The Germans are gradually beginning to spoil the communist 
movement too. Here also being as always the last and most 
inactive, they believe they can conceal their somnolence by 
contempt for their predecessors and empty philosophical boasting. 
Communism has hardly come into existence in Germany before it 
is being seized on by a whole host of speculative minds who 
imagine they have performed miracles by translating into the 
language of Hegelian logic propositions that long ago became 
commonplaces in France and England and now offering this new 
wisdom to the world as something unprecedented, as “true 
German theory”, in order to be able to throw mud to their heart’s 
content at the “bad practice” and “ridiculous” social systems of 
the narrow-minded French and English. This always ready Ger- 
man theory, which has had the boundless good fortune to get a 
whiff of Hegel’s philosophy of history and to become embodied in 
the scheme of the eternal categories by some dried-up Berlin 
professor, and which then perhaps leafed through Feuerbach, a 
few German communist writings and Herr Stein’s book on French 
socialism,* this German theory of the very worst sort has already, 
without the slightest difficulty, reconstrued French socialism and 
communism according to Herr Stein, has allotted it a subordinate 
position, has “overcome” it, and “elevated” it to the “higher stage of 
development” of the always ready “German theory”.? It has 
never occurred to it, of course, to acquaint itself to any extent with 

* Lorenz von Stein, Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreichs. 
Ein Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte.—Ed. 

the things to be elevated themselves, to take a look at Fourier, 
Saint-Simon, Owen and the French Communists—Herr Stein’s 
meagre extracts are quite sufficient to bring about this brilliant 
victory of German theory over the wretched efforts of foreigners. | 

In contrast to this comical arrogance of German theory, which is 
incapable of dying, it is absolutely necessary to show the Germans 
what a lot they owe to foreigners since they became concerned 
with social questions. Among all the pompous phrases now loudly 
proclaimed in German literature as the basic principles of true, 
pure, German, theoretical communism and socialism, there has so 
far not been a single idea which has grown on German soil. What 
the French or the English said as long as ten, twenty and even 
forty years ago—and said very well, very clearly, in very fine 
language—the Germans have now at last during the past year 
become acquainted with in bits and have Hegelianised, or at best 
belatedly rediscovered it and published it in a much worse, more 
abstract form as a completely new discovery. I make no exception 
here of my own writings. What is peculiar to the Germans is only 
the bad, abstract, unintelligible and clumsy form in which they 
have expressed these ideas. And as befits genuine theoreticians, 
from what the French have produced—they still know almost 
nothing at all of the English—they have so far found worthy of 
their attention, apart from the most general principles, only what is 
worst and most theoretical: the schematic plans of future society, 
the social systems. The best aspect, the criticism of existing society, the 
real basis, the main task of any investigation of social questions, 
they have calmly pushed aside. Not to mention the fact that these 
wise theoreticians are accustomed also to speak contemptuously of, 
or to ignore altogether, the only German who has really achieved 
something, namely: Weitling. 

I want to put before these wise gentlemen a short chapter from 
Fourier, which they could take as an example. It is true that 
Fourier did not start out from the Hegelian theory and for this 
reason unfortunately could not attain knowledge of absolute truth, 
not even of absolute socialism. It is true that owing to this 
shortcoming Fourier unfortunately allowed himself to be led 
astray and to substitute the method of series for the absolute 
method and thereby arrived at such speculative constructions as 
the conversion of the sea into lemonade, the couronnes boréale and 
australe,* the anti-lion, and the conjunction of the planets.” But, 
if it has to be, I shall prefer to believe with the cheerful Fourier in 

* Northern and southern coronas.— Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 615 

all these stories rather than in the realm of the absolute spirit, 
where there is no lemonade at all, in the identity of Being and 
Nothing and the conjunction of the eternal categories. French 
nonsense is at least cheerful, whereas German nonsense is gloomy 
and profound. And then, Fourier has criticised existing social 
relations so sharply, with such wit and humour that one readily 
forgives him for his cosmological fantasies, which are also based 
on a brilliant world outlook. 

The fragment which I am reproducing here was found among 
Fourier’s works after his death and was printed in the first 
number of the periodical Phalange,* published by the Fourierists 
from the beginning of 1845. I am omitting what relates to 
Fourier’s positive system and what otherwise is of no interest, and 
in general am making such free use of the text as is absolutely 
necessary with the foreign Socialists in order to make the things 
they wrote with definite aims in view readable to a public which is 
alien to these aims. This fragment is by no means the most 
brilliant of Fourier’s writings, nor is it the best of what he wrote 
about trade —and yet no German Socialist or Communist, with the 
exception of Weitling, has so far written anything remotely 
comparable to this rough sketch. 

To save the German public the trouble of reading the Phalange 
itself, I should mention that this periodical is a purely monetary 
speculation on the part of the Fourierists, and Fourier’s manu- 
scripts published in it are of very unequal value. Messieurs the 
Fourierists who publish this review are germanised, pompous 
theoreticians who have replaced the humour with which their 
teacher unmasked the world of the bourgeoisie by a holy, 
thoroughgoing theoretical, learned seriousness, for which they 
are deservedly ridiculed in France and prized in Germany. The 
description of the imaginary triumphs of Fourierism which they 
present in the first issue of the Phalange could send a professor of 
the absolute method into raptures. 

I begin my reproductions with a passage which has already been 
reprinted in the Théorie des quatre mouvements. This is the case with 
considerable sections of the present fragment of which, however, I 
shall give only what is most essential. 

* La Phalange. Revue de la science sociale, XIV“ année, 1" série in 8°, Paris, 
aux Bureaux de la Phalange, 1845.—Publication des Manuscrits de Fourier: 
“Section ébauchée des trois unités externes”, pp. 1-42 of the January and February 
issue.—Note by Engels. 

21* 

q207 

“We now touch on civilisation’s most sensitive spot; it is an unpleasant task to 
raise one’s voice against the folly of the day, against chimeras that are downright 
epidemical. 

“To speak against the absurdities of trade today means to expose oneself to 
anathemas just as much as if one had spoken against the tyranny of the popes and 
the barons in the twelfth century. If it were a matter of choosing between two 
dangerous roles, I think it would be less dangerous to offend a sovereign with 
bitter truths than to offend the mercantile spirit which now rules as a despot over 
civilisation and even over sovereigns. 

“And yet a superficial analysis will prove that our commercial systems debase and 
disorganise civilisation, and that in trade as in all other things we are going astray 
more and more under the guidance of the inexact sciences. 

“The controversy on trade is hardly half a century old and has already produced 
thousands of volumes; and yet its originators have not seen that the trade 
mechanism is organised in such a way that it is a slap in the face for all common 
sense. It has subordinated the whole of society to one class of parasitical and 
unproductive people, the merchants. All the essential classes of society—the 
proprietor,* the farmer, the manufacturer, and even the government— find 
themselves dominated by an inessential, accessory class, the merchant, who should 
be their subordinate, their employed agent, removable and accountable, and who, 
nevertheless, directs and obstructs at will all the mainsprings of circulation. 

“In respect of errors other than those of trade, public opinion and the learned 
bodies are, indeed, more tractable; it is pretty well agreed that the philosophical 
systems are dangerous illusions, that experience belies our boasting of perfection, 
that our theories of freedom do not square with civilisation, that our virtues are 
social comedies and our legislations labyrinths; there are even jokes about a 
fashionable controversy, ideology.” ” But tongue-wagging about commerce, with its 
theories of imports and exports, counterbalance, balance, and guarantee, has 
become the Ark of the Covenant before which everything bows down. This, then, is 
the illusion which we have to dispel. 

“First of all we must show that our trade systems, which are now gaped at with 
stupid veneration, are the antipodes of truth, of justice, and therefore also of unity. 

“It is difficult to make clear to a century that precisely that operation which it 
considers to be the masterpiece of all wisdom is nothing but the seal of ignorance 
stamped on its entire policy. Let us but look at the already known results: maritime 
monopoly, fiscal monopoly, growing national debts, bankruptcies in unbroken 
succession resulting from paper money, increasing villainy in all business relations. 
Already now we can stigmatise the mechanism of free trade, i.e., of free lying,* that 
veritable industrial anarchy, that monstrous power in society. 

“How is it that the most lying class in the social body is most protected by the 
‘apostles of truth’? How does it happen that today learned men who preach 
contempt of vile wealth praise only the class which pursues wealth per fas et nefas,° 
the class of stock exchange gamblers and corner-men? Formerly the philosophers 
were unanimous in censuring certain corporations which defended with flexibility 
of conscience the proposition that there is a difference between taking and stealing. 
How then have the same philosophers now become the apologists of a class which 

* It must not be forgotten that Fourier was not a Communist.— Note by Engels. 

a Engels’ italics here and below.— Ed. 
: By legal or illegal means.— Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 617 

affirms, with still greater immorality, that haggling is not lying, that to dupe the 
buyer is not the same as robbing him, that stockjobbing and cornering are by no 
means plundering the productive class, in brief, that one must work only for 
money, not for fame;— for that is the refrain which the merchants sing in chorus: 
We don’t pursue business pour la gloire!* Is it then to be wondered at that the 
modern sciences went astray when they espoused the cause of those who openly 
profess such principles?” 

