1. Alex Sommers
Professor Harvey
Contemporary French History Term Paper
May 5th, 2016
French Socialists of the Early 1800s
“ The birthplace of Socialism was not Britain, … the birthplace of Socialism was
France.” This quote emphasizes that Socialism didn’t start with the Unitarian1
Universalists of Britain, but started during the Enlightenment in France and formed
during the Revolution out of the saying “ Liberte, egalite, fraternite.” For instance, the
early socialists of France got some of their ideas from Enlightenment thinkers such as
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while others got their ideas from identifiers of class struggle
such as Francois-Noel Babeuf, the so called Father of Communism, and leader of the
Society of the Pantheon. These early socialists, Francois Marie Charles Fourier, Claude
Henri de Francois comte de Saint-Simon, and Flora Tristan, influenced Marxian
socialism and the later French socialist movement. Fourier, and Saint-Simon were
labeled utopian socialists by Friedrich Engels, a pejorative term indicating the
impracticality of their societies, while Tristan was a socialist feminist.
Francois Marie Charles Fourier (​ 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a man
from humble beginnings, growing up in a cloth merchant household. He denounced
industrialization and the factory system, as he saw that it hurt specialized, skilled
1
​Jackson, J. Hampden. ​Marx, Proudhon, and European Socialism​ . London: English
Universities Press, 1957.

2. workers, which included his family, and those whom he had spent most of his life with.
In addition, he saw industrialization as dehumanizing and monotonous, essentially
turning skilled labor into unskilled labor and making workers operate more like robots
than humans. He also associated industrialization with capitalism, which he blamed for
an unstable economy, and continuous cycles of inflation, which essentially destroyed all
of Fourier’s business ventures and enterprises. The lack of success in his ventures
stopped Fourier from climbing the social ladder, making him both scornful and envious
towards the bourgeoisie. This was followed by Fourier’s rejection by philosophers and
society, alike. Even though he was a traveling salesman and philosopher, he had no
formal education, therefore he was rejected by his fellow philosophical peers. In a way,
Fourier was a self-taught man, who, instead of attending University, gained his
knowledge and insight by reading books and being an apprentice of skilled workers.
Therefore, part of this dislike towards him came from the bourgeois who did not
appreciate the idea of the self-made man, and even saw it as a threat to their system of
inheritance. In addition to not having a formal education and coming from a lower-class
family, Fourier’s ideas, while he was alive, seemed bizarre and eccentric, thus casting
him as an outcast of society. This rejection and lack of acceptance towards him pushed
him to reject and denounce society as repressive, and unnatural, going against human
nature, a creation of God. Thus, he supported the idea of civilization reverting back to
natural law. To put forth his ideas of fixing civilization, he wrote several texts, most
importantly, “ The Theory of Four Movements and the General Destinies.” In these
texts, he promoted his utopian society, the phalanx, in which people are categorized

3. based upon their personality types and human passions, and placed into productive
teams. Fourier’s phalanxes had phalansteres, which included 1620 members of 810
different psychological types, with half men and half women. In his law of Passional
Attractions, there existed twelve fundamental passions categorized into sensual
passions, soulful, passions and disruptive passions. The sensual passions included the
five senses: touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste. The soulful passions included
friendship, love, ambition, and parenthood. And, the distributive passions which
included la papillone, la cabaliste, and la composide. Fourier believed that due to the
these passions, productive teams would produce the best work possible in an effort to
benefit society. It's important to mention that the teams were concerned mainly with
agricultural production, which was seen as more individualist, and joyous than industrial
production. He used the fundamental passions to promote his idea of sexual liberation,
which included multiple sexual partners due to one getting bored with just one, and
multiple jobs to combat the monotony of doing one job for extended periods of time. He
took this even further by allowing sexual partners to be of any sex, thus promoting a
safe and accepting environment for homosexuality. In relation to extensions in labor, a
worker was allowed to change their job whenever they got bored or started to feel the
labor as unpleasant. Moving on to women’s rights, Fourier was a radical feminist who
asserted that “ women’s condition in a given society is the best index of its progress.”2
As a result, he denounced patriarchy and marriage. Relating to patriarchy, he saw it as
oppressive towards women and proposed giving women work opportunities beyond the
2
​Andrews, Naomi Judith. ​Socialism's Muse: Gender in the Intellectual Landscape of
French Romantic Socialism. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006.

