 this love became
quasi-religious, and Comte, working closely with Mill (who was refining
his own such system) developed a new "Religion of Humanity". John Kells Ingram, an adherent of Comte, visited him in Paris in 1855.
Tomb of Auguste Comte
He published four volumes of Système de politique positive (1851–1854). His final work, the first volume of La Synthèse Subjective
("The Subjective Synthesis"), was published in 1856. Comte died in
Paris on 5 September 1857 from stomach cancer and was buried in the
famous Père Lachaise Cemetery, surrounded by cenotaphs in memory of his mother, Rosalie Boyer, and of Clotilde de Vaux.
His apartment from 1841 to 1857 is now conserved as the Maison d'Auguste Comte and is located at 10 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, in Paris' 6th arrondissement.
Work
Comte's positivism
Comte first described the epistemological perspective of positivism in The Course in Positive Philosophy, a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. These texts were followed by the 1848 work, A General View of Positivism (published in English in 1865). The first 3 volumes of the Course dealt chiefly with the physical sciences already in existence (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology), whereas the latter two emphasised the inevitable coming of social science.
Observing the circular dependence of theory and observation in science,
and classifying the sciences in this way, Comte may be regarded as the
first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term.
Comte was also the first to distinguish natural philosophy from science
explicitly. For him, the physical sciences had necessarily to arrive
first, before humanity could adequately channel its efforts into the
most challenging and complex "Queen science" of human society itself.
His work View of Positivism would therefore set out to define, in more detail, the empirical goals of the sociological method.
Comte offered an account of social evolution, proposing that society undergoes three phases in its quest for the truth according to a general law of three stages.
Comte's stages were (1) the theological stage, (2) the metaphysical stage, and (3) the positive stage. (1) The Theological stage was seen from the perspective of 19th century France as preceding the Age of Enlightenment,
in which man's place in society and society's restrictions upon man
were referenced to God. Man blindly believed in whatever he was taught
by his ancestors. He believed in supernatural power. Fetishism played a significant role during this time. (2) By the "Metaphysical" stage, Comte referred not to the Metaphysics of Aristotle or other ancient Greek philosophers. Rather, the idea was rooted in the problems of French society subsequent to the French Revolution of 1789. This Metaphysical stage involved the justification of universal rights
as being on a vaunted higher plane than the authority of any human
ruler to countermand, although said rights were not referenced to the
sacred beyond mere metaphor. This stage is known as the stage of the
investigation, because people started reasoning and questioning,
although no solid evidence was laid. The stage of the investigation was
the beginning of a world that questioned authority and religion. (3) In
the Scientific stage, which came into being after the failure of the
revolution and of Napoleon, people could find solutions to social problems and bring them into force despite the proclamations of human rights or prophecy of the will of God. Science started to answer questions in full stretch. In this regard, he was similar to Karl Marx and Jeremy Bentham.
For its time, this idea of a Scientific stage was considered
up-to-date, although, from a later standpoint, it is too derivative of classical physics and academic history. Comte's law of three stages was one of the first theories of social evolutionism.
Comte's Theory of Science
– According to him whole of sciences consists of theoretical and
applied knowledge. Theoretical knowledge divides into general fields as
physics or biology, which are an object of his research and detailed
such as botany, zoology, or mineralogy. Main fields mathematics,
astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology it is possible to
order according to a decrescent range of research and complicatedness of
theoretical tools what is connected with the growing complexity of
investigated phenomenons. Following sciences are based on previous, for
example, to methodically coll chemistry, we must imply acquaintance of
physics, because all chemical phenomena are more complicated than
physical phenomena, are also from them dependent and themselves do not
have on them an influence. Similarly, sciences classified as earlier,
are older and more advanced from these which are presented as later.
The other universal law he called the "encyclopedic law". By combining these laws, Comte developed a systematic and hierarchical classification of all sciences, including inorganic physics (astronomy, earth science and chemistry) and organic physics (biology and, for the first time, physique sociale, later renamed Sociologie). Independently from Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès's introduction of the term in 1780, Comte re-invented "sociologie", and introduced the term as a neologism, in 1838. Comte had earlier used the term "social physics", but that term had been appropriated by others, notably by Adolphe Quetelet.
The most important thing to
determine was the natural order in which the sciences stand – not how
they can be made to stand, but how they must stand, irrespective of the
wishes of anyone...This Comte accomplished by taking as the criterion of
the position of each the degree of what he called "positivity", which
is simply the degree to which the phenomena can be exactly determined.