Trade takes various forms according to the various social stages; for as it is the 
pivot of all social life, it exists as soon as there is any social condition in general. A 
people becomes social, forms a society, from the moment when it begins to carry 
out exchange. For this reason trade exists already among the savages, where it takes 
the form of direct barter. Under patriarchy it becomes indirect commerce; in 
barbarism the basis of the commercial method is formed by the monopolies, the 
fixing of maximums and prices and forcible government requisitions, and in 
civilisation by individual competition or lying and bewildering struggle." 

“There is no need for us to dwell on direct barter among the savages who have 
no knowledge of money. One man is lucky at the hunt and exchanges a piece of 
game for arrows made by another, who has not been hunting and needs eatables. 
This method is not even trade, it is barter.” 

The second method, indirect commerce, is “primitive trade. It is carried on 
through a go-between, who becomes the owner of something which he did not produce and 
does not intend to consume. This method, although it is bad and leaves room for 
arbitrariness, is nevertheless highly advantageous in the following three cases: 

“1) in young countries, where only agriculture exists without industry; this is the 
state in which all colonies find themselves at the beginning; 

“2) in harsh lands, as in Siberia and the African deserts; a merchant who defies 
heat and cold to carry objects of necessity to distant parts is a very useful man; 

“3) in oppressed and constricted lands, where the Bedouin plunder caravans, 
exact ransom from merchants and often murder them — every kind of protection is 
due to him who braves these dangers in order to bring supplies to a distant land. 
When such a merchant becomes rich he certainly deserves it. 

“In these three cases the merchants are neither Stock Exchange gamblers nor 
corner-men; they do not hawk, one speculator to another, the objects intended for 
consumption. On their arrival they offer them openly to the consumer in a bazaar 
or public market; they are the accelerators of industrial movement. They want to 
earn — nothing is more reasonable in the civilised world: he who has sown deserves 
to harvest. But it is very rare that the merchants content themselves with this 
function of theirs; singly or in alliance they scheme to obstruct the circulation of 
commodities in order to make prices immediately soar. 

“Trade becomes pernicious from the moment the go- -betweens, due to their excessive 
number, become parasites [on the social body]” and are ready to conceal goods, to let 
them rise in price under the pretext of an artificially produced scarcity, in brief, to 
rob simultaneously the producer and the consumer through speculation tricks 
instead of serving both as simple, open go-betweens. We still see this openness at 
our small markets in villages and towns. The man who buys a hundred calves or 

* This expression exists in literally the same form also among German 
merchants.— Note by Engels. 

* In this paragraph Engels gives in his own words the content of Fourier’s Table: 
De i ‘echelle des méthodes commerciales appliquées aux diverses périodes.— Ed. 
> The words in brackets were added by Engels.—Fd. 

sheep is a useful intermediary for twenty peasants, who would otherwise lose whole 
working days to bring them to market in town. When, on arriving at the market, 
he publicly offers his animals for sale, he thereby renders a service also to the 
consumers; but when by means of heaven knows what tricks he agrees with other 
‘friends of trade’* to hide three-quarters of the sheep, to tell the butchers that 
sheep are scarce, that he can only supply a few friends, to sell them half as dear 
again under this pretext, to alarm the buyers, and then to bring the hidden sheep 
out one after the other, to sell them at inflated prices in the atmosphere of alarm 
previously created and thus to extort a high ransom from the consumers—then 
this is no longer simple commerce, open offering of commodities free from any 
intrigue, it is compound commerce, whose endlessly changing tricks give birth to 
the thirty-six typical vices of our trade system and are tantamount to a legal 
monopoly. When one lays hands on the total product by ruse in order to make it 
dearer, that is robbing more by means of intrigues than the monopoly does by 
armed force. 

“J shall not dwell any longer on the method of the barbarians. It comprises 
fixing of maximums, forcible requisitions and monopolies, which are still quite 
customary also in the civilised state. As I have already said elsewhere,” the various 
methods of individual periods overlap; one must not wonder, therefore, that 
civilisation borrows individual features from both higher and lower stages. Our 
civilised trade mechanism is thus an amalgamation of the characters of all periods, 
with those of the civilised stage, however, predominating—-and these are much 
more despicable still than those of barbarism, because our trade is nothing but 
organised and legitimised robbery under the mask of legality. As a result, the 
racketeers and intermediaries can unite to cause artificial dearth of any foodstuffs 
and thus plunder both producers and consumers to heap up in a hurry scandalous 
fortunes of fifty millions, whose owners nevertheless complain that there is no 
protection of trade, that the merchants cannot subsist, that nothing is done, and 
that the state is being ruined if the merchant is reduced to the inability to make 
more than fifty millions! 

“Meanwhile we are taught by a new“ science that these people should be granted 
complete freedom. Let the merchants do their job, we are told; without this 
freedom the corner-man, who even so has earned only fifty million, would perhaps 
not even have made a single million, and his respectable family would have to 
manage on fifty thousand francs revenue — 

“Dii, talem avertite casum! 

“.,. Contempt of commerce, a contempt inborn in all peoples, was prevalent in all 
nations considered to be honourable except for a few coastal clans of hucksters who 
derived benefit from commercial extortions and villainies. Athens, Tyre and 
Carthage, which profited by commerce, could not mock at it; everybody refrains 
from mocking at the ways in which he has enriched himself, and the financier least 
of all will mock at the art of adding ciphers to bills, or allowing the enemy to take 
away the ledgers and putting the cash in safety while reporting it also as having 
been taken by the enemy. 

“In reality with ancient as well as with modern peoples commerce has always 
been an object of mockery on the part of all honourable classes. How can one have 

* Quotes by Engels here and below.— Ed. 
Charles Fourier, Théorie de l’unité universelle, t. 2.—“Prolégoméne”.—Ed. 
© The word “new” was added by Engels.— Ed. 
d Ve gods, ward off such an occurrence! (A paraphrase from Virgil’s poem 
Aeneid, Book III.)— Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 619 

any esteem for an out-and-out rascally profession or a class of people who lie with 
every word they say and by means of this magic art earn millions while the honest 
landowner who cultivates his piece of land with great effort and exertion, using the 
best of his experience, barely achieves an insignificant increase in its yield? 

“Meanwhile, for a century a new science called Economics has been exalting 
hucksters, stockjobbers, corner-men, usurers, bankrupts, monopolisers and com- 
mercial parasites to the peak of honours: the governments, daily deeper and 
deeper in debt, always intent on finding means of borrowing money, have found 
themselves forced to conceal their contempt and to spare this class of mercantile 
blood-suckers which keeps the money-coffers locked to civilisation and pumps out 
all the treasures of agricultural and industrial diligence under the pretext of 
serving it. It is not denied that trade ensures transportation, victualling, and 
distribution, but it does so like a servant who performs service actually worth a 
thousand francs annually and on the other hand robs his master of ten thousand 
francs, or ten times as much as he produces. 

“As a young spendthrift secretly despises the Jew to whom he goes every week to 
get himself fleeced, but still always greets him very politely, so also the modern 
governments have, with obvious contempt, concluded an armistice with trade, 
which is doing all the better for the fact that it knows how to have itself lumped 
together with the very manufacturers whom it plunders. The economists, who have 
found in this merchants’ hotch-potch a nursery of new dogmas, a mine of systems, 
have overthrown morality with all its high-sounding talk of truth in order to 
enthrone their favourites, the stockjobbers and bankrupts. Thereupon all the 
scholars rivalled in self-abasement; in the beginning science admitted those ‘friends 
of trade’ as its equals—Voltaire dedicated a tragedy to an English merchant.* 
Today these stockjobbers would have a good laugh if a scholar presumed to 
dedicate a tragedy to them! Stockjobbing has discarded the mask, it no longer 
needs the incense of the scholars; it wants secret—and soon legal— participation in 
government! And indeed we have seen the Aachen Congress unable to decide 
anything until two bankers arrived.?°° 

“Despite the fact that the economic systems have exalted the Golden Calf of 
trade, they have been unable to put an end to the natural contempt which the 
nations feel towards it. It remains despised by the nobility, the clergy, the 
propertied classes, the officials, the lawyers, the scholars, despised by artists, 
soldiers, and every class worthy of respect. In vain has trade heaped sophism on 
sophism to prove to them that the stockjobbing blood-sucker should be re- 
spected —a natural disdain for this class of upstarts still prevails. Everybody yields 
to the upswing of a dogma favoured by fortune, but everybody continues in secret 
to despise the mercantile hydra, which takes no notice of this and pursues the 
course of its conquests. 

