Click on the headline to link to the archives of the Occupy Boston General Assembly minutes from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. The General Assembly is the core political institution of the Occupy movement. Some of the minutes will reflect the growing pains of that movement and its concepts of political organization. Note that I used the word embryo in the headline and I believe that gives a fair estimate of its status, and its possibilities.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:
“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the ‘new world’ we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”
A couple of the people that I have talked to lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)
I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one.
Previous historical models readily come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.
In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right of public and private sector workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dues on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
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Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
“Universal Harmony”
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Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
First Published: Manuscrits de Charles Fourier. Année 1851.
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
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The calculus of Harmony, for which Madame A. F. seeks publicity, is a discovery that the human race was far from expecting. It is a mathematical theory concerning the destinies of all the globes and their inhabitants, a theory of the sixteen social orders which can be established on the diverse globes throughout eternity.
Of the sixteen possible societies, only three are to be seen on our globe: Savagery, Barbarism and Civilisation. Soon they will come to an end, and all the nations of the earth will enter the fifteenth stage which is Simple Harmony.
Great men of all the centuries! Newton and Leibnitz, Voltaire and Rousseau, do you know in what you are great? In blindness. You will soon seem like no more than great madmen for having thought that civilisation was the social destiny of the human race. How could you have failed to understand that these three societies, the savage, the barbarian and the civilised, are but rungs to be climbed, that they are reason’s age of childhood and imbecility, and that God would be improvident if he had conceived of nothing better adapted to human happiness? These three societies are the most disastrous among the sixteen. Of the sixteen there are seven which will see the establishment of perpetual peace, universal unity, the liberty of women.
I owe this astonishing discovery to the analytic and synthetic calculus of passionate attraction which our savants have deemed unworthy of attention during their two thousand five hundred years of study. They have discovered the laws of material movement; that’s all very well, but it doesn’t get rid of poverty. It was necessary to discover the laws of social movement. Their invention is going to lead the human race to opulence, to sensual pleasures, to the unity of the globe. I repeat, this theory will be geometrical and applied to the physical sciences. It is not an arbitrary doctrine like the political and moral sciences, which are going to meet a sad fate. There is going to be a great disaster at the libraries.
If ever war was deplorable, it is at this moment. Soon the victors will be on the same level as the vanquished. What point is there in conquests when the entire globe will comprise but a single nation, will be run by a single administration? In spite of this unity, there will be no equality in harmony.
To the chief of France can be reserved the honour of extracting the human race from social chaos, of being the founder of Harmony and the liberator of the globe. The rewards which this honour entails will not be modest, and they will be transmitted in perpetuity to the descendants of the founder.
Some readers will cry out: “dream,” “visionary.” Patience! In a short time we will wake them from their own frightful dream, the dream of civilisation. Blind savants, just look at your cities paved with beggars, your citizens struggling against hunger, your battlefields and all your social infamies. Do you still believe that civilisation is the destiny of the human race? Or was J.-J. Rousseau right in saying of the civilised: “These are not men; there is a disorder in things, the cause of which we have not yet fathomed.”
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Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
“Letter to the High Judge”
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Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
Written: December 1803;
First Published: Lettre de Fourier au Grand Juge , Charles Pellarin (ed.), Paris, 1874 and as an appendix to J-J. Hemardinquer, “Notes critiques sur le jeune Fourier,” Le Mouvement social, No. 48 (July-September, 1964), pp. 50-69.
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
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Lyon, 4 Nivose, Year XI[1]
Citizen High Judge:
It is with respect to a trivial matter that I am going to bring you great news. Allow me half a page concerning this trifle which is the occasion for the revelation of universal harmony.
I have been informed that a few individuals have sent you their critical comments about my article on the “Triumvirate” of which I am enclosing a copy. It seems to me that the police commissioner handles the matter perfectly well. I have talked with him, and I will follow his instructions.