This, as may be readily seen, is also a measure of their relative
complexity, since the exactness of a science is in inverse proportion to
its complexity. The degree of exactness or positivity is, moreover,
that to which it can be subjected to mathematical demonstration, and
therefore mathematics, which is not itself a concrete science, is the
general gauge by which the position of every science is to be
determined. Generalizing thus, Comte found that there were five great
groups of phenomena of equal classificatory value but of successively
decreasing positivity. To these, he gave the names: astronomy, physics,
chemistry, biology, and sociology.
This idea of a special science (not the humanities, not metaphysics)
for the social was prominent in the 19th century and not unique to
Comte. It has recently been discovered that the term "sociology" (as a
term considered coined by Comte) had already been introduced in 1780,
albeit with a different meaning, by the French essayist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836).
The ambitious (or many would say 'grandiose') ways that Comte conceived
of this special science of the social, however, was unique. Comte saw
this new science, sociology, as the last and greatest of all sciences,
one which would include all other sciences and integrate and relate
their findings into a cohesive whole. It has to be pointed out, however,
that he noted a seventh science, one even greater than sociology.
Namely, Comte considered "Anthropology, or true science of Man [to be] the last gradation in the Grand Hierarchy of Abstract Science."
The motto Ordem e Progresso ("Order and Progress") in the flag of Brazil is inspired by Auguste Comte's motto of positivism: L'amour pour principe et l'ordre pour base; le progrès pour but
("Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal").
Several of those involved in the military coup d'état that deposed the Empire of Brazil and proclaimed Brazil to be a republic were followers of the ideas of Comte.
Comte's explanation of the Positive philosophy introduced the
important relationship between theory, practice, and human understanding
of the world. On page 27 of the 1855 printing of Harriet Martineau's translation of The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte,
we see his observation that, "If it is true that every theory must be
based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts can not be
observed without the guidance of some theories. Without such guidance,
our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them:
for the most part, we could not even perceive them."
Comte's emphasis on the interconnectedness of social elements was a forerunner of modern functionalism.
Nevertheless, as with many others of Comte's time, certain elements of
his work are now viewed as eccentric and unscientific, and his grand
vision of sociology as the centerpiece of all the sciences has not come
to fruition.
His emphasis on a quantitative, mathematical basis for
decision-making remains with us today. It is a foundation of the modern
notion of Positivism, modern quantitative statistical analysis,
and business decision-making. His description of the continuing
cyclical relationship between theory and practice is seen in modern
business systems of Total Quality Management (TQM) and Continuous Quality Improvement where advocates describe a continuous cycle of theory and practice through the four-part cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA, the Shewhart cycle). Despite his advocacy of quantitative analysis, Comte saw a limit in its ability to help explain social phenomena.
The early sociology of Herbert Spencer
came about broadly as a reaction to Comte; writing after various
developments in evolutionary biology, Spencer attempted to reformulate
the discipline in what we might now describe as socially Darwinistic terms.
Comte's fame today owes in part to Émile Littré, who founded The Positivist Review in 1867. Debates continue to rage, however, as to how much Comte appropriated from the work of his mentor, Henri de Saint-Simon.
Auguste Comte did not create the idea of Sociology, the study of
society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and
culture, but instead, he expanded it greatly. Positivism, the principle
of conducting sociology through empiricism and the scientific method,
was the primary way that Comte studied sociology. He split sociology
into two different areas of study. One, social statics, how society
holds itself together, and two, social dynamics, the study of the causes
of societal changes. He saw these areas as parts of the same system.
Comte compared society and sociology to the human body and anatomy.
"Comte ascribed the functions of connection and boundaries to the social
structures of language, religion, and division of labor."
Through language, everybody in society, both past, and present, can
communicate with each other. Religion unites society under a common
belief system and functions in harmony under a system. Finally, the
division of labor allows everyone in the society depends upon each
other.
The Utopian Project
Comte
is often disregarded when talking about utopia. However, he made many
contributions to utopian literature and influenced the modern-day
debate. Some intellectuals allude to the fact that the utopian system of
modern life "served as a catalyst for various world-making activities
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (Willson, M. 2019)
In this utopian project, Comte introduces three major concepts:
altruism, sociocracy, and the religion of Humanity. Altruism termed
coined by Comte in the 19th century "a theory of conduct that regards
the good of others as the end of moral action.” (Britannica, T, 2013).
Furthermore, Comte explains sociocracy as the governance by people who
know each other, friends, or allies. After the French revolution, Comte
was looking for a rational basis for government, after developing the
Positivism philosophy he developed sociocracy to the “scientific method”
of the government.