“How is it that our century has made public the crimes of so many classes, even 
those of the Federates,*!° who only existed for a month in 1815, whence comes it 
that it has never occurred to this century, which has spared neither kings nor popes in 
its collections on crimes, to make public the crimes of the merchants? Yet writers are 
unanimous in complaining that they suffer from a lack of material. To show them 
how fruitful this material is, I shall make a methodical analysis of only a single one 
of the” (thirty-six) “crimes of civilised trade. These thirty-six reprehensible features 
of our trade under the domination of individual competition and of bewildering 
and lying struggle are the following: 

* Voltaire, Zaire (a tragedy dedicated to E. Falkner, an admirer and friend of 
the author).— Ed. 

Synoptical Table of the Features of Civilised Trade* 

Pivotal points: Intermediate ownership and the dismemberment of agriculture. 

“1) The two-sidedness of trade. 

2) Arbitrary determination of value. 

3) Freedom of fraudulence. 

4) Insolidarity, lack of mutual liability. 

5) Theft, removal of capital. 

6) Decrease in wages. 

7) Artificial obstruction of supply sources. 

8) Oppressive surpluses. 

9) Perverse interferences. 

10) Destructive policy. 

11) Torpidness or general lack of credit (recoil, repercussion). 
12) Fictitious money. 

13) Financial confusion. 

14) Epidemical crime. 

15) Obscurantism. 

16) Parasitism. 

17) Cornering (accaparement). 

18) Stockjobbing. 

19) Usury. 

20) Unfruitful work. 

21) Industrial lotteries (speculation on risk). 
22) Indirect corporative monopoly. 

23) Fiscal monopoly, state administration enforced by falsification. 
24) The exotic, or colonial monopoly. 

25) Maritime monopoly. 

26) Feudal, caste monopoly. 

27) Baseless provocation. 

28) Loss. 

29) Falsification. 

30) Ruin of health. 

31) Bankruptcy. 

32) Smuggling. 

33) Piracy. 

34) Fixing of maximums and requisitions. 
35) Speculative slavery. 

36) Universal egoism.” 

Of these thirty-six features we shall consider in detail only one, bankruptcy; 
before that I shall say a few words about some others. 

II 

FALSENESS OF THE ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES ON CIRCULATION 
(Proved by three features of the Table, Nos. 7, 8 and 12: artificial obstruction 
of supply sources, oppressive surpluses and fictitious money) 
“Our century, which has been so prolific of theories about the movement of 
industry, still cannot distinguish circulation from obstruction. It confuses circulation 
interrupted in places with that which is uninterrupted, simple circulation with 

~ In his work Fourier gives this table in the introductory section.—Ed. 
> The words “lack of mutual liability” were added by Engels.— Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 621 

compound. However, let us leave these dull distinctions; the facts may speak and 
serve us as a basis for principles which are directly opposed to those of economics. 

“Both governments and peoples agree that forgers, both of money and of public 
securities, should be punished with death. Those who counterfeit coins and 
bank-notes are indeed condemned to death. A very wise precautionary measure. 
But why does trade enjoy the right to forge money when this practice brings other people to 
the gallows? 

“Every bill of exchange made out by a merchant bears the seed of counterfeit, for 
it is extremely uncertain whether it will ever be paid. Everyone who steers a course 
towards bankruptcy floods circulation with his bills of exchange without intend- 
ing ever to pay them. In this way he in fact makes and spreads counterfeit money. 

“Will it be objected that everyone else enjoys the same privilege, that a 
property-owner, like a merchant, can put bills of exchange into circulation? 

“That is not true. A property-owner cannot do that. A right is illusory when it 
cannot be exercised. Witness the constitutional right of the people to sovereignty, a 
pompous prerogative in spite of which the plebeian cannot even get his midday 
meal if he has not a sou in his pocket. And yet how far from the pretension to 
sovereignty is the claim to a midday meal. Many rights exist thus on paper, but not 
in reality, and their granting is an insult to him who cannot even ensure himself 
rights a hundred times less important. 

“So it is with the property-owner as regards the issuing of bills of exchange. He 
has the right to issue them as the plebeian has the right to claim sovereignty; but to 
possess the right and to exercise it are two very different things. When the 
property-owner makes out a bill of exchange he will not find anybody who will 
accept it without a guarantee, and he will be treated as one who forges money. He 
will be required to hypothecate a completely debt-free immovable property and to 
pay a usurious rate of interest into the bargain. His bills of exchange would be 
accepted at this price, and with such a security they would be money with real 
value, not fictitious money like those of a second-hand dealer who, by virtue of his 
title as a ‘friend of trade, finds means of putting into circulation ‘good’ bills to 
the value of a million when he does not possess even the hundredth part of that 
sum, even 10,000 francs as guarantee for that million. 

“How beautifully those governments let themselves be cheated who deprive 
themselves of this ability and guarantee it for the merchant! A merchant who has 
ten thousand francs security issues bills of exchange to the amount of a million 
when he pleases; he is protected and authorised to do so; he has the right to set 
this mass of paper in circulation without the law being entitled to investigate how 
he places his capital and what securities he has. The Treasury, offering a guarantee 
of say ten million, would have to be able, according to this ratio, to issue securities up 
to a thousand million. But if a government tries to do so without consulting public 
opinion, without informing it of the move, it will see its credit ruined and its.country 
exposed to political disturbances; and yet it is only doing the same, only availing 
itself of the same privilege which is enjoyed by so many schemers, who often 
cannot offer the hundredth part of these guarantees and cannot run their business. 

“It will be answered that these schemers know how to talk over the foolish and 
insinuate themselves into their confidence; it is therefore set up as a principle of 
commerce that the art of duping and plundering good-natured, credulous people 
deserves to be protected in every way and that this protection must be limited to 
the merchant and not be enjoyed by the government. I do not maintain that this 
fine art should be allowed to both, but on the contrary that it should be denied 
both to rulers and to merchants. 

* The word “good” has been inserted by Engels.— Ed. 

“From this it follows that the merchant enjoys the ability to issue fictitious money 
in the form of bills of exchange (twelfth feature)—a crime which is equivalent to 
forging money, for which the other categories of rascals are sent to the 
gallows—and that the trade system of civilised people legalises and protects 
competition of fraudulence (third feature). 

“The accusation of forging money, like the other points of the accusation, will be 
answered as follows: there must be merchants in order to ensure circulation, and 
business would become impossible if these agents were placed under restraint; the 
state would disrupt the public credit and place the whole of its industry in 
jeopardy. 

“It is true enough that a quality of trade is that it forges our fetters still tighter 
whenever the social body shows any signs of resistance. As soon as any administrative 
measure hampers the machinations of trade, trade restricts credit and paralyses 
circulation, while the state, which wanted to eliminate an old disorder, in the end 
adds new ones. This effect is called repercussion (eleventh feature) in the Table. 

“This danger is used as the basis for establishing the principle: Let the merchants 
do their job, their complete freedom is the guarantee of circulation. An exceeding- 
ly false principle, for it is precisely this complete freedom which gives rise to all the 
tricks that are so obstructive to circulation: stockjobbing, cornering, bankruptcy, 
and so on, the consequences of which are the two features: 

“7. Artificial obstruction of supply sources. 

“8, Oppressive surpluses. 

“Let us see what influence these two features have on circulation.” 

Trade does not content itself with delivering commodities from the producer to 
the consumer," “it schemes by means of cornering and stockjobbing speculation to 
produce an artificial dearth of those food articles which are not exactly plentiful. In 
1807 a stockjobbing manoeuvre suddenly raised the price of sugar to five francs in 
the month of May, and the same sugar dropped to two francs in July, although not 
the slightest new supplies had arrived. But the stockjobbing had been countered by 
means of false information and thus the sugar had been brought down to its value; 
the scheming and artificially aroused fears that there would be no supply had been 
disposed of. These schemes and artificial fears play their tricks every day with some 
food article and make it scarce without a real scarcity existing. In 1812, when the 
harvest was assured and the corner-men were disappointed in their hopes, 
enormous quantities of grain and flour were suddenly seen coming from their 
warehouses. So there had been no shortage at all and absolutely no danger of 
famine, if only these foodstuffs had been distributed rationally.” But trade has the 
peculiarity that even before there is a danger, with an eye to its possibility, it diverts 
supplies, stops circulation, arouses panicky fears, produces artificial food shortage. 

“The same effect is produced in times of surplus, when trade obstructs supplies 
out of affected fear of profusion. In the former case it operates positively, by 
buying up foodstuffs in anticipation; in the latter case negatively, by not buying 
and thus causing prices to drop so low that the peasant does not even get his 
production costs refunded. Hence arises the eighth feature, oppressive surpluses. 