On a number of occasions I have sent political missives to the Directory or to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I have always received complimentary letters in reply. I presume that the article on the “Triumvirate” will likewise be appreciated in its essence, even though it might be deficient in its style since it was written hastily. Although the ideas which it contains run counter to current policies, they are only all the more worthy of attention. The situation is menacing. Upon the outbreak of continental war, one of the two German empires will be divided up, and then the triumvirate will be a reality. From the outset it will actually be no more than a duumvirate; for Germany, unprotected and caught between the two rivals, will become a vassal of one or the other. But the duumvirate will still be only a trap for France; and when I warn my country that it is likely to be defeated in a subsequent conflict, that Russia will have the means to strike some decisive blows, and that France will have very few advantages in its favor, I am asserting nothing that I could not prove in the greatest detail. I dare to believe that this warning will win the approbation of the government rather than its disapproval, and that the printer who published it, out of confidence in me, will be given no trouble.[2]
But this is not the matter which I propose to discuss with you. These disputes of civilisation are no more than child’s play in the present circumstances. An event of much greater importance is brewing, and I wish to make it known to the government:
Universal Social Harmony and the Imminent Collapse of the Civilised, Barbarian and Savage Societies.
I am the inventor of the mathematical calculus of the destinies, a calculus which Newton had within his grasp without realising it. He determined the laws of material attraction, and I have discovered those of passionate attraction, a theory approached by no one before me.
Passionate attraction is the archetype according to which God has regulated all the modifications of matter, the order of universal movement and the social movement of the human inhabitants of all the worlds.
As long as a globe fails to calculate the laws of attraction by analysis and synthesis, its reason advances from shadow to shadow; it cannot acquire the slightest notion of the laws which govern the universe, of the social destinies, the goal of the passions, etc.
The theory of the destinies can be divided into three principal branches:
First. The theory of the creations, that is to say the determination of the plans adopted by God concerning the modifications of matter, including everything from the cosmogony of the universes and the invisible stars to the most minute alterations of matter in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The plans followed by God in the distribution of passions, properties, forms, colours, tastes, etc. to the diverse substances.
Second. The social movement, that is to say the future and past destinies of human societies on the diverse globes, their ordonnance, their revolutions, their characters, etc.
Third. Immortality or the future and past destiny of God and of souls in the diverse worlds which they have traversed and will traverse throughout eternity.
You see, Citizen Minister, that the complete elaboration of this prodigious theory would be much too difficult a task for one man or even for several. Thus I have devoted myself primarily to the most urgent calculation, that of the social movement and the societary destiny of the industrious nations. I have determined the whole mechanism of Harmony in its smallest details, from the methods of its central administration down to the most minute aspects of its domestic relations, which are diametrically opposed to our own.
As for calculations other than that of the social movement, I have limited myself to finding the key, to making trials in each of the fixed sciences[3] and even in the fixed arts like music. I will hand over that key to the savants; it will be a prize which will provide them with ample means of winning fame. I will keep for myself only the honour of having opened the way for them, but I will have all to myself the honour of the discovery of the laws of universal harmony
It is obvious that if this discovery could not satisfy the passions of great men and sovereigns, it would be useless and ridiculous to announce the imminence of Harmony; if it offered them no more than three times the advantages of their present situation, they would decide to remain in civilisation. This is something which I had to anticipate. But their pleasures in the new order will be so prodigious that they will become its most enthusiastic partisans, for their souls and senses are more practiced than those of the vulgar, more apt at appreciating and savouring states of happiness.
The laws of Harmony should have been discovered 2300 years ago; they have remained unknown due to the inadvertence and pride of the three metaphysical, moral and political sciences. These sciences have failed to determine the functions and duties of God. They should have recognised that God owes men a social code. To discover this code they should have opened an inquiry concerning the means of revelation employed by God to make his designs known to us. Attraction, which explains the designs of God with regard to the stars and the animals, is also the organ of God with regard to human beings. Its synthesis forms the code for the reign of social harmony which is going to last approximately sixty thousand years. After that, the cooling of the globe will bring a marked decline in luxury. With the final disappearance of luxury, which is the pivot. of Harmony, the human race will fall back into subversion. Mankind will complete its course as it began by traversing the civilised, barbarian and savage societies and others which belong to the subversive order.[4]
Since the announcement of this discovery will help bring about peace in the measure that it wins the confidence of the government, I ought, Citizen High Judge, to explain it to you in a detailed memorandum. But since my right hand is sprained and in bad condition for writing, I cannot devote myself now to the composition of a lengthy essay. The details of Harmony are so extraordinary that a superficial explanation would be quite inadequate. If you wish, I will go into a few details. but given the state of my sprained hand, I can scarcely promise more than two large sheets like this one.