In later years, Comte developed the Religion of Humanity for positivist societies to fulfil the cohesive function once held by traditional worship. In 1849, he proposed a calendar reform called the 'positivist calendar'. For close associate John Stuart Mill, it was possible to distinguish between a "good Comte" (the author of the Course in Positive Philosophy) and a "bad Comte" (the author of the secular-religious system). The system was unsuccessful but met with the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) to influence the proliferation of various Secular Humanist organizations in the 19th century, especially through the work of secularists such as George Holyoake and Richard Congreve. Although Comte's English followers, including George Eliot
and Harriet Martineau, for the most part rejected the full gloomy
panoply of his system, they liked the idea of a religion of humanity and
his injunction to "vivre pour autrui" ("live for others"), from which
comes the word "altruism".
Law of three stages
Comte was agitated by the fact that no one had synthesized physics,
chemistry, and biology into a coherent system of ideas, so he began an
attempt to reasonably deduce facts about the social world from the use
of the sciences. Through his studies, he concluded that the growth of
the human mind progresses in stages, and so must societies. He claimed
the history of society could be divided into three different stages:
theological, metaphysical, and positive. The Law of three Stages, an
evolutionary theory, describes how the history of societies is split
into three sections due to new thoughts on philosophy. Comte believed
that evolution was the growth of the human mind, splitting into stages
and evolving through these stages. Comte concluded that society acts
similarly to the mind.
The
law is this: that each of our leading conceptions – each branch of our
knowledge – passes successively through three different theoretical
conditions: the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or
abstract; and the Scientific, or positive.
— A. Comte
The Law of Three Stages is the evolution of society in which the
stages have already occurred or are currently developing. The reason why
there are newly developed stages after a certain time period is that
the system "has lost its power" and is preventing the progression of
civilization, causing complicated situations in society. 10.
The only way to escape the situation is for people within the civilized
nations to turn towards an "organic" new social system. Comte refers to
kings to show the complications of re-establishment in society. Kings
feel the need to reorganize their kingdom, but many fail to succeed
because they do not consider that the progress of civilization needs
reform, not perceiving that there is nothing more perfect than inserting
a new, more harmonious system. Kings fail to see the effectiveness of
abandoning old systems because they do not understand the nature of the
present crisis. But in order to progress, there need to be the necessary
consequences that come with it, which is caused by a "series of
modifications, independent of the human will, to which all classes of
society contributed, and of which kings themselves have often been the
first agents and most eager promoters".
The people themselves have the ability to produce a new system. This
pattern is shown through the theological stage, metaphysical stage, and
positive stage.
The Law of Three Stages is split into stages, much like how the human
mind changes from stage to stage. The three stages are the theological
stage, the metaphysical stage, and the positive stage, also known as the
Law of Three Stages. The theological stage happened before the 1300s,
in which all societies lived a life that was completely theocentric. The
metaphysical stage was when the society seeks universal rights and
freedom. With the third and final stage, the positive stage, Comte takes
a stand on the question, “how should the relations among philosophy of
science, history of science, and sociology of science be seen."
He says that sociology and history are not mutually exclusive, but that
history is the method of sociology, thus he calls sociology the “final
science.” This positive stage was to solve social problems and forcing
these social problems to be fixed without care for “the will of God” or
“human rights.” Comte finds that these stages can be seen across
different societies across all of history.
Theological Stage
The first stage, the theological stage, relies on supernatural
or religious explanations of the phenomena of human behavior because
"the human mind, in its search for the primary and final causes of
phenomena, explains the apparent anomalies in the universe as
interventions of supernatural agents".
The Theological Stage is the "necessary starting point of human
intelligence" when humans turn to supernatural agents as the cause of
all phenomena.
In this stage, humans focus on discovering absolute knowledge. Comte
disapproved of this stage because it turned to simple explanation humans
created in their minds that all phenomena were caused by supernatural
agents, rather than human reason and experience. Comte refers to Bacon's
philosophy that "there can be no real knowledge except that which rests
upon observed facts", but he observes that the primitive mind could not
have thought that way because it would have only created a vicious
circle between observations and theories.
"For if, on the one hand, every positive theory must necessarily be
founded upon observations, it is, on the other hand, no less true that,
in order to observe, our mind has need of some theory or other".
Because the human mind could not have thought in that way in the origin
of human knowledge, Comte claims that humans would have been "incapable
of remembering facts", and would not have escaped the circle if it were
not for theological conceptions, which were less complicated
explanations to human life. Although Comte disliked this stage, he explains that theology was necessary at the beginning of the developing primitive mind.