“Trade will retort that it does not need to buy when it foresees no profit, and 
that it will not be so insane as to overload itself with grain which offers no 
probability at all of a surcharge, while it, trade, can invest its capital far more 
usefully in such commodities as hold out profit for it because of their scarcity, 
which can easily be increased by cornering. ; 

* Here Fourier refers to the third method (le trafic ou négoce indirect inter- 

médiaire) quoted in his Table: De lechelle des méthodes commerciales appliquées aux 
diverses pértodes.— Ed. i 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 623 

“There you have convenient and pleasant principles in a social system in which 
people talk about nothing but mutual guarantees. Trade is therefore exempted 
whenever it pleases from serving the social body. It acts like an army which would 
be authorised to refuse to fight whenever danger were present, and to do service 
only in its own interest, without any consideration for the state interest. Such is our 
mercantile policy, so one-sidedly does it determine all obligations. 

“In 1820 the price of grain dropped below three francs in various provinces in 
which a price of four francs hardly covered the costs. This would not have 
occurred had French trade bought in advance six months’ food supplies for thirty 
million persons,” as it would have had to do under a system of mutuality adapting 
itself to the interests of both parties.* “This reserve stock, withdrawn from 
circulation and locked up in granaries, would have kept up the price of the rest, 
and the peasant would not have suffered from the depreciation and the 
impossibility to market his products. But our trade system works exactly in the 
opposite direction: it aggravates the pressure of surplus and the evils of famine and 
thus has a destructive effect on both sides. 

“I have chosen the eighth feature, oppressive surplus, to show that the existing 
mode of trade has both negative and positive defects, and that it often sins by 
non-intervention, by omitting a service which it could easily render. For when in a 
time of famine the sum of five hundred million is required to buy up the corn, it is 
immediately available; but if this sum is needed for precautionary measures to 
increase stocks in times of surplus, not even five hundred talers© can be scraped 
together. There is neither mutuality nor guarantee in the contract concluded 
between the social body and the commercial body. The latter serves only its own 
interest, not that of society, and hence the abundant capital which it uses is a robbery 
perpetrated against industry as a whole. In the Table I have listed this robbery as the 
fifth feature: ‘Removal of capital.” 

Thus, on both sides of trade “there is not the slightest sense of obligation 
towards the social body, which surrenders itself, bound hand and foot, to the- 
Minotaur, to whom it guarantees despotic power over capitals and foodstuffs.” Yes, 
indeed, despotic power! ‘After so many declamations against despotism we still 
have not discovered the real one, which is no other than the despotism of trade, that 
real satrap of the civilised world! 

“To sum up, it follows trom this that the civilised mechanism guarantees the 
merchants complete impunity for the crime of forging money, for which other 
classes are punished with death—and that this impunity is based on the pretence 
of help which they allegedly render to circulation but in reality refuse — positively 
by artificial obstruction of supply sources and negatively by oppressive profusion. 

“To this falsity in the results must be added the lack of any principles. The 
economists admit that their science has absolutely no fixed principles; and it is 
indeed the height of unprincipledness to grant complete freedom to a class of so 
exceedingly depraved agents as the merchants. 

“The consequence of all this is that the commercial movement proceeds by fits 
and starts, in spasms, surprises and excesses of all descriptions, as can be seen every 
day in the present trade mechanism, which can achieve only a periodically 
interrupted circulation, without regular graduation, without balance and guarantees. 

4 This summarises the ideas contained in the two preceding paragraphs of 
Fourier’s work, which Engels omitted. — Ed. 

> The last sentence is given by Engels abridged.— Ed. 

© Fourier has “écus” —Ed. 

4 Engels gives the text of this paragraph in a somewhat abridged form.—Ed. 

“An amusing result of this disorder is that people have the courage to reproach 
the government with financial abuses which they never dare to reproach trade 
with. Witness the two bankruptcies—that of Law’s bank-notes and that of the 
assignats. 211 These were gradual bankruptcies, they were seen approaching from 
afar; with a timely partial sacrifice they could have been guarded against. Despite 
these extenuating circumstances the public gave no quarter. It rightly declared 
Law’s notes and the assignats to be forgery, armed plunder. 

“Why then does the same public good-naturedly tolerate the issue of counterfeit 
money by the merchants when it does not allow it for governments, even when 
these are cautious enough to prepare for the bankruptcy by a slow depreciation 
which affords the holders of the papers the possibility to evade it? This possibility 
does not exist for the holders of the securities issued by trade. Bankruptcy strikes 
them like a thunderclap. Many a man goes to sleep tonight in possession of 300,000 
francs and wakes up tomorrow with no more than 100,000 as a result of a bankruptcy. 
The National Convention copied this manoeuvre in the operation of the 
Consolidated Third?! \s people did not tire of reproaching it with this as a fully 
established robbery. An yet every merchant is allowed the right to commit still 
more vexatious robberies and to steal by bankruptcy two-thirds of what he 
received, whereas the Convention withheld two-thirds of sums it had never 
received. How outrageous the crimes of trade become when compared with other, 
and even the biggest, political infamies!* 

“The following details will demonstrate that modern politics, by handing over 
trade to completely free merchants exempt from any kind of obligation, has set the 
wolf among the fold and provoked robberies of all kinds.” 

Let us now go on to bankruptcy to describe it in somewhat greater detail. 

III 
HIERARCHY OF BANKRUPTCY 

“When a crime becomes very frequent, one gets accustomed to it and witnesses it 
with indifference?! In Italy or Spain people remain quite cool at the sight of a 
hired assassin stabbing his designated victim and taking refuge in a church, where 
he enjoys immunity. In Italy one sees fathers mutilate and murder their children to 
improve their voice, while the servants of ‘the God of peace’ encourage them to 
perpetrate these brutalities so as to obtain good singers for their choirs. Such 
abominations would arouse the indignation of all other civilised nations if they 
occurred amongst them,” but on the other hand they “have other outrageous 
customs which would make the Italians’ blood boil. 

“If the customs and opinions within civilisation differ so much from nation to 
nation, how much more must they differ from one social epoch to another; how 
hateful would the vices which are tolerated in civilisation seem in less imperfect 
social stages! One can hardly believe that countries which call themselves well 
ordered can tolerate for a moment such abominations as bankruptcy. 

“Bankruptcy is the most ingenious and shameless villainy that has ever existed; it 
guarantees every merchant the ability to rob the public of a sum proportionate to 
his fortune or his credit, so that a rich man can say: ‘I set up as a tradesman in 
1808; on such and such a day in the year 1810 I will steal so and so many millions, 
whoever they may belong to.’ 

* Fourier has “such as the infamies of the Convention”, which Engels 
omits.—Ed. 

> The last sentence is given by Engels abridged.—Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 625 

“Let us leave aside a present development, the new French code*'* and its 

intention to punish bankruptcy. There is no unanimity in respect of the success of 
this intention and means of evading the new laws are already being suggested. 
Therefore we shall first let practice decide and meanwhile base our arguments on 
already known facts; consider the disorders which result from the philosophical 
system and the principle: Leave the merchants complete freedom, without 
demanding any guarantee of the cleverness, the honesty or the solvency of each 
individual. 

“From these arises, alongside other abuses, bankruptcy, a still more heinous 
robbery than highway robbery. However, people have become accustomed to it and 
put up with it so well that they even recognise honest bankruptcies — those in which 
the speculator steals only half. 

“Let us go on to a detailed description of this kind of heroism, which was little 
known in antiquity. Since then it has experienced a brilliant upswing. It presents 
analysts with a series of developments which testify to our progress towards 
perfectibility. 

Hierarchy of Bankruptcy.— Feature 31.—The Crimes of Trade. —A Free Series 
in Three Orders, Nine Genera, and Thirty-Six Species? 

“Right or ascending wing. Light hues. 
I. The Innocent. 

1) Child bankruptcy. 

2) Daredevil bankruptcy. 
3) Stealthy bankruptcy. . 
4) Posthumous bankruptcy. 

Il. The Honourable. 

5) Goose bankruptcy. 
6) Ecstatic bankruptcy. 
7) Unprincipled bankruptcy. 

Ill. The Seductive. 

8) Amiability bankruptcy. 
9) Bankruptcy de bon ton. 
10) Amorous bankruptcy. 
11) Bankruptcy by favour. 
12) Sentimental bankruptcy. 

“Centre of the Series. Grandiose Hues. 
IV. The Tacticians. 

13) Fat bankruptcy. 

14) Cosmopolitan bankruptcy. 
15) Hopeful bankruptcy. 

16) Transcendent bankruptcy. 
17) Graded bankruptcy. 

V. The Manoeuvrers. 

18) Running fire bankruptcy. 
19) Close-column bankruptcy. 
20) Marching-in-file bankruptcy. 
21) Skirmisher bankruptcy. 

VI. The Agitators. 

22) Bankruptcy in grand style. 
23) Large-scale bankruptcy. 
24) Attila bankruptcy. 

“Left or Descending Wing. Dirty Hues. 
VII. The Cunning Sneakers. 

25) Compensation bankruptcy. 
26) Bankruptcy out of rank. 
27) Crescendo bankruptcy. 
28) Godly bankruptcy. 

