AVRAHAM YASSOUR

COMMUNISM

AND UTOPIA:

MARX, ENGELS

AND FOURIER

" . . . rien n'annonce la r~gne de l'harmonie

. . . " - A. BRETON 1
Karl Marx mentioned Fourier for the first time on 16 Octerber 1842 in an
article in the Rheinische Zeitung. It was shortly after his appointment as
editor o f that liberal journal financed b y Rhineland industrialists 2 at a time
when he felt obliged to defend the paper against charges o f Communism. The
context was the publication o f Moses Hess' articles on housing problems and
communistic forms of government, and his report on a meeting held in
Strasbourg at which Fourier's disciples had proposed ways of improving the
condition o f the poor. 3 In his own article Marx declared that:
the Rehinische Zeitung . . . will submit these [communistic] ideas to thorough criticism . . . . We are firmly convinced that it is not the practical effort, but rather the theoretical explication of communistic ideas which is the real danger . . . . Ideas won by our
intelligence, embodied in our outlook, and forgotten in our conscience, are chains from
which we cannot tear ourselves away without breaking our hearts. 4
What did Marx know at the time about Fourier's teachings or about
socialism and Communism in general? In his home town of Trier, Ludwig
Gall ('the first German Socialist') had publicized Fourier's ideas, and even
sought to apply them personally in a Fourierist phalanstery in America. In
Berlin, Heinrich Heine and Edward Gans had disseminated the theories o f
Saint-Simon. Hess, who spent some time in Paris and was well acquainted
with French socialists also d i d a great deal to popularize their ideas, s It
was Hess who influenced Engels and Bakunin and brought them closer to
socialism, possibly doing the same for Marx.
The influence o f Lorenz von Stein's Sozialismus und K o m m u n i s m u s des
heutigen Frankreichs, which appeared in November, 1842, is more problematic. 6 Was it really, as Marx asserted, "the only s o u r c e . . , for the characterization o f the condition o f the proletariat, a class without any p r o p e r t y "
whose problems were d e a f l y discernible in Manchester, Paris and Lyon? One
can agree with Shlomo Avineri that yon Stein's b o o k could not by itself

Studies in Soviet Thought 26 (1983) 217-227. 0039-3797/83/0263-0217 $01.10.

1983 by D. ReidelPublishing Co.

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AVRAHAM YASSOUR

account for Marx' knowledge of socialism at the time. He must have derived
something, at least, on the theoretical plane, from Hegel whose Philosophy
of Right he knew by heart (especially important are the paragraphs 2 4 3 245), and Fourier's ideas were already accessible to him through von Rochau's book. 7
It is interesting in this context to note Engels' revealing comment just one
year later that "the French Communists could help us only in the early stages
of our - development". 8 In the first part of an article on France written in
18439 Engels had praised Fourier as a social philosopher who had established
the axiom: "As each individual has a passion or inclination for a certain kind
of work, the totality of these inclinations will naturally constitute a force
capable of satisfying the needs of society as a whole". According to Engels,
Fourier's great discovery was the assumption that compulsion would no
longer be necessary in order to supply the needs of society. His audacity in
envisaging the possibility of free labour, "is definitely worthy of the attention
of English socialists", wrote Engels, recommending Fourier's writings to the
readers of an Owenite periodical.
In another article written in Manchester at the end of 1843 which greatly
impressed Marx, 'Outline of a Critique of Political Economy', Engels again
mentioned Fourier in the context of his discussion of a future society which
would be "free of competition and its curse, so that it will be able to regulate
production and control wealth".
Der einzig positive Fortschritt, den die liberale Okonomie gemacht hat, ist die Entwicklung des gesetze des Privateigentums. . . . Um aber fiber dieses Verh~iltnis und die yon
einem verniJnftigen Zust//nde der Gemeinde zur erwartende Steigerung der Produktionskraft richtig zu urteilen, m6gen meine Leser die Schriften der englischen Sozialisten
und zum Teil auch Fouriers vergleichen,lO
Similarly in the case of Marx there is no doubt that he made a serious
effort to acquaint himself thoroughly with the writings of the French socialists, including Fourier - all of whose available works were to be found in
his library.
At the end of 1843 Marx had arrived in Paris, which seemed to him to be
"an ancient bastion of philosophy and the modern capital of the modern
world". He was met there by Arnold Ruge, who even proposed that together
with other German 6migr6s they should set up a commune on the Fourierist
model. 11 Marx' earlier letter to Ruge, written from Kreuznach in September