The first theological state is the necessary starting point of human
intelligence. The human mind primarily focuses its attention on the
"inner nature of beings and to the first and final causes of all
phenomena it observes." (Ferre 2) This means that the mind is looking
for the cause and effect of an action that will govern the social world.
Therefore, it "represents these phenomena as being produced by a direct
and continuous action of more or less numerous supernatural agents,
whose arbitrary interventions explain all the apparent anomalies of the
universe." (Ferre 2) This primary subset of the theological state is
known as fetishism, where the phenomena must be caused and created by a
theological supernatural being such as God, making humans view every
event in the universe as a direct will from these supernatural agents.
Some people believed in souls or spirits that possessed inanimate
objects and practiced Animism. These natural spiritual beings who
possessed souls and may exist apart from the material bodies were
capable of interacting with humans, therefore requiring sacrifices and
worship to please the agents. With all these new reasons behind
phenomena, numerous fetishisms occur, needing several gods to continue
to explain events.
People begin to believe that every object or event has a unique god
attached to it. This belief is called polytheism. The mind "substituted
the providential action of a single being for the varied play of
numerous independent gods which have been imagined by the primitive
mind." These Gods often took on both human and animal resemblance. In
Egypt, there were multiple gods with animal body parts such as Ra, who
had the head of a hawk and had sun associations with the Egyptians. The
polytheistic Greeks had several gods such as Poseidon who controlled the
sea and Demeter who was the goddess of fertility. However, with all
these new gods governing the phenomena of society, the brain can get
confused with the numerous gods it needs to remember. The human mind
eliminates this problem by believing in a sub-stage called monotheism.
Rather than having multiple gods, there is simply one all-knowing and
omnipotent God who is the center of power controlling the world. This
creates harmony with the universe because everything is under one ruler.
This leaves no confusion of how to act or who is the superior ruler out
of the several gods seen in polytheism. The theological state functions
well as the first state of the mind when making a belief about an event
because it creates a temporary placeholder for the cause of the action
which can later be replaced. By allowing the brain to think of the
reason behind phenomena, the polytheistic gods are fillers that can be
replaced by monotheistic gods. The theological stage shows how the
primitive mind views supernatural phenomena and how it defines and sorts
the causes. "The earliest progress of the human mind could only have
been produced by the theological method, the only method which can
develop spontaneously. It alone has the important property of offering
us a provisional theory,… which immediately groups the first facts, with
its help, by cultivating our capacity for observation, we were able to
prepare the age of a wholly positive philosophy." (Comte 149)
Comte believed the theological stage was necessary
because of the foundational belief that man's earliest philosophy of
explanation is the act of connecting phenomena around him to his own
actions; that man may "apply the study of external nature to his own".
This first stage is necessary to remove mankind from the "vicious
circle in which it was confined by the two necessities of observing
first, in order to form conceptions, and of forming theories first, in
order to observe".
Additionally, the theological stage is able to organize society by
directing "the first social organization, as it first forms a system of
common opinions, and by forming such a system".
Though, according to Comte, it could not last, this stage was able to
establish an intellectual unity that made an impressive political
system. The theological state was also necessary for human progress on
account that it creates a class in a society dedicated to "speculative
activity".
It is in this way that Comte sees the theological stage continue to
exist into the Enlightenment. Comte momentarily admires the theological
stage for its remarkable ability to enact this activity amidst a time
when it was argued to be impractical. It is to this stage that the human
mind owes "the first effectual separation between theory and practice,
which could take place in no other manner" other than through the
institution provided by the theological stage.
The Theological Stage is the stage that was seen primarily among the
civilizations in the distant past. Having been used before the 1300s,
this is a very basic view of the world with little to no involvement in
the world of science, and a world of illusions and delusions, as Freud
would put it. To seek the nature of all beings, mankind puts its focus
on sentiments, feelings, and emotions. This turned mankind towards
theology and the creation of gods to answer all their questions.
Fetishism
The Theological Stage is broken into three sections, Fetishism,
Polytheism, and Monotheism. Fetishism is the philosophy in which mankind
puts the power of a god into an inanimate object. Every object could
hold this power of a god, so it started to confuse those who believed in
Fetishism and created multiple gods, and formed Polytheism.
