SOURCE: "Fourierism and the Socialists," in The Dial, Vol. III, No. 1, July, 1842, pp. 86-90.

In the following excerpt, the anonymous critic praises the spirit of Fourier's social theory while expressing scepticism about its practicability.

The increasing zeal and numbers of the disciples of Fourier, in America and in Europe, entitle them to an attention which their theory and practical projects will justify and reward. In London, a good weekly newspaper (lately changed into a monthly journal) called The Phalanx, devoted to the social doctrines of Charles Fourier, and bearing for its motto, "Association and Colonization," is edited by Hugh Doherty. Mr. Etzler's inventions, as described in the Phalanx, promise to cultivate twenty thousand acres with the aid of four men only and cheap machinery. Thus the laborers are threatened with starvation, if they do not organize themselves into corporations, so that machinery may labor for instead of working...