COMMUNISM AND UTOPIA

219

1843 indicates his own position on the relationship between philosophy and
praxis and his growing interest in French socialist theories.
I am not therefore for hoisting a dogmatic banner. Quite the reverse. We must try to
help the dogmatists to clarify their ideas. In particular, Communism is a dogmatic abstraction and by Communism I do not refer to some imagined, possible Communism, but
to Communism as it actually exists in the teaching of Cabet, D6zamy and Weitling, etc.
This Communism is itself only a particular manifestation of the humanistic principle and
is infected by its opposite, private property. The abolition of private property is, therefore, by no means identical with Communism, and Communism has seen other socialistic
theories, such as those of Fourier and Proudhon, rising up in opposition to it, not fortuitously but necessarily, because it is only a particular, one-sided realization of the principle of socialism.12
At the time that Marx wrote this letter he was working hard on his detailed study o f Hegel's Philosophy o f Right and increasingly preoccupied with
the transition from the critique o f religion to the critique o f politics. It was
in this period that Marx began to look for a sociological theory of politics
as an alternative to 'dogmatic Communism' which altogether disregarded
individual existence. Against this background, Fourier and Proudhon are
mentioned by Marx as representing ideologies which posit more than merely
an 'abstract' abolition o f private property.
In his letter to Ruge, Marx had still placed his hopes in a 'reform o f consciousness' as the redeeming act. Upon his arrival in Paris, however, he became increasingly interested in the possibilities of concrete political action,
familiarizing himself with various revolutionary groups in the French capital.
It was also in Paris that he composed the important work which has subsequently become known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
(1844). la These manuscripts reveal the young Marx acquainting himself with
the achievements of political economy and the first investigations o f the
degraded conditions of the working-class produced by the Industrial Revolution. Blending philosophical concepts derived from Hegel and Feuerbach
with those o f classical political economy, Marx came to attribute poverty and
alienation to the division o f labour and private property, to hired labour and
class divisions in capitalist society.
In the section o f the manuscripts discussing the antithesis between private
property and Communism, Marx evokes the theories of Fourier, Proudhon
and Saint-Simon. With regard to the first he observed that:
Fourier, like the Physiocrats, regarded agriculture as at least the best form of labour,
while Saint-Simon on the other hand declared industrial labour as such to be the essence

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AVRAHAM YASSOUR

and consequently wants exclusive rule by the industrialists and the improvement of the
condition of the workers. 14
Marx concluded that "communism is the positive expression of the abolition of private property and at first appears as universal private property". :s
This chapter of the manuscripts contains a critical survey of 'crude' and
'egalitarian' Communism which Marx contrasts to his own concept of it as
"the true appropriation o f the human essence through and for man". This
line of thought is connected with an earlier section entitled Estranged Labour
where Marx no longer sees alienated labour as just another form of work but
as a function of the production system, the abolition of which alone can lead
to the eradication of dehumanized labour:
The devaluation of the human world grows in direct proportion to the increase in value
of the world of things. Labour not only produces commodities; it also produces itself
and the workers as a commodity and it does so in the same proportion in which it produces commodities in general. This fact simply means that the object that labour produces, its product, stands opposed to it as something alien, as a power independent of
the producer . . . . The realization of labour is its objectification. In the sphere of political economy this realization appears as a loss of reality for the worker, objectification as
loss of and bondage to the object, and appropriation as estrangement, as alienation
[Entiiusserung] .16
The revolutionary lessons to be derived from Marx' critique of bourgeois
political economy first emerge however into the foreground in the work he
co-authored with Engels in 1845 as a settling of accounts with their Young
Hegelian contemporaries - The Holy Family - Subtitled A Critique o f Critical Critique; Against Bruno Bauer and Company. Marx now develops in
radical form, the antithesis he had evoked in his earlier manuscripts.
Proletariat and wealth are opposites; as such they form a single whole. They are both
forms of the world of private property . . . . Private property, as wealth is compelled to
maintain itself, and thereby its opposite, the proletariat, in existence. That is the positive
side of the contradiction - self-satisfied private property . . . . Within this antithesis the
private owner is therefore the conservative side, the proletarian, the destructive side.
From the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter, that of
annihilating it. 17