Polytheism
The basic meaning of polytheism is the belief in an order of
multiple gods who rule over the universe. Within polytheism, each god is
assigned a specific thing in which they are the good of. Examples of
this would be the Greek god, Zeus, the god of the sky/lightning, or Ra,
the sun god, in Egyptian mythology. A group of priests was often
assigned to these gods to offer sacrifices and receive blessings from
those gods, but once again, because of the innumerable number of gods,
it got confusing, so civilization turned to Monotheism.
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in one, all-powerful God who rules over
every aspect of the universe. The removal of an emotional and
imaginational aspects of both Fetishism and Polytheism resulted in
intellectual awakening. This removal allowed for the Enlightenment to
occur as well as the expansion of the scientific world. With the
Enlightenment came many famous philosophers who brought about a great
change in the world. This is the reason why "Monotheism is the climax of
the theological stage of thinking."
Metaphysical or Abstract Stage
The second stage, the metaphysical stage, is merely a
modification of the first because a supernatural cause is replaced by an
"abstract entity";
it is meant to be a transitional stage, where there is the belief that
abstract forces control the behavior of human beings. Because it is a
transitional stage between the theological stage and the positive stage,
Comte deemed it the least important of the three stages and was only
necessary because the human mind cannot make the jump from the
theological to the positive stage on its own.
The metaphysical stage is the transitional stage.
Because "Theology and physics are so profoundly incompatible", and their
"conceptions are so radically opposed in character", human intelligence
must have a gradual transition.
Other than this, Comte says that there is no other use for this stage.
Although it is the least important stage, it is necessary because humans
could not handle the significant change in thought from theological to
positivity.
The metaphysical stage is just a slight modification of the previous
stage when people believed in the abstract forces rather than the
supernatural. The mind begins to notice the facts themselves, caused by
the emptiness of the metaphysical agents through "over subtle
qualification that all right-minded persons considered them to be only
the abstract names of the phenomena in question". The mind becomes familiar with concepts, wanting to seek more, and therefore is prepared to move into the positive stage.
In understanding Comte’s argument, it is important to note that
Comte explains the theological and positive stages first and only then
returns to explain the metaphysical stage. His rationale in this
decision is that “any intermediate state can be judged only after a
precise analysis of two extremes”.
Only upon arrival to the rational positive state can the metaphysical
state be analyzed, serving only a purpose of aiding in the transition
from the theological to a positive state. Furthermore, this state
“reconciles, for a time, the radical opposition of the other two,
adapting itself to the gradual decline of the one and the preparatory
rise of the other”.
Therefore, the transition between the two states is almost
unperceivable. Unlike its predecessor and successor, the metaphysical
state does not have a strong intellectual foundation nor social power
for a political organization. Rather is simply serves to guide man until
the transition from imaginative theological state to rational positive
state is complete.
3. Positive stage
The last stage – the positive stage – is when the mind stops
searching for the cause of phenomena and realizes that laws exist to
govern human behavior and that this stage can be explained rationally
with the use of reason and observation, both of which are used to study
the social world.
This stage relies on science, rational thought, and empirical laws.
Comte believed that this study of sociology he created was "the science
that [came] after all the others; and as the final science, it must
assume the task of coordinating the development of the whole of
knowledge" because it organized all of human behavior.
The final, most evolved stage is the positivist stage, the stage when
humans give up on discovering absolute truth, and turn towards
discovering, through reasoning and observation, actual laws of
phenomena.
Humans realize that laws exist and that the world can be rationally
explained through science, rational thought, laws, and observation.
Comte was a positivist, believing in the natural rather than the
supernatural, and so he claimed that his time period, the 1800s, was in
the positivist stage.
He believed that within this stage, there is a hierarchy of sciences:
mathematics, astronomy, terrestrial physics, chemistry, and physiology.
Mathematics, the "science that relates to the measurement of
magnitudes", is the most perfect science of all, and is applied to the
most important laws of the universe. Astronomy is the most simple science and is the first "to be subjected to positive theories".
Physics is less satisfactory than astronomy, because it is more
complex, having less pure and systemized theories. Physics, as well as
chemistry, are the "general laws of the inorganic world", and are harder
to distinguish.
Physiology completes the system of natural sciences and is the most
important of all sciences because it is the "only solid basis of the
social reorganization that must terminate the crisis in which the most
civilized nations have found themselves". This stage will fix the problems in current nations, allowing progression and peace.