VIII. The Bunglers 

29) Fools’ bankruptcy. 
30) Invalids’ bankruptcy. 
31) Crushing bankruptcy. 
32) Swinish bankruptcy. 

IX. The False Brothers. 

33) Villains’ bankruptcy. 
34) Gallows-bird bankruptcy. 
35) Fugitive bankruptcy. 
36) Bankruptcy for fun. 

IV 
ASCENDING WING OF BANKRUPTS 

“In a very depraved, very grasping century one would be a general laughing- 
stock if one declaimed in a schoolmaster’s tone against the accredited vices, against 
bankruptcy. It is much more sensible to chime in the dominant tone and to’see the 
funny side of social crimes. So I shall try to prove that bankruptcy is an even much 
more laughable villainy than it is believed to be by its promoters and protectors, 
who see nothing but well-behaved trifles in its mercantile plunder. 

“Everything is relative, in vice as in virtue. Even robbers have their standards of 
justice and honour. It is therefore no wonder that among themselves bankrupts 
admit principles and degrees in rascality. I have sought to use these as a basis for 
my division. I have divided them according to the custom in three corps, the first 
of which contains the light, graceful hues, the second the imposing, lofty 
characters, and the third the rather inconspicuous, trivial genera. The right wing 
will open the march-past.” 

The Innocent 

“I, Child bankruptcy is that of the greenhorn who is making his debut in the 
career, and inconsiderately, without any preparatory tactics, indulges in the mad 
prank of going bankrupt. The notary easily puts the affair in order. He presents it 
as a folly. of youth and says: ‘Youth counts on your indulgence, Messieurs the 
Creditors.’ The annoying business is wound up to the merriment of the public, for 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 627 

these greenhorn bankruptcies are always interlarded with amusing incidents: 
duped usurers, mystified skinflints,” etc. 

“The bankrupt of this genus can risk masses of shabby affairs: appropriation of 
goods, scandalous loans, thefts from relatives, friends, neighbours— everything is 
washed away by the argument of a relative who says to the irate creditors: ‘What 
can you expect—he is a child without any knowledge of business; one must close 
one’s eyes where young people are concerned, he will improve with time.’ 

“These child bankrupts have a strong support on their side, namely mockery. 
One likes to mock in trade; one is inclined to mock at those who are duped rather 
than to censure the villains, and when a bankrupt has the laughers on his side he is 
sure to see the majority of his creditors capitulate immediately and to win his 
composition by assault. 

“2. Daredevil bankruptcy; that of certain beginners who play double or quits, 
people who gallop off at full speed, speculate and manage their affairs like mad, 
make ducks and drakes with huge sums of money and play the grand gentleman to 
achieve by storm a temporary credit which they manage to secure by some secret 
sacrifice. When these daredevils once get going they heap blunder on blunder and 
usually end up in flight. The affair will be excused as botch work and easily arranged, 
for it provides material for mockery like the preceding one. 

“These daredevils are extremely common in France and are here honoured with 
the title of speculators. They are very sure of their game if they hasten the 
discovery so that they can turn their somersault at the very moment when they are 
believed to have hardly got going, when everybody is ready to grant them credit for 
a first deal and thinks: ‘he will certainly not come a cropper in the very first year.’ 

“3. Stealthy bankruptcy, the type carried out underhand, is one in which the 
embarrassed debtor proposes ‘a small arrangement’, a rebate of 25 per cent or 
coverage in goods to be over-assessed by 25 per cent. The mediator remarks to the 
creditors that this is very advantageous for them, for if they press the debtor and 
oblige him to go bankrupt they will lose at least 50 per cent. 

“This kind of relative calculation is very much insisted upon in trade. One often 
comes across villains who, after they have robbed you of 30 per cent, try to prove 
that you are making an enormous profit because they are not fleecing you of 50 
per cent. Others maintain that they have to bear heavy losses because they are 
earning no more than 40 per cent on you and actually should be earning 60 per cent. 
This apparently ridiculous way of reckoning is recognised everywhere in commerce; 
it has its greatest triumph in underhand bankruptcy. People insist that this small 
rebate of 25 per: cent is a clear net profit compared with the 50 per cent that 
bankruptcy would cost. Shaken by the force of this argument, the creditors agree 
to the ‘small arrangement’, He who was to’receive 4,000 francs gets 3,000, and 
that is by no means called bankruptcy. 

“4. Posthumous bankruptcy, which is adjudicated after the hero’s death; it becomes 
a plea in defence of the deceased who hoped to set his business in order again and 
would certainly have been a credit to it if he had but lived. After that his excellent 
qualities are praised and his poor orphans sincerely pitied. Surely the creditors will 
not wish to worry a tearful widow! If she is beautiful that would be altogether 
barbaric! Meanwhile, the widow, with the help of a few persons of trust, has ~ 
managed some sizable defalcations before the sealing. The deficiencies will be 
charged to the deceased, who did not have time to put his affairs in order and who 
will not come back to disprove this little fib. If there was a deficit of 25 per cent it 
will easily be increased to 50 per cent, it does not cost any more once one has made 
a beginning; besides, how stupid it would be to go bankrupt with a 25 per cent 

* Here Fourier has “Harpagons” instead of “skinflints’ — Ed. 

deficit when people with one of 50 per cent are still considered honest — especially 
when the fault lies with a highly respectable deceased person, whose memory it 
would be abominable to discredit!” 

The Honourable 

“The four species mentioned are those of fictitious innocence. We now let those 
of real innocence pass in review. It would be unfair to brand bankrupts en masse 
because nine-tenths of them are scoundrels. I shall adduce three truly excusable 
classes. We shall have but too many guilty ones to accuse; so let us first seek some 
honest people: among this confraternity, which has become so numerous since the 

revolution’ that in some towns one no longer asks who has, but who has not gone 
bankrupt. 

“5. Goose bankruptcy is that of an unfortunate one who does not peculate a mite, 
hands everything over to the creditors and throws himself on their mercy without 
any deception. The other bankrupts mock at him and declare him to be a 
simpleton” for not at least feathering his nest; and in fact such a loyal man is 
unworthy of our century of perfectibility. 

“6. Ecstatic bankruptcy is the work of a man who is desperate, considers himself 
dishonoured and sometimes shoots himself or jumps into the water. It means one 
is well behind the times if one wishes to be an honest man in the 19th century, and 
moreover in trade! 

“All the same it is a pleasure for me to have to say that one still comes across 
such _people in trade, but they are few and far between—rari nautes in gurgite 
vasto.. Everybody foretells them their fate, so well known is the fact that out of ten 
villains. that plunge into trade nine make their fortune, whereas out of ten honest 
people nine are ruined. 

“7, Unprincipled bankruptcy is that of a booby who lets justice intervene and 
pronounce sentence branding him and stripping him naked instead of doing as so 
many clever people do, who manage to emerge from this predicament with honour 
and profit— These three honest knights are so little worthy of the exalted 
confraternity that I pass over them quickly. We now come to a sort which is more 
capable of earning the applause of experts.” 

The Seductive 

“Why should one not let oneself be seduced by bankrupts as one is by so many 
other wicked classes? We shall now inspect a clique which possesses every kind of 
charm and is made to conquer all hearts. 

“8. Amiability bankruptcy, economical bankruptcy, is that of a little man as sweet as 
honey who desires nothing but the good of his creditors, would be desperate if he 
had to put them out of pocket, and presses them to negotiate for 50 per cent in 
order to avoid the intervention of justice which would devour the lot. He has the 
creditors notified that he wants to treat them as friends whose interests are dear to 
him. Full of gratitude for the friendly services they have rendered him, he trembles 
at the thought of having to cause them lawsuit costs. These smooth words and 
other guiles seduce some while others yield for fear of justice swallowing up the lot. 

* Here Fourier has “la régénération”. (He associated with the French Revolution 
a rebirth of the trade system which goes with civilisation.) — Ed. 
> Fourier has “Jocrisse”—the simpleton in the popular French theatre and 
in Moliere’ s comedy Sganarelle.—Ed. 
© Rare swimmers in a vast gulf (Virgil, Aeneid).— Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 629 

“9. Bankruptcy de bon ton is that of people who are very much liked in refined 
society and maintain their household on an excellent footing till the last moment. 
As they are comme il faut in all respects, they have abundant protection and when 
they are not at more than 60 per cent in deficit they easily get a composition; 
especially when the lady and the daughters of the house can be used as pleaders 
and avail themselves of the decision of a Sanchez”! who allows them to wear a 
very transparent scarf when they go soliciting in important matters. 

“10. Amorous bankruptcy is that of pretty ladies; it is not decent to complain about 
it, the fair sex is entitled to consideration. A pretty woman has a business, goes 
bankrupt,” robs you of a thousand talers; if you pester her it only goes to show that 
you have no savoir vivre; she is right when she has no patience with the intractable. 
I heard one such lady say about a creditor: ‘What a man! They even say he is still 
grumbling; I advise him, indeed, to complain about his fifty louis, I should have 
chalked him up for twice as much!’ He had had certain intimacies with the lady, she 
had the right to treat him as ungrateful. 

