Charles Fourier

Charles Fourier was a French philosopher regarded as the founder of utopian socialism. Born in Besançon, he worked for years as a travelling salesman and correspondence clerk; his first book, the Theory of the Four Movements, appeared anonymously in Lyon in 1808 and sold few copies. He held that cooperation was the key to social success and proposed communities called phalanxes, housed in buildings called phalanstères, where jobs were assigned by interest and desire. He also called trade, which he associated with Jews, the source of all evil. His ideas inspired intentional communities such as Brook Farm and the North American Phalanx.