It is through observation that humanity is able to gather
knowledge. The only way within society to gather evidence and build upon
what we do not already know to strengthen society is to observe and
experience our situational surroundings. “In the positive state, the
mind stops looking for causes of phenomena, and limits itself strictly
to laws governing them; likewise, absolute notions are replaced by
relative ones,”
The imperfection of humanity is not a result of the way we think,
rather our perspective that guides the way we think. Comte expresses the
idea that we have to open our eyes to different ideas and ways to
evaluate our surroundings such as focusing outside of the simple facts
and abstract ideas but instead dive into the supernatural. This does not
make mean that what is around us is not critical to look out for as our
observations are critical assets to our thinking. The things that are
"lost" or knowledge that is in the past are still relevant to recent
knowledge. It is what is before our time that guides why things are the
way they are today. We would always be relying on our own facts and
would never hypothesize to reveal the supernatural if we do not observe.
Observing strives to further our thinking processes. According to
Comte, "‘The dead govern the living,’ which is likely a reference to the
cumulative nature of positivism and the fact that our current world is
shaped by the actions and discoveries of those who came before us,"
As this is true, the observations only relevant to humanity and not
abstractly related to humanity are distinct and seen situationally. The
situation leads to human observation as a reflection of the tension in
society can be reviewed, overall helping to enhance knowledge
development.
Upon our observation skills, our thinking shifts. As thinkers and
observers, we switch from trying to identify truth and turn toward the
rationality and reason nature brings, giving us the ability to observe.
This distinct switch takes on the transition from the abstract to the
supernatural. "Comte’s classification of the sciences was based upon the
hypothesis that the sciences had developed from the understanding of
simple and abstract principles to the understanding of complex and
concrete phenomena."
Instead of taking what we believe to be true we turn it around to use
the phenomena of science and the observation of natural law to justify
what we believe to be true within society.
The condensing and formulation of human knowledge is what Comte drives
us toward to ultimately build the strongest society possible. If
scientists do not take the chance to research why a certain animal
species are going distinct and their facts researched by those in the
past are no longer true of the present, how is the data supposed to
grow? How are we to gain more knowledge? These facts of life are
valuable, but it is beyond these facts that Comte gestures us to look
to. Instead of the culmination of facts with little sufficiency,
knowledge altogether takes on its role in the realm of science. In
connection to science, Comte relates to science in two specific fields
to rebuild the construction of human knowledge. As science is broad,
Comte reveals this scientific classification for the sake of thinking
and the future organization of society. "Comte divided sociology into
two main fields, or branches: social statistics, or the study of the
forces that hold society together; and social dynamics, or the study of
the causes of social change,”
In doing this, society is reconstructed. By reconstructing human
thinking and observation, societal operation alters. The attention is
drawn to science, hypothesis’, natural law, and supernatural ideas,
allows sociology to be divided into these two categories. By combining
the simple facts from the abstract to the supernatural and switching our
thinking towards hypothetical observation, the sciences culminate in
order to formulate sociology and this new societal division. “Every
social system… aims definitively at directing all special forces towards
a general result, for the exercise of a general and combined activity
is the essence of the society,” Social phenomena Comte believed can be transferred into laws and that
systemization could become the prime guide to sociology so that all can
maintain knowledge to continue building a strong intellectual society.
To continue building a strong intellectual society, Comte
believed the building or reformation requires intricate steps to achieve
success. First, the new society must be created after the old society
is destroyed because "without…destruction no adequate conception could
be formed of what must be done,".
Essentially a new society cannot be formed if it is constantly hindered
by the ghost of its past. On the same terms, there will be no room for
progress if the new society continues to compare itself to the old
society. If humanity does not destroy the old society, the old society
will destroy humanity.
Or on the other hand, if one destroys the old society, "without
ever replacing it, the people march onwards towards total anarchy,". If the society is continuously chipped away without being replaced
with new ideal societal structures, then society will fall deeper back
into its old faults. The burdens will grow deep and entangle the
platforms for the new society, thus prohibiting progress, and ultimately
fulfilling the cursed seesaw of remodeling and destroying society.
Hence, according to Comte, to design a successful new society, one must
keep the balance of reconstruction and deconstruction. This balance
allows for progress to continue without fault.
Predictions
Auguste Comte is well known for writing in his book The Positive Philosophy
that people would never learn the chemical composition of the stars.
This has been called a very poor prediction regarding human limits in
science. In thirty years people were beginning to learn the composition
of stars through spectroscopy.
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen.
Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and
outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive
ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction.
Later socialists and critics of utopian socialism viewed utopian
socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of
existing society and in some cases as reactionary. These visions of
ideal societies competed with Marxist-inspired revolutionarysocial democratic movements.