4. home. When it came to marriage, he thought of it as an institution that “ enslaved both
men and women” and was a form of prostitution. Also, he did not support the idea of3
the nuclear family and instead proposed a system by which children were raised by the
community, specifically wet nurses, instead of their parents. An interesting aspect of
Fourier’s phalanxes was that even though he supported the plight of the proletariat
class, he asserted that inequality was inevitable. With this assertion, he categorized
labor into three classes: necessary labor, useful labor, and agreeable labor. Workers of
necessary labor received the highest pay, while agreeable labor received the lowest
pay. In essence, Fourier claimed that eliminated poverty with his system, and instead of
everyone being wealthy, everyone was comfortable and content financially due
especially to harmony, an essential concept of the phalanxes. Adding on to harmony,
which Fourier saw as the fundamental law of the universe, no codes of law were drawn
up. This was because “Fourier had the view, not uncommon in this romantic age, that a
return to a state of nature would bring instant perfection and universal love.” In addition,4
he espoused a small government analogous to anarchy and libertarianism. He felt that
government was restrictive of human nature. So, he created a head of each phalanx, an
unarch, and an international head of all phalanxes, an omniarch. At the same time, he
did not support violence or radical change which was due to his close death during the
Revolution, where he observed that it all caused was death and destruction, not
harmony. Fourier’s idea of harmony culminated from music, an example of perfect
3
​Moses, Claire Goldberg, and Leslie W. Rabine. ​Feminism, Socialism, and French
Romanticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
4
​Pilbeam, Pamela M. ​French Socialists before Marx: Workers, Women and the Social
Question in France. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.

5. harmony, by which a society should mirror in an effort to reach from civilization to
harmony. It seems as though some of Fourier’s ideas pointed to an enslavement of
animals and technology benefitting the human race by which humans would become
lazy, idle creatures, comparable to that of the middle-class and first estate. This
statement implies that Fourier was envious of the affluent and hoped that everyone
could have this life style. While Fourier’s successes were minimal, his “ ideas found
acceptance in the U.S., where in the 1840s at least 29 communities were founded.”5
One of the most well-known example was Brook Farm in Massachusetts. To sum up
Fourier, he was a utopian socialist, who was a disciple of Rousseau, which not only
connects him to the Enlightenment, but also to the Romantic movement.
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May
1825) was a child of the aristocracy and the ancien regime. Therefore, his form of
socialism was different from other early socialists, as he was sympathetic towards the
aristocracy. For example, even though Saint-Simon advocated for collectivism of labor
and universal association, he did not want to get rid of the captains of industry or
abolish private property. Instead, he promoted the creation and introduction of a
technocratic society, led by the functional elite such as scientists, artisans, bankers
etc… With this, Saint-Simon demonstrated his support for the industrialization and mass
5
​Perry, Marvin, Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Anne Walthall, and James B. Palais.​Western
Civilization. Ideas, Politics and Society. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company, 2009.

6. production already found in Britain. Within Saint-Simon’s technocratic society,
“scientifically organized production” was promoted, which would ensure maximum and6
perfect efficiency and also, perhaps, a planned economy, in which market
inconsistencies and instability would be eliminated. Fourierists would have been critical
of this system as they would have seen it as a loss of individuality and form of
repression of human nature and passion. An interesting point of view of Saint-Simon,
since he was a child of the ancien regime, was that he “ condemned kings, nobles, and
prelates as useless and parasitical.” He even stated that those of the first estate stood7
in the way of progress, and were “ ignorant of the real needs of the nation.” In his work,8
Parable, published in 1819, he depicted the death, by shipwreck, of the first estate-
nobles, royalty,and the clergy- those of which he called idle, and posited that their
deaths would have minimal impact on society. He compared this with the deaths of the
“most learned men, talented bankers, artisans, and productive farmers” , which he9
argued would be disastrous for France, politically, and economically. Even though
Saint-Simon was highly critical of those he called idle, “ he saw no reason to conclude
that manual laborers could, on their own, organize and run an efficient, rational, and
otherwise desirable order.” He felt this way because he saw that during the10
6
​Jackson, J. Hampden. ​Marx, Proudhon, and European Socialism. London: English
Universities Press, 1957.
7
​Lindemann, Albert S. ​A History of European Socialism. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983.
8
​Pilbeam, Pamela M. ​French Socialists before Marx: Workers, Women and the Social Question
in France. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.
9
​Merriman, John M. ​A History of Modern Europe. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.
10
​Lindemann, Albert S. ​A History of European Socialism. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983.