Being the sole possessor of the theory of social movement, I shall not give it away to the public. Instead I shall make known only the superficial aspects of the calculus, taking precautions so that its essence and the solutions to the problems it raises may be safeguarded for the French government. Thus the First Consul cannot be beaten out by any other prince in the establishment of Harmony. He will be assured of no competition for the title of Primate or Emperor of the Globe, a title to be conferred by right upon the founder. There is no impertinence or charlatanism about this, for the calculus is correct, mathematical and invariable.
Do not suppose, Citizen High Judge, that this discovery could become a rallying point for fanatics and intriguers. On the contrary it offers a sure means of foiling the civil and political trouble makers of all countries. For the whole earth is going to enjoy a better lot. Poverty will be completely eliminated; and a graduated metamorphosis will turn the poor class into a middle class, will bring opulence to the bourgeois, splendour to the opulent, and so forth. This perspective, which is well substantiated and confirmed by all conceivable proofs, will wither the seeds of civil or political discord and calm the most turbulent individuals.
Permit me a few lines of argument. Poverty is the principal cause of social disorders. Inequality, so much maligned by the philosophers, is not displeasing to men. On the contrary, the bourgeois delights in hierarchy; he loves to see the bigwigs decked out and parading in their best finery. The poor man views them with the same enthusiasm. Only if he lacks what is necessary does he begin to detest his superiors and the customs of society. This is the origin of social disorders, crimes and of the gallows, that sad bastion of the civilised order. It is easy to prove that all social crimes committed out of ambition proceed from the poverty of the people, from their efforts to escape poverty, from the anxiety which is instilled in society by the presence of poverty, from the fear of falling into it, and from disgust for the odious habits which it encourages.
For social science there is thus only one problem to resolve, that of the graduated metamorphosis which I have mentioned. By this I mean the art of raising each of the classes of civilisation to the condition of the class above it. Then indigence and discomfort will be eliminated, since the lower class will have become the middle class and will enjoy an honest comfort like our petty bourgeois who are far removed indeed from a spirit of sedition.[5] When the people enjoy constant comfort and a decent minimum, all the sources of discord will be dried up or reduced to very little. Administration will become child’s play, and in Harmony the government of the whole planet will be much less complicated than that of a civilised empire.
To eliminate poverty it was necessary to conceive of an industrial system more productive than our own. Such will be universal harmony which will produce at least triple — yes, without exaggeration — at least triple the yield of the civilised system in a well-cultivated empire. Accordingly, while Harmony will greatly increase the wealth of the well-to-do, it will bring about an excessive increase in that of the people, to whom it will guarantee a salary or in old age a decent minimum below which they cannot fall. This beneficence will be all the more simple in that humanity will reproduce much less in Harmony than in civilisation.
This is far removed from the theories of the philosophers, some of whom, the Demagogues, seek to rob the rich to provide for the poor.[6] The others, who are called the Economists, do not have the welfare of the people in mind.[7] They think only of enriching empires without worrying themselves about the fate of the individual. Thus the theories of the Economists have greatly enriched England without enriching the English. According to the Tableau de Londres[8] you can find 115,000 paupers, prostitutes, thieves, beggars and unemployed in the city of London alone; the workers of Scotland live in a frightful state of misery. This is nonetheless the consequence of the modern systems which claim to alleviate the suffering of the people.
Furthermore, just as Steuart[9] prophesied, none of the philosophical theories has proved adequate to deal with the problem of excessive population. The civilised reproduce too much, produce too little, and waste vast quantities of food, labour, time, energy, etc. Count Rumford[10] and Cadet de Vaux[11] are the only writers I know who have understood the vice of civilised societies. These societies are going to reduce the common people to the most frightful poverty everywhere except in new areas like the United States where labour is lacking. The source of this widespread indigence is excessive procreation. Nevertheless humanity will be able to multiply for about eighty more years in order to bring the globe to its full size of three billion inhabitants. Once this number is reached, however, the population will remain fixed in Harmony. What would be the point of having swarms of excess population once wars are abolished? Excessive numbers of people will become so useless that France, for its part, will disgorge about five million of its inhabitants who will find homes in Spain, the Ukraine, etc.