The Holy Family was an important stage in the theoretical development of

Marx and Engels towards relating their philosophical and historical views to
the struggle of the working classes for social emancipation. Significantly, they

COMMUNISM AND UTOPIA

221

did not overlook the role of French materialism in the emergence of SocialistCommunist ideology, beginning with the example of Fourier himself:
As Cartesian materialism merges into natural science proper, the other branch of French
materialism leads direct to Socialism and Communism . . . . Fourier proceeds immediately
from the teaching of the French materialists. The Babouvists were coarse, uncivilized
materialists, but mature Communism too comes directly from French Materialism. 18
Nevertheless, both Marx and Engels were well aware of the limitations of
Fourier and critical of the apolitical nature of much of his theorizing. In this
respect they still preferred the Proudhon who had authored What is Property?
- a political pamphlet that they ranked with Si~yes' epochal Qu'est-ce que
le tiers Etat? Fourier's importance was seen as that of a forerunner, like Adam
Smith, Ricardo and Saint-Simon, without whom the contemporary Socialist
critique of private property would not have been possible.
Marx and Engels were also familiar with Fourier's views on such subjects
as morality, marriage, the family and female liberation and they used their
knowledge of his general social philosophy to uncover plagiarisms and misquotations in the works of rival German theoreticians. This is especially
evident in their next joint work - The German Ideology, written in 1845-6
but never published during their lifetimes.
This book contains a special section on Fourier19 in which the authors
extol his analysis of agriculture, industry and commerce, noting that the
critique of 'civilization' is the main part of his social theory. It is evident
that Marx and Engels had indeed read his works carefully and rejected the
superficial summary of it in the writings of the German 'true socialist', Karl
Gr6n. 2 They took seriously Fourier's views on the centrality of changes in
production and the importance of Fourier's gift for acute social observation
and his proposals in the area of vocational education. Grtin's view of Fourier
as a 'mathematical socialist' did not do justice to the profundity of the
'French critique of society' which in the view of Marx and Engels, was far
superior to German 'true socialism'. The latter was a pale imitation of the
original ideas of Fourier which involved a basic structural change in society
arising from a decisive criticism of its 'civilization'. 21 Though critical at times
of the poetic form in which Fourier wrapped his social theory, Marx and
Engels emphasised its subversive qualities and value as a stimulus to action.
Engels, in particular, was impressed by the 'brilliant satires' of Fourier and
the way in which he sniped at bourgeois hypocricies and life-styles.

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AVRAHAM YASSOUR

Marx' changing attitude to Fourier during this period might perhaps be

inferred from the following story: In a letter to P. V. Annenkov (dated
December 28, 1846), he wrote that Proudhon t o o k a great deal from Fourier
and his words seemed e m p t y and overblown compared to Fourier's socialist
sensitivity) 2 When Annenkov published an excerpt from this letter in 1880 23
in which he told o f his relations and meetings with Marx and of the latter's
attitude to Proudhon, Marx found it necessary to note in the margin: "I
wrote the opposite o f what he attributes to me in connection with Fourier.
Fourier was the first to ridicule the idealization o f the p e t t y bourgeoisie." 24
In the same letter, Marx wrote that he had not managed to have his critique
o f the German philosophers and socialists published (the reference is to The
German Ideology), and observed in conclusion that quite a few in his own
' p a r t y ' "are angry with me because I have come out against the Utopians and
their speeches". 2s The classic formulation o f Marx' and Engels' attitude to
the Utopian socialists had, o f course, been stated in their Communist Manifesto o f 1847:
"The socialist and communist systems, properly so-called, those of Saint-Simon, Fourier,
Owen and others, spring into existence inthe early undeveloped period described above,
of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. The founders of these systems see,
indeed, the class antagonisms as well as the action of the decomposing elements in the
prevailing form of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the
spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independent political movement . . . . " "Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action, historicallycreated conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones. . . . These proposals, therefore, are
of a purely Utopian character. The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. . . . The originators of these
systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have in every case formed
mere reactionary sects. ''26
What they opposed in Utopian Socialism was a vision o f the future detached from the existing class struggle in capitalistic society. Utopianism
reflected the immaturity o f the social struggle. It revealed a yearning for the
abolition o f classes while seeking to avoid class struggle and political revolution in which the working class would be the central agent o f change. Consequently, the utopians remained mere preachers or 'inventors' o f a new
world. Nevertheless, their incisive critique o f bourgeois society was valid,
even "revolutionary in m a n y respects".
The question remains however as to whether there was any similarity
between the social, desired future in Marx's own philosophy ('scientific'