7. Revolution, the poor, or as he referred to them, “the most numerous class”, could not
rule effectively, thus he wanted a technocratic society run by the captains of industry
and the intelligentsia. In addition, while Saint-Simon wanted to help and improve the
conditions of the poor, “ his desire was to protect … rather than elevate the masses.”11
This is proved by Saint-Simon’s acceptance of inequality, which he considered, along
with work, as the basis of society. It also supports the claim that Saint-Simon was not a
man of the common people or the masses, but an elitists, a characteristic birthed by his
childhood and upbringing. In regards to the Revolution, Saint-Simon was an avid
proponent, even though he was almost executed during it, because it attempted to
overthrow the first estate, he profited handsomely from smart investments. In relation to
women’s rights, Saint-Simon was feminist who envisaged a society where there was a
male and female ruler, indicating further his dislike of autocracy, ruled by a monarch. He
also supported “sexual egalitarianism” and even “ insisted that in the future, wives, as
equals to their husbands, would no longer change their names.” This is contradictory,12
a moderately ubiquitous trend in Saint-Simon’s writings, to his other idea that women
were weak, gentle beings, that shouldn’t leave the home, as it would relieve of them
their innocent nature. Another intriguing aspect of Saint-Simon’s writings is his take on
history. He claims that history goes through cycles which oscillate between “social
harmony and unity”, followed by “ anarchy, confusion, and social disorder.” This was13
11
​Hart, D. K. "Saint-Simon and the Role of the Elite." ​Political Research Quarterly17, no. 3
(1964): 423-31. doi:10.1177/106591296401700302
12
​Goldstein, Leslie F. "Early Feminist Themes in French Utopian Socialism: The St.-Simonians
and Fourier." ​Journal of the History of Ideas 43, no. 1 (1982): 91. doi:10.2307/2709162.
13
​Eckalbar, John C. "The Saint-Simonians in Industry and Economic Development."​American
Journal of Economics and Sociology Am J Economics & Sociology 38, no. 1 (1979): 83-96.
doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1979.tb02866.x.

8. followed by his belief that “history was a positive science and if history was thoroughly
studied… it was possible to foretell the future.” This sentiment was also shared by Karl14
Marx, the famous german, class struggle, socialist. Saint-Simon even extended history’s
clairvoyant tendencies to science, saying that “ it is because science has the means of
prediction that it is useful, and it makes the scientist superior to all men.” The above15
quote further illustrates Saint-Simon’s reason for a technocratic society and again
shows his liking towards economic planning. Saint-Simon’s espousal for economic
planning by technocrats is extended towards his dislike of government. For instance,
Saint-Simon believed in a limited government and asserted that the government’s only
purpose was to avoid anarchy, a libertarian sentiment. To expand on this, he also felt
that society was backwards and preferred an industrial state over a political state
because he believed that politics and elections solved nothing. And, along with limited
government, he envisioned the elimination and the police force and judges because
under his society, everyone, especially masses, would understand their roles in society,
and would therefore have an interest in maintaining order. He even said that due to
societal roles, the poor would accept inequality. Related to societal roles, religion’s
purpose was to keep the social order and to create love for others and society, along
with association, an important Saint-Simonian idea. At the same time, Saint-Simon was
highly critical of the current state of religion and asserted that current religion hindered
the progression of society and needed to change along with man. This is not say that
14
​Maciver, Alice M. "Saint-Simon and His Influence on Karl Marx." ​Economica, no. 6 (1922):
238. doi:10.2307/2548317.
15
​Hart, D. K. "Saint-Simon and the Role of the Elite." ​Political Research Quarterly17, no. 3
(1964): 423-31. doi:10.1177/106591296401700302