“11. Bankruptcy by favour, in the case of which it is obvious that the creditors 
derive profit—and how does that happen? When the bankrupt steals only a little, 
40 per cent, and provides security, a very substantial caution, for the rest. This is 
considered so fortunate that the notary congratulates the assembled creditors, 
congratulates them on an excellent piece of business, a ‘real favour’. To lose only 
four thousand francs out of ten thousand and to get six thousand paid back is a 
real advantage. Somebody not accustomed to commerce would be unable to 
appreciate this favour; he would want to have all of his ten thousand and would 
think he had been robbed of four thousand. What bad manners! To claim that a 
man robs you when he deducts 40 per cent discount and otherwise treats you in a 
friendly way! 

“12. Sentimental bankruptcy occurs with certain people who deliver speeches to 
break your heart and pour out such floods of feeling and virtue over the creditor 
that he would be a barbarian if he did not instantly surrender, did not esteem 
himself happy to oblige such fine people who tenderly love all those whose money 
they cause to disappear. People of this kind pay with excellent excuses and 
very flattering eulogies, they catch the creditor by his feelings, converse with him 
only about his and their virtues; you feel so much improved when the conversation 
is over; you discover in yourself a multitude of virtues which amply outweigh the 
sum abstracted. You have a few thousand francs less but all the more virtues; it is a 
clear profit for beautiful souls. 

“One of those actors© said to me one day: ‘I was so sorry for the gentlemen, they 
are very fine, very respectable people’—and the good young man, as proof of his 
respect, robbed them” at once in the first deal with a bill of exchange which he 
gave them as a present and a token of welcome. He had drawn the sum in order to 
come into contact with them, and a month later he went bankrupt. What a joy for 
these gentlemen to have received his respect as a security for ten thousand francs! 

“I have kept my word, I had promised a seductive company. There is nothing but 
friendship, favour, bon ton, and tender feelings in all bankruptcies of this truly amiable 
series. But if it is calculated to win hearts, others will command wonder, give rise to 
brilliant upswings, transcendent characters, and represent the heroes of their genus.” 

* The words “has a business, goes bankrupt” were added by Engels.— Ed. 
Fourier has “écus” —Ed. 
© Fourier has “histrions”—literally actors in Ancient Rome; later it came to 
mean buffoons or comedians; figuratively—charlatans.—Ed. 

4 Fourier has “of 10,000 francs” —Ed. 

Vv 
CENTRE.—GRANDIOSE HUES 

“We now come to the magnificent manifestations of the spirit of commerce, to 
the extensive operations which demonstrate the century’s immense progress 
towards rebirth and perfectibility. Bankruptcy will here unfold its mastery and 
operate according to far-reaching plans, the exposition of which will prove the 
wisdom of the principle: Let the merchants do their job, leave them complete 
freedom for their lofty conceptions of deceit and plunder.” 

The Tacticians 

“13. Fat bankruptcy is that of speculators of high standing who possess the genius 
of trade. Banker Dorante has two million and wishes to achieve as soon as 
possible by some means a fortune of four to five million. By virtue of his known 
capital he receives credit amounting to eight million in bills of exchange, goods, 
etc., so he has a fund of ten million to play with. He plunges into grand 
speculation and deals in goods and state securities. At the end of the year he may 
have lost his two million instead of doubling them; you consider him as 
ruined—not at all, he will have the four million just as if he had transacted good 
business; for he still has the eight million that he has received and by means of an 
‘honest’ bankruptcy he arranges to pay half of this over several years. So it 
happens that after losing his own two million he finds himself in possession of four 
million that he has abstracted from the public. What a wonderful thing, this free 
trade! Do you now grasp why one hears it said every day of a merchant: ‘He is 
doing very well since his bankruptcy’? 

“A further opportunity for the bankrupt: Dorante, after a peculation of four 
million, retains intact his honour and public respect, not as a lucky villain, but as an 
unlucky merchant. Let us explain this. 

“Dorante obtained control over public opinion while he was pondering his 
bankruptcy: his fétes in town, his country parties secured him warm supporters; 
the gilded youth is for him; the belles sympathise with his misfortune—misfortune 
today is a synonym for bankruptcy; there is praise for his noble character, which 
deserves a better lot. It almost seems, according to what his defenders say, that the 
bankrupt has come off worse than those whose fortune he has destroyed. It is all 
blamed on political events, the unfavourable conditions and other verbiage current 
among notaries who are adepts at holding off attacks by irate creditors. After the 
first storm Dorante brings in a few middlemen, a few opportunely distributed wads 
of money, and soon public opinian is so well hedged in that anybody who dares to 
speak against Dorante is declared to be a cannibal. And besides, those whom he 
robbed of the biggest sums are a hundred or two hundred miles* away, in Hamburg 
or in Amsterdam; they will cool down in time, they do not matter much, their 
distant yapping does not affect opinion in Paris. Moreover, Dorante only causes 
them to lose half of their money, and custom has it that he who steals only half is 
more unfortunate than guilty; so that in the public mind Dorante stands clean 
from the start. After a month public attention is diverted by other bankruptcies 
which create a bigger sensation and in which between two-thirds and three-quarters 
went west. New splendour for Dorante, who took only half, and then it is an old 
forgotten story. Dorante’s house begins gradually to open to the public again, his 
cook recovers his old sway over hearts and minds and unheeded are the cries of 

* Fourier has “lieues” —Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 631 

some black-galled creditors who have no sympathy for misfortune and have no 
regard for the consideration due to good society. 

“Thus in less than six months ends the operation by which Dorante and those of 
his kind rob the public of millions, ruin families whose fortunes they hold in their 
hands, hurl honest merchants into bankruptcy which assimilates them to villains. 
Bankruptcy is the only social crime which spreads epidemically and plunges the 
honest man into the same disgrace as the rascal. The more honest merchant who 
has suffered from the bankruptcies of twenty knaves is himself forced in the end to 
cease his payments. 

“Hence it comes that the villainous bankrupts, 1.e., nine-tenths of the tribe, claim 
to be honest people who have been unfortunate and shout in chorus: We are to be 
pitied more than blamed. If you listen to them, they are all little saints, like 
galley-slaves, who all claim to have done nothing wrong. 

“To this the supporters of free commerce will retort with talk of repressive laws, 
of tribunals; yes, indeed! Tribunals for people who steal several million at one go! 
Incidentally, the saying that petty thieves are hanged while the big ones go 
scot-free* is false as regards trade, for even the smallest bankruptcy evades justice 
under the protection of the merchants. 

“14, Cosmopolitan bankruptcy. This is an alliance of the commercial mind with the 
philosophical. A bankrupt is a true cosmopolite if after exploiting one kingdom he 
goes through a series of bankruptcies in several others. This is a safe speculation. 
On arrival one is unknown, if necessary one changes one’s name, as Jews do, and 
receives credit at once on the strength of the capital amassed as a result of an 
earlier bankruptcy. It is a delightful idea of modern politics to hand over the 
general administration of the industrial product to people who are not tied by any 
solid link, any big landed estate to their native country and who, as cosmopolites, 
can reckon on half a dozen successive bankruptcies in Paris, London, Hamburg, 
Trieste, Naples and Cadiz. I shall depict this bankruptcy under the heading of 
running fire, which has a cosmopolite as the pivotal point of its manoeuvre. 

“15. Hopeful bankruptcy. This dates really from after the revolution » and is hardly 
half a century old. Young people formerly did not make their debut in commerce 
so early, they were never chiefs before their thirtieth year. Now at the age of 
eighteen they run a house and at twenty they can have their first bankruptcy, 
which justifies great hopes for the future. There are some who before they are 
thirty have already been bankrupt three times and more than once got through 
one hundred talers belonging to their sleeping partner. When one sees them one 
says: ‘he is very young to have such fame, but we are living in the age of young 
people.’ 

“16. Transcendent bankruptcy requires a far-reaching plan, an immense upswing, 
an office with thirty to forty clerks, numerous ships, colossal interests in all 
countries, then a sudden crash, a terrible somersault the counterblasts of which 
echo in the four corners of the world, and a chaos of liquidations on the fat of 
which businessmen can thrive for ten years. It is an operation in which the 
mercantile genius is unfolded in all its brilliance; it must entail a loss of at least 
three-quarters, for in this mighty picture everything must be laid out magnificently. 

“17. Graded bankruptcy is that of a speculator who, by wisely directing his 
operation, can achieve a career of seven or eight successive bankruptcies. In this 
case he must adopt a different course than the one who aims at only one or two, 

“The principles are: 

* The words “the big ones go scot-free” were added by Engels.— Ed. 
Fourier has “la régénération” — Ed. 