Let us summarise the problem which I have just raised: it is to prove that three billion inhabitants in the order of Harmony will be just as productive as nine or ten billion in civilisation. Of course this prodigious increase in wealth would be illusory if Harmony failed to eliminate the seeds of human discord, such as war, which neutralise the efforts of men and absorb the fruits of their industry, no matter how great they may be.
Note well that this prospect of future happiness does not rest solely upon an enormous increase in wealth. For even a Lucullus would be most unhappy if his dominant passions were not satisfied. The opulence of Harmony will merely be an agent of happiness, merely a means for the development and gratification of a huge number of brilliant passions which are unknown in civilisation and will be revealed in Harmony. For what is it to be happy if not to feel and gratify an immense number of harmless passions? Such will be the lot of men when they are delivered from the civilised, barbarian and savage states. Their passions will be so numerous, so explosive and so varied that the rich man will spend his life in a sort of permanent frenzy and the twenty-four hours of his day will fly by like one.
You can tell from this sketch, Citizen High Judge, that the announcement of this discovery will be a source of concord, a balm poured on the wounds of the human race. The certainty of such a brilliant metamorphosis will paralyse the ambitious and throw trouble makers into a state of apathy; it will inspire a profound disdain for the tumult, the torment, the perfidies and the injustices of civilisation; the widespread feeling to which it will give rise will be that of Charity. Everyone will understand the necessity of working together to ease the lot of the poor until the establishment of Harmony will free them from want. This charitable impulse will be the more spontaneous in that when the Spherical Hierarchy is constituted, it will reimburse all the alms which have been provisionally voted.
It is necessary, Citizen High Judge, to advise you of a comic incident which will follow the revelation of the theory of social movement. It is going to deal a mortal blow to the political and moral philosophies and, in addition, an incurable wound to metaphysics. These three sciences have engendered and sustained poverty, perfidy and ignorance of the destinies. ... The disgrace of these three sciences will be a misfortune of very little importance. As soldiers say: “You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.” Thus, in the encounter of truth and sophistry, some sciences have got to crack. Humanity will lose a great many books, but it will win happiness, affluence and peace for sixty thousand years. That’s sufficient consolation! ...
You may be astonished that I have waited four years before publishing my discovery. Here is the explanation for this delay. At the time of the discovery, I was a merchant’s clerk at Marseille. I quit work to go to Paris to study the fixed sciences and apply them all to, the calculus of passionate attraction. I studied with ardour, and in three or four years I would have applied all the sciences. But after eight or nine months misfortunes befell me. I had to break off my studies and resume my work as a merchant’s clerk at Lyon where I found a job. Driven to despair by this bad turn of events, I wished to safeguard my discovery until I regained the wealth necessary to continue my studies. I was too proud to share the glory with the savants. But since then I have undergone so much disgrace and illness that I renounce my plans for study. I will no longer deprive the physicists and naturalists of the honour of embellishing the core of my theory with the demonstrative analogies which their sciences can provide once I give them the appropriate clues. As a result of this delay, the calculus will have undergone the trial advised by Horace: novum prematur in annum.[12] It was quite unnecessary, for passionate attraction is as invariable as physics. If there are seven colours in the spectrum, there are seven primitive passions in the soul. If there are four arcs in a conic section, there are four groups of passionate attraction, and their properties are just the same as those of conic sections. Nothing can vary in my theory.
In order that this invention may provide me with a refuge from the poverty which pursues me, I have decided to open a subscription. It will be a success if the government grants me just one favour: I simply need permission to publicise the invention in the Paris journals. ... Without your authorisation, Citizen High Judge, my subscription will fail, the journals will not want to concern themselves with this discovery. I dare hope for the protection of the government, since it can be certain that I will not divulge any solutions and that the curious would vainly split their heads trying to solve the problems which I will leave unanswered. If they don’t know the secret, their efforts will be in vain. In any case there are not two people on the globe who have a flair for the problems of passionate attraction; they are too overwhelming in their immensity and in their frightful simplicity.