As a term or label, utopian socialism is most often
applied to, or used to define, those socialists who lived in the first
quarter of the 19th century who were ascribed the label utopian by later
socialists as a pejorative in order to imply naiveté and to dismiss their ideas as fanciful and unrealistic. A similar school of thought that emerged in the early 20th century which makes the case for socialism on moral grounds is ethical socialism.
One key difference between utopian socialists and other socialists such as most anarchists and Marxists is that utopian socialists generally do not believe any form of class struggle or social revolution
is necessary for socialism to emerge. Utopian socialists believe that
people of all classes can voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it
is presented convincingly.
They feel their form of cooperative socialism can be established among
like-minded people within the existing society and that their small
communities can demonstrate the feasibility of their plan for society.
Definition
The thinkers identified as utopian socialist did not use the term utopian to refer to their ideas. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
were the first thinkers to refer to them as utopian, referring to all
socialist ideas that simply presented a vision and distant goal of an
ethically just society as utopian. This utopian mindset which held an
integrated conception of the goal, the means to produce said goal and an
understanding of the way that those means would inevitably be produced
through examining social and economic phenomena can be contrasted with scientific socialism which has been likened to Taylorism.
This distinction was made clear in Engels' work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1892, part of an earlier publication, the Anti-Dühring
from 1878). Utopian socialists were seen as wanting to expand the
principles of the French revolution in order to create a more rational
society. Despite being labeled as utopian by later socialists, their
aims were not always utopian and their values often included rigid
support for the scientific method and the creation of a society based
upon scientific understanding.
Development
The term utopian socialism was introduced by Karl Marx in "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything" in 1843 and then developed in The Communist Manifesto in 1848, although shortly before its publication Marx had already attacked the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in The Poverty of Philosophy
(originally written in French, 1847). The term was used by later
socialist thinkers to describe early socialist or quasi-socialist
intellectuals who created hypothetical visions of egalitarian, communalist, meritocratic, or other notions of perfect societies without considering how these societies could be created or sustained.
In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx criticized the economic and philosophical arguments of Proudhon set forth in The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty. Marx accused Proudhon of wanting to rise above the bourgeoisie. In the history of Marx's thought and Marxism,
this work is pivotal in the distinction between the concepts of utopian
socialism and what Marx and the Marxists claimed as scientific
socialism. Although utopian socialists shared few political, social, or
economic perspectives, Marx and Engels argued that they shared certain
intellectual characteristics. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote:
The
undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own
surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far
superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of
every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they
habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class;
nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once
they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan
of the best possible state of society? Hence, they reject all political,
and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their
ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily
doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the
new social Gospel.
Marx and Engels associated utopian
socialism with communitarian socialism which similarly sees the
establishment of small intentional communities as both a strategy for
achieving and the final form of a socialist society. Marx and Engels used the term scientific socialism
to describe the type of socialism they saw themselves developing.
According to Engels, socialism was not "an accidental discovery of this
or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle
between two historically developed classes, namely the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie. Its task was no longer to manufacture a system of
society as perfect as possible, but to examine the historical-economic
succession of events from which these classes and their antagonism had
of necessity sprung, and to discover in the economic conditions thus
created the means of ending the conflict". Critics have argued that
utopian socialists who established experimental communities were in fact
trying to apply the scientific method to human social organization and were therefore not utopian. On the basis of Karl Popper's definition of science as "the practice of experimentation, of hypothesis and test", Joshua Muravchik
argued that "Owen and Fourier and their followers were the real
'scientific socialists.' They hit upon the idea of socialism, and they
tested it by attempting to form socialist communities". By contrast,
Muravchik further argued that Marx made untestable predictions about the
future and that Marx's view that socialism would be created by
impersonal historical forces may lead one to conclude that it is
unnecessary to strive for socialism because it will happen anyway.
Since the mid-19th century, Marxism and Marxism–Leninism
overtook utopian socialism in terms of intellectual development and
number of adherents. At one time almost half the population of the world
lived under regimes that claimed to be Marxist. Currents such as Saint-Simonianism and Fourierism attracted the interest of numerous later authors but failed to compete with the now dominant Marxist, Proudhonist, or Leninist
schools on a political level. It has been noted that they exerted a
significant influence on the emergence of new religious movements such
as spiritualism and occultism.
In literature and in practice
Perhaps the first utopian socialist was Thomas More (1478–1535), who wrote about an imaginary socialist society in his book Utopia, published in 1516. The contemporary definition of the English word utopia derives from this work and many aspects of More's description of Utopia were influenced by life in monasteries.