“I) in the first bankruptcy to plunder only with measure; 50 per cent is 
sufficient, one must not make the people wild from the start, and the second 
bankruptcy would be too difficult if one discredited oneself at the first trial stroke 
through too great covetousness; 

“2) in the second bankruptcy to plunder only very little, not more than 30 per 
cent, in order to prove that the bankrupt has learned something, that he already 
operates more skilfully and cautiously, and that he will become an accomplished mer- 
chant, a worthy ‘friend of trade’, when he has recovered from this second blow; 

“3) in the third to plunder abundantly, at least 80 per cent, claiming that it is no 
ordinary deficit, but one caused by extraordinary mischance; to see it through by 
pleading some critical circumstances, to draw attention to one’s good behaviour in 
the second bankruptcy in order to prove that the blame lies entirely with events; 

“4) in the fourth to plunder only 50 per cent in order to prove that one is a 
cautious man and knows-how to remain within the appropriate bounds when not 
swept away by circumstances; 

“5) in the fifth one can go as far as 60 per cent, because the public is accustomed 
to it; 10 per cent more or less spoils no speculation of this kind when public 
opinion has become accustomed to it; for it is known that whoever has had four 
bankruptcies will also have a fifth and a sixth. I have seen one bankrupt who was 
laughed at after his fourth bankruptcy because he wore a clerical hat as a sign of 
piety and good morals; he did not let himself be put off and prepared the fifth. 

“The sixth and seventh are ad libitum, one has them only as age draws on and 
when one thinks of resting on one’s laurels. Nothing is easier than to excuse a sixth 
bankruptcy; one is too old to change, nobody is surprised any longer. For the rest, 
it is argued that the government refuses to protect trade and is the cause of these 
little setbacks of honest businessmen. _ 

“Let no one be surprised if I give here a few principles to be used in bankruptcy; 
it is a quite new art which, like economics, from which it sprang, has as yet no 
fixed principles, nor even a methodical nomenclature. For instance, titles have been 
given only to the first four stages in graded bankruptcy. 

“The man who has had his first bankruptcy is simply a ‘Knight’, 

“At the second he receives the title of ‘Prince’, 

“At the third the title of ‘King’, 

“At the fourth ‘Emperor’. 

“For the fifth, sixth and seventh grade there are not yet any names among the 
members of the trade. A true ‘friend of trade’ must rise to the full octave. In 
order to be a ‘harmonious’ bankrupt one must have had seven ‘honest’ 
bankruptcies with average losses of 50 per cent, and then a reinforced, a complete 
bankruptcy, as the pivotal point in the series; it is then allowed to plunder to the extent 
of at least 80 per cent as an indemnity for the moderation shown in the others; the 
fifty per cent of earlier bankruptcies is only the honest tariff, a quite small slice, 
giving nobody the right to censure, because it is the accepted rate for bankruptcies, 
a fixed price, exactly like the price of tartlets or coach fares.” 

The Manoeuvrers 

“In this item we deal with the mass evolutions which require co-operation of 
different bankrupts for the good of trade and the triumph of lofty truth. These 
collective manoeuvres will show us four sorts of evolution artists. 

“18. Running five bankruptcy. This is generally caused by counterblasts, through a 
concatenation of bankruptcies, one caused by another. I shall describe one of the 
medium sort, the bourgeois kind, because they are most understandable for the 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 633 

bulk of readers. We shall take one of the cosmopolitan artists, whose definition I 
have postponed, as the pivotal point of the running fire manoeuvre. 

“Judas, Iscariot arrives in France with 100,000 francs* capital, which he 
earned in his first bankruptcy; he establishes himself as a merchant in a town 
where he has six respected and accredited houses as rivals. In order to take away 
their clientele and their good reputation, Iscariot immediately begins to sell his 
wares at cost price, a sure way of attracting the multitude. Soon his rivals clamour 
in a most pitiful way about him; he laughs at their complaints and continues all the 
more to sell off everything at cost price. 

“Thereupon the people shout so that it is a pleasure to hear them: Long live 
competition, long live the Jews, long live philosophy and fraternity! All com- 
modities have become cheaper since Iscariot’s arrival, and the public say to his 
rivals: You, Gentlemen, are the real Jews, you want to earn too much; Iscariot 
alone is an honest man, he is content with a moderate profit, because he runs no 
brilliant household as you do.—Vain are all the representations made by the old 
houses that Iscariot is a villain in disguise who sooner or later will come to grief; the 
public accuse them of jealousy and calumny and crowd more and more to the Jew. 

“The calculation that this thief makes is as follows: By selling at cost price he 
loses only the interest on his capital, let it come to 10,000 francs annually, but 
ensures a good outlet for himself, makes a name for himself in the maritime towns - 
as a good consumer and by prompt payment gets big credit. This trick is pursued 
for two years, after which Iscariot has earned nothing, though he has sold 
enormous quantities. His manoeuvre remains undetected, because Jews have only 
Jewish office staff, people who are the secret enemies of all nations and will never 
betray a villainy thought up by their ‘own’ people. 

“When all is ripe for development, Iscariot puts in his whole credit, places giant 
orders in all maritime towns, buys goods on credit for the sum of 5-600,000 francs. 
He sends his wares abroad and sells his whole stock dirt cheap. When he has 
exchanged everything for money the good Iscariot vanishes with his briefcase and 
returns to Germany, where he has despatched the goods he bought on credit, sells 
them quickly and is four times as rich when he leaves France as he was on his 
arrival; he has 400,000 francs, and he goes to London or Leghorn to get a third 
bankruptcy under way. 

“Now the veil suddenly falls and people come to their senses in the town where 
he struck his blow. People realise how dangerous it is to permit Jews to trade, those 
vagabonds who are not tied to anything. But this bankruptcy of Iscariot is only the 
first act of the farce; let us follow the running fire. 

“The Jew has six rivals; we shall call them A, B, C, D, E, F. 

“A had been in straits for a long time, he held out without capital, only by virtue 
of his good reputation; but through the arrival of the Jew he is robbed of all his 
clients, he could pursue the race only for a year, and, not mature for these new 
philosophical systems which protect vagabonds, he finds himself compelled to bow 
down before Iscariot’s tactics and to declare himself bankrupt. 

“B endured the blow longer; he already saw the Jew’s villainy from afar and 
waited for the storm to pass in order to win back his clientele which the rascal 
Iscariot had taken away. But meanwhile he is involved in a bankruptcy abroad; that 
is enough to accelerate his fall; he thought he could hold out for two years but he 
is obliged to go bankrupt after only fifteen months. 

“C was associated with a foreign house which is ruined by another Iscariot—for 
they are to be found in all towns; C is brought down by the fall of his associate, 

* Here and elsewhere Fourier has “livres” — Ed. 

anid after making sacrifices for eighteen months to hold out against the competition 
from the, Jewish blackguard, he finds himself forced to go bankrupt. 

“D seems more honest than he is in reality. He still has the means to hold out, 
although he has been suffering from the Jew’s competition for twenty months; but 
embittered by the losses which the latter has caused him, he lets himself be carried 
away by the vice of which he sees so many examples. He realises that three of his 
confraternity have opened up the march and that he will pass as a fourth in the 
alliance, pretexting real or fictitious misfortunes. Thus D, wearied by twenty 
months of struggle against Iscariot, sees that there is nothing cleverer for him than 
to go bankrupt. 

“E had advanced considerable sums to his four successively bankrant colleagues; 
he thought they were all solvent, and they were indeed, until Iscariot’s manoeuvre 
spoilt their business for them. E finds himself stripped by the bankruptcies of these 
four houses; besides, he himself has no more clients; the entire public crowd to 
Iscariot, who sells off goods at cost price. E sees his funds annihilated, his credit 
destroyed, he is pressed, and as he can no more meet his commitments, he puts an 
end to it by going bankrupt. 

“F has sufficient means, but as a result of the five previous bankruptcies, which 
warrant the conclusion that his will soon follow, he has lost his credit in all the 
maritime towns. Moreover, some of the bankrupts, having achieved a composition, 
are now selling at very low prices to be able to afford their payments when the first 
terms expire. In order to accelerate their sales, they lose one-tenth of the value and 
yet earn four-tenths, because they settled at 50 per cent. This entirely crushes F, 
and there is nothing left for him but to go bankrupt like his rivals. 

“So the establishment of one vagabond or one Jew is sufficient to disorganise the 
whole merchant body of a large town and to draw the most honest people into 
crime; for every bankruptcy is more or less a crime, no matter how much it is 
extenuated by excellent pretexts such as those with which I have tinted these six 
bankruptcies, and there is hardly ever a word of truth in any of them. The truth of 
the matter is that everybody avidly seizes the opportunity to commit a theft if it 
remains unpunished. 

“Occasionally running fire takes the form of ricochet fire, which is effective at a 
distance and involves a dozen houses in different countries simultaneously. They 
have common interests and the fall of the main house causes all the subsidiary 
houses concerned to crash, like a row of tin soldiers when the man at the end of 
the row is pushed." This is a serious combination, worthy of figuring among the 
great manoeuvres, and in any case this ricochetting at a distance will have to form a 
special genus in a more accurate classification. . 