In unveiling before you the prospect of the welfare of all humanity, perpetual peace, the imminent cessation of poverty and crime, and the elevation of the First Consul to a position of world supremacy, I am sure, Citizen High Judge, to provoke not your doubts but your hopes concerning the veracity of the calculus. If it had not been revealed earlier and if the First Consul were now acquainted with the laws of social movement, he would be able to fool England completely by signing a peace treaty based on the expectation of the coming revolution. This humiliation of a trouble-making cabinet would be a brilliant jest with which to bring an end to civilisation.
Among the social benefits which I have unveiled before you, I should not forget to announce that two years after the establishment of Harmony we will see the end of all accidental ills, venereal epidemics, smallpox, yellow fever, etc. As soon as the Spherical Hierarchy is constituted, it will impose a quarantine on syphilitic diseases. At the same time the Primate of the globe will recruit about twenty million pioneers to cleanse foul regions. Thus the extinction of accidental maladies will take place within two or three years.
Any brilliant discovery subjects its author to the attacks of the envious. If Columbus, Galileo and other great men could be excommunicated for being ahead of their time, people may also try to blacken my reputation. But we are no longer living in an age of superstition. The conqueror of destiny fears nothing under the reign of the conqueror of success.
I summarise, Citizen High Judge, the two requests which I have to make of you:
1st: the authorisation to have separate articles inserted in the Paris journals, leaving them the latitude to make all necessary corrections, according to the intentions of the censorship which I shall try to anticipate.
2nd: the communication of my letter or a copy to the First Consul. I do not know how to get it directly to him, and I am counting on your help in this matter. He cannot fail to be moved at the idea of rescuing the human race from social chaos, of banishing poverty and crime forever from the face of the earth, and of becoming the terrestrial arm of God, of directing mankind to its destiny. He will not mistrust the man who offers him such a future. Extremes touch; if I am unknown and destitute, I expect to inspire the confidence of the first of men by the very excess of my obscurity.
I have the honour to offer you my respectful salutations,
Fourrier
Chez Madame Guyonnet, marchande
rue Saint-Come, à Lyon
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Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
“Indices and Methods which led to the Discovery”
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Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
First Published: 1808 in Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinées génerales;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
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I was thinking of nothing less than of research concerning the Destinies; I shared the widespread view which considers them to be impenetrable and which relegates any calculation about the destinies to a place among the visions of the astrologers and the magicians. The studies which led me up to the discovery centred simply around the industrial and political problems that I am now going to discuss.
After the philosophers had demonstrated their incapacity in their experimental venture, in the French Revolution, everyone agreed in regarding their science as an aberration of the human mind; their floods of political and moral enlightenment seemed to be nothing more than floods of illusions. Well! what else can be found in the writings of these savants who, after having perfected their theories for twenty-five centuries, after having accumulated all the wisdom of the ancients and moderns, begin by engendering calamities as numerous as the benefits which they promised, and help push civilised society back toward the state of barbarism? Such was the consequence of the first five years during which the philosophical theories were inflicted on France.
After the catastrophe of 1793, illusions were dissipated, the political and moral sciences were irretrievably blighted and discredited. From that point on people should have understood that there was no happiness to be found in acquired learning, that social welfare had to be sought in some new science, and that new paths had to be opened to political genius. It was evident that neither the philosophers nor their rivals possessed a remedy for the social distresses, and that their dogmas only served to perpetuate the most disgraceful calamities, among others poverty.
Such was the first consideration which led me to suspect the existence of a still-unknown Social Science and which provoked me to try to discover it. Far from taking fright at my lack of knowledge, I thought only about the honour of laying hold of what the savants had been unable to discover for twenty-five centuries.
I was encouraged by numerous symptoms of the aberration of reason and particularly by the spectacle of the calamities afflicting social industry: poverty, unemployment, the success of rascality, acts of maritime piracy, commercial monopoly, the abduction of slaves, finally other misfortunes too numerous to mention and which give one cause to ask whether civilised industry is not a calamity invented by God in order to punish the human race.
