For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

Unpublished manuscript (1840) in Liberté, vol.1 1787-1825

by Fourier, Charles (2012)

Key Passage

Associative labor, in order to exert a strong attraction upon people, will have to differ in every particular from the repulsive conditions which render it so odious in the existing state of things. It is necessary, in order that it become attractive, that associative labor fulfill the following seven conditions:1. That every laborer be a partner, remunerated by dividends and not by wages. 2. That every one, man, woman, or child, be remunerated in proportion to the three faculties, capital, labor, and talent. 3. That the industrial sessions be varied about eight times a day, it being impossible to sustain enthusiasm longer than an hour and a half or two hours in the exercise of agricultural or manufacturing labor. 4. That they be carried on by bands of friends, united spontaneously, interested and stimulated by very active rivalries. 5. That the workshops and husbandry offer the laborer the allurements of elegance and cleanliness. 6. That the division of labor be carried to the last degree, so that each sex and age may devote itself to duties that are suited to it. 7. That in this distribution, each one, man, woman, or child, be in full enjoyment of the right to labor or the right to engage in such branch of labor as they may please to select, provided they give proof of integrity and ability.Finally, that, in this new order, people possess a guarantee of well-being, of a minimum sufficient for the present and the future, and that this guarantee free them from all uneasiness concerning themselves and their families. (p.181)

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Charles Fourier

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