9. Saint-Simon supported atheism, quite the opposite, for he blamed atheism for disorder,
anarchy, and individualism.
In essence, Saint-Simon thought that science, along with Taylorism could solve class
conflicts and the problems of humanity. His influence was tremendous, influencing the
likes of german socialists such as Heine and Marx, thus helping France establish itself
as the cultural center of the world. And, it's important to note that Saint-Simon’s ideals
extended beyond the French Revolution and Enlightenment, and even included ideals
from the Scientific Revolution such as the scientific method and induction.
Flora Tristan (7 April 1803 in Paris – 14 November 1844) was a socialists
feminist who was born from a peruvian father and french mother. At the age of five, her
father died, and since children were considered to be the father’s, her mother received
nothing and Tristan lost all her inheritance. Not to mention, since her parent’s marriage
was religious and not civil, therefore meaning that under post revolutionary France, her
parents were not married and she was considered an illegitimate child. This resulted in
a huge financial burden on her mother, which led to her growing up in poverty.
Thus,Tristan, at a young age, decided, with much pressure from her mother, to marry
her employer, Andre Chazal, to help support her and her mother financially. This
caused Tristan to view marriage as a form of prostitution. Tristan birthed three children,
but eventually left Chazal, as he had become an abusive alcoholic to her and her
children. This reached a climax when Chazal shot Tristan, while she on her way home,
almost killing her. This resulted in a child custody court case, where Tristan was granted

10. full custody of her child, by much apprehension of the court, due to the abusiveness of
her husband and his attempted murder of her. In a separate court case, Chazal was
sent to prison for twenty years for the attempted murder of Tristan. She received much
publicity from this and used it to rally her cause. Growing up poor and raised by a single
mother, Tristan cared about two causes; the working class and women’s rights. To start,
she proposed the creation of a Workers’ Palace, which was a house for the working
class and their families and provided education and food for everyone. In addition, the
children were taken care of while the parents were at work. The Workers’ Palaces
essentially promoted the formation of Workers Unions, which were a more modern form
of guilds, and according to Tristan, these Workers Unions included men and women.
With this, she fought for equal pay for women in the workplace, and saw the palaces
and Workers Unions as “ the universal union of working men and working women and
as the sole remedy for the oppression of the laboring class.” Tristan’s reasons for16
supporting and helping the working class extended beyond her childhood. Throughout
her life, she had traveled to England several times, where she saw, first-hand, the
conditions of the industrial working class. Also, in early twenties, workers strikes were
prevalent. One of the reasons that Tristan is seen as more of a practical socialist versus
a utopian socialist is due to the fact that instead of creating a society where all problems
are alleviated, she called for helping and assisting the proletariats and making life more
bearable by providing a temporary safe haven. To help pay for her first Workers’
16
​Collins, Marie M., and Sylvie Weil-Sayre. 1973. “Flora Tristan: Forgotten Feminist and
Socialist”.​Nineteenth-century French Studies 1 (4). University of Nebraska Press: 229–34.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23535978.

11. Palace, Tristan traveled across France, speaking to women and the working class about
her vision. Her palaces were never funded. While she had a strong following, she had a
lack of support amongst middle-class women, who thought that her ideas were idealist.
For instance, in addition to what has already been stated, Tristan also supported
equality in marriage, rejected the patriarchy, and wanted to abolish capital punishment.
She also disagreed with the abolition of divorce and guilds under the Civil Code, put in
place, by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Divorce was important to her, as she was only
separated from her husband, which caused much criticism and scrutiny, and which
resulted in her being casted as an outcast by society. Also, Tristan saw herself as an
outsider and foreigner. An outsider, due to her being a woman, and a foreigner because
of her father’s place of birth. As a result, she wasn’t just a liberator of women and the
proletariat, but also a liberator of other oppressed people such as the blacks in Peru,
and the Irish, across the channel. Continuing on this path of liberation, Tristan accepted
and supported homosexuality, and may, according to some letters, have been bi-sexual.
An interesting thing about Tristan was that she was a devout religious woman, who saw
herself as the “ Woman Messiah.” In addition, she advocated for the wearing of the veil,
usually a sign of oppression according to western civilization. She advocated for the
wearing of the veil because it gave women anonymity, which in turn gave them
freedom, and they were no longer someone’s widow and wife, but simply a person
walking in society, free from scrutiny. This in part was due to Tristan’s internal conflict
about who she was and her identity. To end things, Tristan advocated for the betterment
of female education, particularly girls, and for the creation and introduction for

