Falansterio de charles fourier biography

December 19, 2014

In 1808, in reaction to the failure of the French revolution and the emergence of new inequalities generated by capitalism, Charles Fourier developed a compelling utopian project called the Phalanstery, a community body composed of three hundred households coming from diverse economic and social backgrounds[1].

The phalanstery, inhabited by a community called the Phalanx, gathered in one single monumental building the different activities that regulated modern society. Seeking an egalitarian and cooperative society, goods produced by the workers were put in common and redistributed equally to the families rewarded “according to the three forms of property, capital, labour, talent.”[2] Fourier imagined a utopian way of life where labour, leisure and libertinage would intertwine in harmony, “a new society founded on the emancipation of the passions and proclaiming the triumph of sensual pleasure.”[3] Since Thomas More and Athana