Saint-Simonianism was a French political and social movement of the first half of the 19th century, inspired by the ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). His ideas influenced Auguste Comte (who was for a time Saint-Simon's secretary), Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and many other thinkers and social theorists.
Robert Owen was one of the founders of utopian socialism.
Robert Owen
(1771–1858) was a successful Welsh businessman who devoted much of his
profits to improving the lives of his employees. His reputation grew
when he set up a textile factory in New Lanark, Scotland, co-funded by his teacher, the utilitarianJeremy Bentham and introduced shorter working hours, schools for children and renovated housing. He wrote about his ideas in his book A New View of Society which was published in 1813 and An Explanation of the Cause of Distress which pervades the civilized parts of the world in 1823. He also set up an Owenite commune called New Harmony in Indiana.
This collapsed when one of his business partners ran off with all the
profits. Owen's main contribution to socialist thought was the view that
human social behavior is not fixed or absolute and that humans have the
free will to organize themselves into any kind of society they wished.
Charles Fourier (1772–1837) rejected the Industrial Revolution
altogether and thus the problems that arose with it. Fourier made
various fanciful claims about the ideal world he envisioned. Despite
some clearly non-socialist inclinations,
he contributed significantly even if indirectly to the socialist
movement. His writings about turning work into play influenced the young
Karl Marx and helped him devise his theory of alienation. Also a contributor to feminism, Fourier invented the concept of phalanstère,
units of people based on a theory of passions and of their combination.
Several colonies based on Fourier's ideas were founded in the United
States by Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley.
Many Romantic authors, most notably William Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote anti-capitalist works and supported peasant revolutions across early 19th century Europe. Étienne Cabet (1788–1856), influenced by Robert Owen, published a book in 1840 entitled Travel and adventures of Lord William Carisdall in Icaria in which he described an ideal communalist society. His attempts to form real socialist communities based on his ideas through the Icarian movement did not survive, but one such community was the precursor of Corning, Iowa. Possibly inspired by Christianity, he coined the word communism and influenced other thinkers, including Marx and Engels.
Utopian socialist pamphlet of Swiss social medical doctor Rudolf Sutermeister (1802–1868)
Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) published Looking Backward
in 1888, a utopian romance novel about a future socialist society. In
Bellamy's utopia, property was held in common and money replaced with a
system of equal credit for all. Valid for a year and non-transferable
between individuals, credit expenditure was to be tracked via
"credit-cards" (which bear no resemblance to modern credit cards which
are tools of debt-finance). Labour was compulsory from age 21 to 40 and
organised via various departments of an Industrial Army to which most
citizens belonged. Working hours were to be cut drastically due to
technological advances (including organisational). People were expected
to be motivated by a Religion of Solidarity and criminal behavior was
treated as a form of mental illness or "atavism". The book ranked as
second or third best seller of its time (after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben Hur). In 1897, Bellamy published a sequel entitled Equality as a reply to his critics and which lacked the Industrial Army and other authoritarian aspects.
William Morris (1834–1896) published News from Nowhere in 1890, partly as a response to Bellamy's Looking Backwards,
which he equated with the socialism of Fabians such as Sydney Webb.
Morris' vision of the future socialist society was centred around his
concept of useful work as opposed to useless toil and the redemption of
human labour. Morris believed that all work should be artistic, in the
sense that the worker should find it both pleasurable and an outlet for
creativity. Morris' conception of labour thus bears strong resemblance
to Fourier's, while Bellamy's (the reduction of labour) is more akin to
that of Saint-Simon or in aspects Marx.
Many participants in the historical kibbutz movement in Israel were motivated by utopian socialist ideas. Augustin Souchy
(1892–1984) spent most of his life investigating and participating in
many kinds of socialist communities. Souchy wrote about his experiences
in his autobiography Beware! Anarchist! Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) published Walden Two in 1948. The Twin Oaks Community was originally based on his ideas. Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) wrote about an impoverished anarchist society in her book The Dispossessed,
published in 1974, in which the anarchists agree to leave their home
planet and colonize a barely habitable moon in order to avoid a bloody
revolution.
Classless modes of production in hunter-gatherer societies are referred to as primitive communism by Marxists to stress their classless nature.
A related concept is that of a socialist utopia, usually depicted in
works of fiction as possible ways society can turn out to be in the
future and often combined with notions of a technologically
revolutionized economy.
Utopian
communities have existed all over the world. In various forms and
locations, they have existed continuously in the United States since the
1730s, beginning with Ephrata Cloister, a religious community in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
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