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223

socialism notwithstanding) and that of his great utopian predecessors - above

all Fourier.
In the C o m m u n i s t Manifesto, Marx had formulated thus his vision of the
future:
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have
an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.2s
One of its required conditions is repudiating the domination of "the labour of others" by the acquisition of social products - a clear echo of the
views put forward by Fourier and other utopian socialist thinkers.
Marx's innovation lay in his economic and sociological analysis of such
appropriation as a form of h u m a n self-alienation in capitalist society. In his
own words:
The consideration of division o f labour and exchange is one of the greatest interest, since
they are the perceptible, alienated expression of human activity, and capacities as the
activity and capacities proper to a species . . . . Product is an objectification of labour.
The performance of work is at the same time its objectification. The performance of
work appears in the sphere of political economy as a vitiation of the worker, objectification as a loss and as servitude to the object, and appropriation as alienation. 29
What Marx shared with Fourier was rather the recognition that instead of
bringing pleasure, fulfilment and self-realization of man's social essence,
labour in capitalist society, leads to a reduction of the worker's value and to
his stultification. Fourier's solution was the 'harmony' system - a reform of
the world built around the reorganization of labour in order to make work
both sociable, pleasurable and liberating. 3
The treatment of these subjects by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology definitely shows a familiarity with Fourier: "Remember that Fourier
wished to see the present travail r~pugnant replaced by travail attrayant". 31
Marx's vision of the future abolition of 'alienated labour' seems to echo
that of his predecessor in certain respects:
All collisions in history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse .... The transformation, through
the division of labour, of personal powers (relationships) into material powers, cannot be
dispelled by dismissing the general idea of it from one's mind, but can only be abolished
by the individuals again subjecting these material powers to themselves and abolishing
the division of labour. . . . In the real community the individuals obtain their freedom in
and through their association. . . . The proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as

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AVRAHAM YASSOUR

individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has,
moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. 32
Echoes o f Fourier are even stronger further on, w h e n Marx contrasts the
actual and the desirable status o f the worker and describes his self-alienation:
As long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long,
therefore, as activity is not voluntarily but naturally divided, man's own deed becomes
an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him.
For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape . . . .
This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an
objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up
till n o w . 33

Even m o r e significant is the famous passage f r o m The German Ideology,

where Marx and Engels' C o m m u n i s t u t o p i a appears to have b e e n directly
influenced b y the daily work-schedule planned b y Fourier for his m o d e l
phalansteries.
For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular
exclusive sphere of activity which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.
He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does
not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in Communist society, where nobody has
one exclusive sphere of activity, but each can become accomplished in any branch he
wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do
one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon,
rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic!
[ A l t h o u g h these lines m a y have b e e n written b y Engels (in whose writings
similar ideas are expressed), The German Ideology was w i t h o u t d o u b t a j o i n t
effort.]
What is undeniable is the great similarity to Fourier's basic ideas: a change
o f w o r k every h o u r or two (the 's6ances') and the choice o f labour according
to inclination and passion m a d e possible b y a h a r m o n i o u s society; the sharp
contrast b e t w e e n the vision o f the future as opposed to the actual situation
in a 'civilized' regime. 34 The liberation o f labour and non-alienated life-styles
will c o m e about in a collective in which individual and general interests
merge. Social w o r k conceived as free and pleasurable activity will be done
w i t h enthusiasm, and will b e c o m e vastly productive. Fourier also deals w i t h