All this led me to suppose that some reversal of the natural order had taken place within industry; that it was perhaps functioning in a manner contrary to the designs of God; that the tenacity of so many scourges could be attributed to the absence of some arrangement willed by God and unknown to our savants. Finally I thought that if the human societies are suffering, as Montesquieu put it, “from a lingering disease, an inner vice, a secret and hidden venom,” one might find the remedy by avoiding the paths followed for so many centuries and with such bad luck by our uncertain sciences.[13] Thus I adopted as my rules of research the principles of absolute doubt and absolute deviation. These two methods must be defined, since before me no one had ever made use of them.
1st. absolute doubt. Descartes had an inkling; but while praising and recommending doubt, he used it in a limited and inappropriate way. He raised ridiculous doubts; he doubted his own existence and spent more time distilling the sophisms of the ancients than looking for useful truths.
Descartes’ successors made even less use of doubt than he. They applied the method only to things which displeased them; for instance, they raised questions about the necessity of religions because they were the antagonists of the priests. But they were very careful not to raise questions about the necessity of the political and moral sciences which were their means of subsistence, and which are today recognised as very useless under strong governments and as very dangerous under weak governments.
Since I had no relations with any scientific party, I resolved to apply the method of doubt to the opinions of all the parties without prejudice, and to suspect even those dispositions which had won universal assent. Such is civilisation, which is the idol of all the philosophical parties and to which they attribute the ultimate of perfection. However, what is more imperfect than this civilisation which drags all calamities in its wake? What is more questionable than its necessity and its future permanence? Isn’t it probable that it is only a stage in the life of society? If it has been preceded by three other societies, Savagery, Patriarchate and Barbarism, does it follow that it will be the last because it is the fourth? Could not others still be born, and won’t we see a fifth, a sixth, a seventh social order which will perhaps be less disastrous than civilisation, and which have remained unknown because we have never attempted to discover them? Thus the method of Doubt must be applied to civilisation; we must doubt its necessity, its excellence and its permanence. These are problems which the philosophers don’t dare to face, because in suspecting civilisation, they would call attention to the nullity of their own theories, which are all linked to civilisation, and which will all collapse with it as soon as a better social order is found to replace it.
Thus the philosophers have limited themselves to a Partial Doubt because they have books and corporate prejudices to uphold; and fearing to compromise the books and the coterie, they have always equivocated on the important questions. But I who had no party to defend could adopt the method of Absolute Doubt and apply it first of all to civilisation and to its most deeply rooted prejudices.
2nd. absolute deviation. I had presumed that the surest means of making useful discoveries was to deviate in every way from the paths followed by the uncertain sciences, which had never made the slightest discovery useful to society, and which, in spite of the immense progress of industry, had not even succeeded in warding off poverty. Thus I made it my business to remain in constant opposition to these sciences. Taking into consideration the multitude of their writers, I presumed that any subject which they had treated ought to be completely exhausted, and I resolved to apply myself only to problems which none of them had treated.
Accordingly, I avoided any inquiry into matters concerning the interests of the throne and altar, about which the philosophers have busied themselves ceaselessly ever since the origin of their science. They have always sought social welfare in administrative or religious innovations. I applied myself, on the contrary, to seeking the good only in operations which would have nothing to do either with administration or with the priesthood, which would rely only on industrial or domestic measures, and which would be compatible with all governments without requiring their intervention.
In following these two guides, Absolute Doubt concerning all prejudices, and Absolute Deviation from all known theories, I was sure to discover some new field of speculation, if any remained; but I scarcely expected to grasp the calculus of the Destinies. Far from aiming so high, I devoted myself at first only to very ordinary problems such as Agricultural Association... . When I began to speculate on this matter, I would myself never have presumed that such a modest calculation could lead to the theory of the Destinies. But since it has become the key to the theory, it is indispensable for me to speak about it at some length. ...
More than once people have supposed that incalculable savings and ameliorations would result if one could bring together the inhabitants of a village in an industrial society, if one could associate two or three hundred families of unequal wealth according to their capital and their work. At first the idea seems completely impractical because of the obstacle that would be presented by the human passions. The obstacle seems particularly great because the passions cannot be overcome by gradual degrees. It is scarcely possible to create an agricultural association of twenty, thirty, forty or fifty individuals. But at least eight hundred are necessary to establish a natural or attractive association. I mean by these words a society whose members would be inspired to work by rivalry, self-esteem and other stimuli compatible with self-interest. In the order to which I refer we will become passionately enthusiastic about agricultural work which is so irksome today that we only do it out of necessity and the fear of dying of hunger.
