Victor Considerant and the Rise and Fall of French Romantic Socialism

Policy Entrepreneurs and the Origins of the Regulatory Welfare State: Child Labor Reform in Nineteenth-Century Europe

“…He first took on child labor in 1843, with the publication of De la condition physique et morale des jeunes ouvriers et des moyens de l'améliorer. This book makes clear that compared to child labor policy entrepreneurs in Prussia and France, Ducpétiaux had a more philosophical definition of the child labor problem, one strongly influenced by French utopian socialism (Beecher 2001). Inspired by Charles Fourier, Ducpétiaux (1843:v) argued that industry needed a wholesale restructuring to bring it into accordance with the "law of solidarity" and to make possible the "free and complete development of [humans'] physical, intellectual and moral faculties."…”

Utopianism and urban change in Perreymond's plans for the rebuilding of Paris

“…17 However, as Jonathan Beecher points out, the socialism of Fourier and his disciples is derived equally from French Romanticism as it is from political radicalism. 18 Instead of taking Marx and Engels' summations of these earlier approaches as our entry point into the thinking of European socialism, Beecher argues that there is an earlier tradition stemming from a questioning of the Enlightenment after the French Revolution. Rather than a concern with the fair re-distribution of wealth with respect to labour value, this romantic socialism was more concerned with the effects of industrialisation on the very fabric of society: living conditions, public health and community.…”

Fourierism, colonization and discourses of associative emigration

“…Along with Fourier's contemporaries, Robert Owen (1771–1858) and the Comte Henri de Saint‐Simon (1760–1825), these early social reformers and the movements that developed from their ideas are often seen simply as the misguided predecessors of Marxism, mainly through Marx and Engels’ own discussions of them (Engels [1892] 1968). However, as Jonathan Beecher (2001, 18) points out, the socialism of Fourier and his disciples is equally derived from French Romanticism as it is from political radicalism. Instead of taking Marx and Engels’ summations of these earlier approaches as our entry point into the thinking of European socialism, Beecher argues that there is an earlier tradition stemming from a questioning of the Enlightenment after the French Revolution.…”

“…Unlike the French and American movements (Beecher 1986 2001; Guarneri 1991), there was no consistent attempt to build a colony in Britain. The possibility of such a project was discussed regularly in The London Phalanx although pragmatism and a lack of support, in terms of participants and financial backing, soon reduced this to a dream rather than a potential goal 3 .…”