COMMUNISM AND UTOPIA

225

closing the gap b e t w e e n city and countryside, with v o c a t i o n a l training for

y o u t h in the phalanteries, w i t h w o m a n ' s liberation and w i t h similar p r o b l e m s
that are echoed in the works o f Marx and Engels. T h e y repeatedly stressed
that F o u r i e r ' s i m p o r t a n c e lay in the fact that he was n o t c o n t e n t with demanding a change in c o n s u m p t i o n and distribution habits, but c o n n e c t e d
this w i t h a d e m a n d for a structural change in the organization o f p r o d u c t i o n
and the abolition o f hired labour. Interestingly enough, the m a t u r e Marx in
his vision o f the future, proclaimed in Vol. 3

ofDas Kapital, appears to have

b e c o m e distinctly 'Fourierist' in his view o f the relation b e t w e e n labour and

the 'realm o f f r e e d o m ' .
The actual wealth of society, and the possibility of constantly expanding its reproduction process, therefore, do not depend upon the duration of surplus labour, but upon its
productivity and the more or less copious conditions of production under which it is
performed. In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is
determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases;... With his development
this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but at the same time,
the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increases. Freedom in this field
can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers rationally regulating their
interchange with nature, bringing it under their common control instead of being ruled
by it as by the blind forces of nature; and achieving with the least expenditure of energy
and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it
nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of
human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can
blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working day is its basic prerequisite. 35
These paragraphs have b e e n the subject o f innumerable commentaries. It
seems to me that an illuminating elaboration appears in the Marx manuscripts
o f 1 8 5 7 - 8 which later provided the source material for

Das Kapital. There, in

considering the ideas o f A d a m S m i t h o n w o r k as a sacrifice and the renunciat i o n o f rest, f r e e d o m and happiness, Marx says:
Thou shalt labour by the sweat of thy brow! was Jehovah's curse that he bestowed upon
Adam. A. Smith conceives of labour as such a curse. 'Rest' appears to him to be a fitting
state of things, and identical with 'liberty' and 'happiness'.... It is true that the quantity of labour to be provided seems to be conditioned by external circumstances, by the
purpose to be achieved, and the obstacles to its achievement that have to be overcome
by labour. But neither does it occur to A. Smith that the overcoming of such obstacles
may itself constitute an exercise in liberty, and that these external purposes lose their
character of mere natural necessities and are established as purposes which the individual
himself fixes. The result is the self-realization and objectification of the subject, therefore real freedom whose activity is precisely labour: 36

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AVRAHAM YASSOUR

But here Marx' attitude to human work in the future society has matured
and become more complex; he explains: "This does not mean that labour can
be made merely a joke or amusement, as Fourier naively expressed it in shopgirl terms".
Marx' conclusion reflected the essential difference between his own rational 'utopia' and that of his visionary predecessor - the ability to synthesise
moral imperatives with a scientific understanding of economic necessities.
"Work cannot become a game, as Fourier would like it to be ('amusement',
'travail attractrf'); his great merit was that he declared that the ultimate
object must be to raise to a higher level not distribution but the mode of
production."
Various radicals declare themselves to be post-Fourierists, oversimplifying
his system; our experience - here in Kibbutz-life in Israel - to realize some
of Fourier's principles, prove that his social philosophy is utopian. Nevertheless we do not forget the contribution of all our predecessors.

NOTES
t Andr6 Breton, Ode ~ Charles Fourier, Paris, 1967.
2 Marx-Engels~Werke (MEW), Vol. 1, pp. 105-108.
3 D. McLellan, The Young Hegelians and K. Marx, London, 1969, pp. 143-147.
4 MEW, Vol. 1, p. 108; for the English translation: L. D. Easton and K. H. Guddat,
Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, N.Y., 1967.
s McLellan, op. cit., pp. 3 5 - 6 ; A. Cornu, K. Marx et F. Engels, tome I, Paris, 1955, p.
23ff; E. Silberner, Moses Hess, Leiden, 1966.
6 Lorenz yon Stein, Sozialismus und Kommunismus des heutigen Frankreichs, 1842. On
Marx's attitude to yon Stein: Sh. Avineri, The Social and Political Thought o f Karl Marx,
Cambridge, 1968.
7 A. L. yon Rochau, Kritische Darstellung der Sozialtheorie Fouriers, Braunschweig,
1840.
8 The New Moral World, No. 21 (18.11.1843); MEW, Vol. I, p. 494.
9 MEW, Vol. 1, S.481-8.
lo Ibid., S.503,516.
11 MEGA, I. 1(2), S.315.
1~ Deutsch-Franzfsische Jahrbi~cher, hrsg. A. Ruge und K. Marx, Darmstadt, 1967, pp.
37-39. 'Communism' here meant the 'actually existing' one, e.g., the 'dogmatic' theories
of Cabet, Dezamy, Weitling.
13 MEW, Ergiinzungsband, I., pp. 4 6 5 - 5 8 8 ; on these manuscripts: Sh. Avineri, op. cit.;
L. Althusser, Pour Marx, Paris, 1965 and T. I. Ojzerman, Formirovanie Filosofii Marksizma, Moscow, 1962.
14 Karl Marx, Early Writings, Introduced by Lucio Colletti, London 1975, p. 345.
is Ibid., p. 346.

