French utopian socialist and philosopher (1772–1837)
François Marie Charles Fourier (April 7, 1772 – October 10, 1837) was a French philosopher who wrote on a variety of topics such as social philosophy, natural science and normative ethics. He was an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become mainstream thinking in modern society. For instance, Fourier is credited with having originated the word feminism in 1837. Fourier is best remembered for his strong support for women's rights, his conception of socialist economics (referred to as "Fourierian economics), and his passional theory of metaphysics. Fourier, along with other early socialist theorists such as, Proudhon, Owen, Saint-Simon and Blanqui, were famously derided as "Utopian socialists" by the philosopher Karl Marx in The Manifesto of the Communist Party.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Nothing is more opposed to concord than the present condition of the domestic and salaried classes. By reducing this poor multitude to a condition very like slavery, civilization, on the rebound, imposes chains upon those who seem to dominate. Thus notables do not dare to amuse themselves openly at times when the people suffer from poverty. The rich are subject to individual as well as collective servitude. A wealthy man is often the slave of his valets. However in harmony the valet himself enjoys complete independence, while the rich are served with an assiduity and a devotion of which one sees not a trace in civilization.
Agricultural association, which in all ages has been deemed impossible, would produce results of unbounded magnificence the rigorous demonstrations, the mathematical calculations by which these results will be verified, will not, however, prevent the picture of the future harmony and happiness which they present from repelling minds habituated to the miseries and wretchedness of our present civilization.
Le nouveau monde amoureux
There was very little that prevented the vandalism of 1793 from suddenly producing a second revolution as marvelous as the first was horrible. The whole human race was approaching its release; the civilized, barbarian, and savage order would have disappeared forever if the Convention, which trampled down all prejudices, had not bowed down before the only one that had to be destroyed, the institution of marriage.