12. professional training schools for women. It’s important to note, that when Tristan was
young, she supported and was a disciple of Gracchus Babeuf, but as she matured and
moved towards pacifism, she became a devout follower of Charles Fourier, in particular,
but also a follower of Henri Saint-Simon.
Fourier and Tristan were both outsiders who were not accepted by society
therefore they fought against societal norms by creating societies where the oppressed
could be accepted and free. They both also denounced the industrial factory system
and supported the proletariat. In addition, they both felt that civilization had a negative
impact on the people of society. This was followed by their advocacy for the
emancipation of the women, and equality between the sexes. Finally, while they both
dispised capitalism and private poverty, Tristan was seen as a practical socialist, while
Fourier was seen as a utopian socialist.
Fourier and Saint-Simon had agreements and disagreements with each other’s
policies. For example, while both of them wanted the elimination of government, they
came from different socio-economic classes therefore Fourier advocated against
industrialization, while Saint-Simon was in favor. Also, Saint-Simon supported the
Revolution while Fourier did not, and Fourier was a deist with little religious believe,
while Saint-Simon supported religion has crucial to society.

13. Saint-Simon and Tristan were both pacificst who did not support violence and
supported women’s rights. Yet, Saint-Simon saw women as dependent, while Tristan
saw them independent and just as capable as men.
Bibliography
1. Jackson, J. Hampden. ​Marx, Proudhon, and European Socialism. London:
English Universities Press, 1957.
2. Andrews, Naomi Judith. ​Socialism's Muse: Gender in the Intellectual Landscape
of French Romantic Socialism. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006.
3. Moses, Claire Goldberg, and Leslie W. Rabine. ​Feminism, Socialism, and French
Romanticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
4. Pilbeam, Pamela M. ​French Socialists before Marx: Workers, Women and the
Social Question in France. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.
5. Perry, Marvin, Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Anne Walthall, and James B.
Palais.​Western Civilization. Ideas, Politics and Society. Boston, MA: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2009.
6. Jackson, J. Hampden. ​Marx, Proudhon, and European Socialism. London:
English Universities Press, 1957.
7. Lindemann, Albert S. ​A History of European Socialism. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983.
8. Pilbeam, Pamela M. ​French Socialists before Marx: Workers, Women and the
Social Question in France. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.
9. Merriman, John M. ​A History of Modern Europe. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.
10.Lindemann, Albert S. ​A History of European Socialism. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983.

14. 11.Hart, D. K. "Saint-Simon and the Role of the Elite." ​Political Research
Quarterly17, no. 3 (1964): 423-31. doi:10.1177/106591296401700302
12.Goldstein, Leslie F. "Early Feminist Themes in French Utopian Socialism: The
St.-Simonians and Fourier." ​Journal of the History of Ideas 43, no. 1 (1982): 91.
doi:10.2307/2709162.
13.Eckalbar, John C. "The Saint-Simonians in Industry and Economic
Development."​American Journal of Economics and Sociology Am J Economics &
Sociology 38, no. 1 (1979): 83-96. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1979.tb02866.x.
14.Maciver, Alice M. "Saint-Simon and His Influence on Karl Marx." ​Economica, no.
6 (1922): 238. doi:10.2307/2548317.
15.Hart, D. K. "Saint-Simon and the Role of the Elite." ​Political Research
Quarterly17, no. 3 (1964): 423-31. doi:10.1177/106591296401700302
16.Collins, Marie M., and Sylvie Weil-Sayre. 1973. “Flora Tristan: Forgotten Feminist
and Socialist”.​Nineteenth-century French Studies 1 (4). University of Nebraska
Press: 229–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23535978.