C O M M U N I S M AND U T O P I A

227

16 Ibid., p. 324.
17 MEW, Vol. 2, p. 37; See also The Holy Family, Moscow, 1956, p. 51. During the
same period, M. Bakunin, the father of modern anarchism, pronounced his dictum on
the destructive-action of the contradiction and the constructive-aspect of the destructiveact!
18 MEW, Vol. 2, pp. 1 3 8 - 1 3 9 ; The Holy Family, pp. 175-6.
19 MEW, Vol. 2, 4 9 8 - 5 0 7 .
20 These works of Fourier are: La Fausse industrie, 1836; Th~orie des quatre mouvements, et des destinies g~n~rales, 1841 ; Traitk de l'association domestique agricole, 1822.
21 MEW, Vol. 3, p. 401.
22 MEW, Vol. 27, p. 4 6 1 - 2 .
23 p. V. Annenkov, 'Zamechatelnoe desjatiletie', Vestnik Evropy, No. 4, 1880.
24 Russkie sovremennlki o K. Mark i F. Engel'se, Moscow, 1969, p. 43 note: Marx's
letter to Annenkov was written in French, consequently also the marginalia of his own
copy: "C'est Fourier qui, le premier, a persifl6 l'id6alisation de la petite bourgeoisie".
2s MEW, Vol. 27, pp. 4 6 2 - 3 .
26 The Communist Manifesto, Ch. III; in R. Tucker, The Marx-Engels'Reader, N.Y.,
1972, pp. 359-361.
27 See M. Rubel (ed.), Pour une ~thique socialiste;Pages de K. Marx, Paris, 1970, tome
II, p. 6, 144; and Sh. Avineri, 'Marx and Utopianism', in Molad (Hebrew), April, 1973,
pp. 378-386.
28 The Communist Manifesto, in R. Tucker, ibid., p. 353. Further illuminating considerations concerning the future Communist society are contained in Marx' marginal notes
to the Gotha Progiam of 1875 (Tucker, pp. 382-398).
29 K. Marx, Early Writings, ed by T. B. Bottomore, N.Y., 1964, pp. 187 and 122.
30 Ch. Fourier, Thdorie des quatre mouvements: Trait~ de l'association agricole, Textes
choisis, ed. by F. Armand, Paris, 1953, III, 2 ; a n d Textes: l'attraction passionn~e, ed. by
R. Sherer, Paris, 1967, I l l - I V . See also: I. Zilberfarb, Soci]al'na]a Filosofi]a ~Sarl]aFurie,
Moscow, 1964, Chs. 3 and 4.
31 MEW, Vol. 3, p. 470; English translation - p. 531; the conditions for making work
attractive were clearly formulated by Fourier in the introductory chapter to his Thkorie

de l'Unitd Universelle.
32 K. Marx, The German Ideology, Mocow, 1964, pp. 9 0 - 9 2 , 95. Was Marx referring to
the abolition of all labor activity? Debates on this go on: See I. Mailer, Tel Aviv, 1974.
aa The German Ideology, op. cit., pp. 4 4 - 4 5 .
34 Ch. Fourier, Le Nouveaux Monde lndustriel, Ch. 2, pp. 3 3 - 3 4 ; Thborie de l'Unit~
Universelle, II, 15, etc.
as MEW, Vol. 25, p. 828. English translation: D. McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected
Writings, Oxford, 1972, pp. 4 9 6 - 7 . It is interesting to mention here that the French
translation of Das Kapital, by M. J. Roy (1875) under Marx' supervision (and he even
noted the independent scientific value of this edition!), seems more 'Fourieristic' in its
terminology (e.g. 'l'homme int6grale', 'libre essor', etc.). Marx's 'gemilderte Bagnos'
makes allusion to Fourier's 'bagnes mitig6s' (MEW, Vol. 23,450).
36 K. Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Okonomie, Rohentwurf, 1857-8,
Berlin, 1953, pp. 5 0 5 - 6 .

Haifa University, Israel