I will not discuss the stages of my research concerning the problem of natural association. It is a system so foreign to our ways that I am in no hurry to describe it in detail. It would seem ridiculous if I did not first provide the reader with a glimpse of the immense advantages which it will yield.
An agricultural association of roughly a thousand people offers such immense advantages that it is difficult to explain the fact that our modern philosophers have shown no interest in the idea. There is a group of savants, the economists, who are supposed to be particularly interested in industrial ameliorations. Their failure to search for a method of association is all the more inconceivable in that they have themselves indicated several of the advantages which will result from association. For instance, they have recognised, as anyone else could have done, that three hundred families of associated villagers could have just a single well-kept granary instead of three hundred run-down granaries, a single wine-vat instead of three hundred poorly maintained vats. In many cases, and especially in summer, these villagers could have just three or four large ovens instead of three hundred. They could send a single dairymaid to town with a wagon bearing a cask of milk and thus save a hundred other dairymaids the time and trouble it takes to carry their pitchers into town. These are just a few of the savings that diverse observers have recognised; and yet they have not indicated one-twentieth of the advantages which will result from agricultural association... .
Disputatious people are sure to raise objections. “How can you form an association out of families when one may have 100,000 livres and another may be penniless? How can you reconcile so many conflicting interests and desires? How can you absorb all their jealousies in such a way as to serve everyone’s interest?” My reply to all this is: by the enticement of wealth and pleasure. The strongest passion of both peasants and city people is the love of profit. When they see that a societary community yields a profit three times that of a community of incoherent families and provides all its members with the most varied pleasures, they will forget all their rivalries and hasten to form an association. The system will be adopted everywhere without the application of any form of constraint, for people everywhere are passionately devoted to wealth and pleasure.
To summarise, this theory of agricultural association, which is going to change the condition of the human race, appeals to the passions which are common to all men; it seduces them with the enticements of profit and sensual pleasure. That is why it is sure to succeed among the savages and barbarians as well as the civilised, for the passions are the same everywhere.
There is no urgency about making known this new system to which I will give the name progressive series, or series of groups, passionate series.[14] By these words I mean to designate an assemblage of several associated groups whose members are devoted to different branches of a single industry or a single passion... . The theory of passionate series or progressive series has not been conceived arbitrarily like our social theories. The ordonnance of these series is entirely analogous to that of a geometrical series. Both have the same properties such as the balance of rivalry between the extreme groups and the intermediate groups of the series... .
People have regarded the passions as enemies of concord and have written thousands of volumes against them. These volumes are going to fall into nothingness. For the passions tend only to concord, to that social unity which we have thought was so alien to them. But the passions can only be harmonised if they are allowed to develop in an orderly fashion within the progressive series or series of groups. Outside of this mechanism the passions are only unchained tigers, incomprehensible enigmas. For this reason the philosophers have claimed that they must be repressed. Their opinion is doubly absurd since the passions cannot be repressed and since, if they could, civilisation would rapidly disappear and man would rapidly fall back into a nomadic state in which the passions would be even more harmful than they are now. I have no more faith in the virtues of the shepherds than in those of their apologists.
The societary order which is going to replace the incoherence of civilisation has no place for moderation or equality or any of the other philosophical notions. It requires ardent and refined passions. As soon as an association is formed, the passions will harmonise with greater ease if they are more intense and more numerous.
This is not to say that the new order will change the passions. Neither God nor man is capable of changing them; but it is possible to change their direction without changing their nature... . Thus if I maintain that in the societary order men will acquire tastes which are different from those which they have at present, that they will prefer to live in the country rather than the city, one should not believe that in acquiring new tastes they will acquire new passions. They will still be guided by the love of wealth and pleasure.
