Searching for Charles Fourier in the ruins of a socialist utopia outside LA

3 days ago

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Charles Fourier was a utopian socialist thinker who advocated for gender equality and coined the term 'feminism.'
Fourier proposed organizing society into 'phalanxes,' communal units where work was gamified and labor was connected to desire.
His ideas included a basic income, communal living, and the phalanstery—a self-sustaining compound housing a phalanx.
Fourier believed in harnessing human passions rather than suppressing them, making him a precursor to Freudian thought.
His radical ideas on labor and pleasure influenced later movements like surrealism, cybernetics, and urban design.
Fourier's followers simplified his complex theories, focusing on the phalanstery while ignoring his more esoteric writings on sex and cosmology.
Despite his eccentricities, Fourier remains relevant to diverse thinkers, from socialists to surrealists.
His utopian experiments in America were short-lived due to their impractical complexity.
The ruins of Llano del Rio, a failed utopian colony in California, serve as a backdrop for reflecting on Fourier's legacy.
Part two of the article will explore Fourierism's collapse in America and the final wave of socialist utopian experiments.

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