I insist on this point to meet an objection which has been raised by certain obtuse individuals. When they hear me talk about the new tastes and customs which will emerge in the societary order, they immediately exclaim: “So you want to change the passions!” Certainly not. But what I do want to do is to provide them with new means of expression, to assure them three or four times the development which they have in the incoherent order in which we live. This is why we will see civilised people acquire an aversion for habits which please them today, such as family life. In the family system children spend all their time crying, quarrelling, breaking things and refusing to work. But when these same children have joined the progressive series or series of groups, they will become industrious; they will try to emulate each other’s accomplishments without any outside encouragement; they will enthusiastically try to inform themselves about agriculture, manufacturing, science and art.’ they will perform useful tasks while they think they are amusing themselves. When fathers witness this new order o f things, they will find their children adorable in the series and detestable in the incoherent household. Then they will observe that in the residence of a phalanx (this is the name I give to the association which farms a rural area) people are served marvellous food... . Finally they will discover that in the activities and relations of the series there is never any cheating, and that people who are so dishonest and crude in civilisation will become paragons of honesty and refinement in the series. When they have seen all this they will acquire an aversion for the household, the cities and the civilisation of which they are now so fond. They will want to associate themselves in the series of a Phalanx and live in its edifice. Will they have changed their passions in becoming disdainful of the customs and tastes which please them today? No, their passions will have changed their means of expression without having changed their nature or their ultimate goal.
Thus one should beware of supposing that the system of the progressive series, which will be entirely different from that of civilisation, will bring about the slightest change in the passions. The passions have been and will remain immutable. They will produce conflict and poverty outside of the progressive series and harmony and opulence in the societary state which is our destiny. The establishment of the societary order in a single community will be spontaneously imitated everywhere thanks to the immense profits and innumerable pleasures which that order will assure to all individuals, however poor or wealthy they may be.
I shall turn now to the results of this discovery from a scientific standpoint... . As to the new sciences which it has revealed, I shall confine myself to indicating the two most important ones. Since these matters will not interest most of my readers, I shall try to be as brief as possible.
The first science which I discovered was the theory of passionate attraction. When I recognised that the progressive series assure full development to the passions of both men and women, of the young and the old, and of people in every social class, when I discovered that in this new order a great number of passions will be a guarantee of strength and wealth, I surmised that if God had given so much influence to passionate attraction and so little to its enemy, reason, His purpose was to guide us to the system of progressive series which is completely consistent with attraction. Then I supposed that attraction, which is so much maligned by the philosophers, must be the interpreter of the designs of God concerning the social order. By this means I arrived at the analytic and synthetic calculus of passionate attractions and repulsions. This calculus cannot fail to culminate in agricultural association. Thus if anyone had attempted to study attraction analytically and synthetically, he would have discovered the laws of association without seeking them. This is something that no one has ever dreamed of. Even in the eighteenth century, when analytical methods were so popular, no one ever tried to apply them to attraction.
The theory of passionate attractions and repulsions is an exact science and wholly applicable to geometrical theorems. It has great ramifications and can become the sustenance of the philosophers who are, I believe, very much in need of some luminous and useful problem on which to exercise their metaphysical talents.
I continue my discussion of the filiation of the new sciences. I soon recognised that the laws of passionate attraction were in complete accord with the laws of material attraction, as explained by Newton and Leibnitz, and that there was a unified system of movement governing the material world and the spiritual world.
I suspected that this analogy might apply to particular laws as well as to general ones, and that the attractions and properties of the animals, vegetables and minerals were perhaps coordinated with the same scheme as those of man and the stars. After making the necessary investigations, I became convinced of this. Thus a new exact science was discovered: the analogy of the material, organic, animal and social movements, or the analogy of the modifications of matter with the mathematical theory of the passions of man and the animals.[15]
The discovery of these two exact sciences revealed others to me. It would be useless to list them all here. But they include everything up to literature and the arts, and they will permit the establishment of exact methods in all’ the domains of human knowledge.
Once I had discovered the two theories of attraction and the unity of the four movements, I began to make sense of the book of nature. One by one, I found the answers to its mysteries. I had lifted the veil that was supposed to be impenetrable. I advanced into a new scientific world. It was thus that I arrived by gradual degrees at the calculus of the Universal Destinies, or the determination of the fundamental system governing all the laws of movement, present, past and future.
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