“19. Close-column bankruptcy requires favourable circumstances which serve as 
excuses, and prompt masses of merchants to risk the fateful leap. In this case they 
find support one in the other and are saved because of their number, like a 
regiment in close-column formation forces a way for itself with bayonets. Thus, 
when a favourable opportunity presents itself, bankrupts must close their ranks 
and post up a column of bankruptcies every day at the Stock Exchange; they must 
have them succeeding one another so quickly that public opinion is confused and 
compositions become easy to achieve in consideration of the difficult circumstances. 
These bankruptcies are seen occurring periodically in London; Paris too made a 
very beautiful attempt in close column in 1800, and it ended very happily for many 
‘friends of trade’. 

“20. Marching-in-file bankruptcy is a series of bankruptcies which are linked 

* Fourier has “comme une file de capucins de carte”.—Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 635 

together, but break out at suitable intervals of two to three months. Contrary to the 
close columns, which follow one another day after day, marching-in-file bankrupt- 
cies require mutual agreement so that one goes bankrupt when one’s turn comes, 
at the very instant when the predecessor has squared his composition. For instance, 
A has achieved his composition three months after bankruptcy and B must 
instantaneously declare himself insolvent because the mediators now find the public 
well disposed and can say: it is the same story as in the case of A, one was bound to 
lead to the other, the same composition must be made. Just the same for C, who 
will go bankrupt three months later, then D, E, F, and G; if they maintain their 
co-operation properly and succeed in keeping to the interval, they achieve the same 
composition for all. Marching in file is a very safe manoeuvre when it is cleverly 
directed; but it does not fit all circumstances, and only the genius of the pros- 
pective bankrupt can determine in which cases it is applicable. 

“21. Skirmisher bankruptcy involves at the start those starving wretches who initiate 
a great movement and here and there cause small bankruptcies in their retail trade. 
From this one concludes that business will be difficult and the campaign a fierce 
one. And indeed soon after that the heavy artillery is heard, bankruptcies involving 
millions break out and hold public attention for a long time. Then the movement 
ends with the rearguard skirmishers, the retailer bankrupts, the grocers in small 
towns, who bring the session to an end with their plunges.” 

The Agitators 

“What! Is there not yet enough vexation and can you show us something still 
worse than the litany already described? 

“I have only named the most honest. We are approaching the descending, 
despicable wing and can place here the bankrupts who operate according to 
far-reaching plans but disregard moral methods and compromise the lofty corpora- 
tion. 

“22. Bankruptcy in grand style affects all classes of society down to the smallest 
people, domestics and others, who deposit their modest savings with a hrypocrite. 
Soon bankruptcy plunders landowners, the smaller middle class and the good- 
natured people in their hundreds. An entire town becomes involved. In general 
this type of bankruptcy affects particularly the non-trading classes of society and 
does significant harm to the corporation by arousing in the people and the petty 
bourgeoisie reflections which are hardly flattering for the respectable confraternity 
of the merchants. 

“23. Large-scale bankruptcy is that of some obscure upstart who, without funds or 
backing, succeeds in breaking into big business and pulls off just as enormous a 
bankruptcy as the high and mighty bankers. It is generally wondered how this 
camp-follower could manage to strike up such acquaintances and to organise such a 
fat bankruptcy. 

“This individual is the opposite of the preceding one; he takes a different road 
to attain the same goal, namely to excite public opinion against the tricks of the 
merchants and the preposterous laws which leave this scum complete freedom. 

“24. Attila bankruptcy raises the fame of the bankrupts to the clouds and lays a 
country waste as if a whole army of vandals had swept across it. One can cite in this 
genus a brilliant bankruptcy pulled off in 1810 in Orleans by an amateur named 
T. He went bankrupt with a deficit of 16 million so excellently distributed over 
Orleans that the whole unfortunate town was laid low by it. All classes of citizens 
suffered from the devastation. Fugitives went as far as Lyons and spread the tidings: 
Orleans is destroyed, we are all ruined, T. is plunging everything into the abyss. 

According to detailed reports, he had carried out his scheme so well that he had 
hoodwinked and plundered all classes, from rich capitalists to poor domestics who 
had saved a few talers* in their whole life and deposited them with the mercantile 
dealer and let themselves be robbed by him—under the protection of the fine 
principle: Let the merchants do their job, they know best what is in their interest. 

“What robberies! What multiformity of crime in a single branch of commercial 
heroism! A single one, for let it be noted that bankruptcy is only the thirty-first 
feature of this lying trade for which science demands complete freedom under the 
pretext that the merchants know best what is in their interest—they know that 
indeed all too well, but they know only too little what is in the interest of the state 
and of industry, and so we are mystified by science and its theories on the absolute 
freedom of merchants. ” 

VI 
DESCENDING WING.—DIRTY HUES 

“From the description of great feats of heroism we go on to more modest 
trophies. Not everything is great in bankruptcy like the three categories of the 
centre. Still, in the left wing too we shall bring together a remarkable collection, 
bankrupts in softened shades, people whose more burgherly virtues and failings 
will do good to the eye after the vivid brilliance of so many heroic deeds; we shall 
still find cohorts capable of cheering the reader—especially the last, that of the 
false brothers, who bring ill fame on the corps of bankrupts.—Let us begin with 
a more serious hue.” 

The Cunning Sneakers 

“25. Compensation bankruptcy is declared to obtain compensation for some 
accident. For instance, a speculator loses a lawsuit today which costs him 100,000 
francs. So tomorrow he declares himself bankrupt, and this brings him 200,000. 
Thus he wins the sum in litigation instead of losing it. This capacity of trade to 
compensate itself for the disfavour of circumstances is one of its finest qualities; it 
can find its interest in every mishap on land and sea. If a shipowner experiences a 
shipwreck, he rehabilitates himself the next day by a good bankruptcy; and this 
type of bankruptcy is accepted without any contradiction because the notary says: ‘It 
is not his fault, events forced him to it, he is more to be pitied than blamed.’ 

“To this a landowner whose deposit thus goes west will answer: ‘I cannot get 
compensation when hail or a flood ruin my crops, I have nobody to fall back 
on.-—A fine argument! Should not landowners know that under the present order 
of things they are a dependent class, dependent on the unproductive people called 
merchants who dig their claws into every product of industry to get themselves 
paid at the expense of the masses like a volunteer corps which, for lack of an 
enemy to plunder, strips its own friends and the good people? Such is the 
merchant, a veritable cossack of industry” whose motto is: ‘I do not work pour la gloire, I 
must have something to rake in.’ Every merchant wants to rake in, and if somebody 

* Fourier has “écus” —Ed. 
The last two sentences as given by Engels differ somewhat from the 
original.— Ed. 
The words “on land and sea” were added by Engels.—Ed. 
Fourier has “‘cosaques industriels” —Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 637 

hopes to rake anything in from him by a lawsuit or otherwise, the merchant has his 
resources at hand and rakes in from others by means of a compensation 
bankruptcy. 

“26. Bankruptcy out of rank is that of a wise man who has foreseen everything and 
put something aside with which he can face the storm and tame the intractable. If 
he wants to earn 200,000 francs by bankruptcy, he puts 300,000 aside, placing a 
third of it in useful hand-outs, presents, etc.; he knows how to quieten the most 
loud-mouthed, how to paralyse justice; a wad here, a wad there, and his case is 
briskly carried through. His bankruptcy brings him in the end a good number of 
friends, who get their piece of the cake and say that he is a man comme il faut who 
knows business inside out. 

“27. Crescendo bankruptcy plays a farce in several acts which increase in interest as 
they develop. To start with, the affair is presented as a slight embarrassment, a case 
of shortage of disposable capital with a discount of 30 per cent necessary to prevent 
a crash. The creditors become worried and negotiate on the quiet, for they have 
been given to understand that things could take a bad turn and that the man in 
question must be supported. Meanwhile, in three months he is tottering again. 
Again the creditors are visited and made to fear his ruin; it is admitted that things 
are worse than was thought and that 50 per cent must be agreed to. Some of the 
creditors are vexed, the matter becomes entangled and bankruptcy is de- 
clared—and indeed on such terms that 80-90 per cent is lost instead of 50 per cent 
and the rest can be paid up only after some years. But the composition is still easy 
to bring about because the creditors, who have been skilfully handled and have 
successively become accustomed to a loss of 30, then 50, then 70 per cent, are 
weary of war; they sign and give the cursed business up as altogether lost, although 
it was said at the beginning that only 30 per cent was going to be lost. This method 
is not the worst and can be recommended to speculators who stick to principles. 

28. Godly bankruptcy is that of a holy man who belongs to all the confraternities 
and holds the cordon of the canopy at processions.” ~ He easily finds credit and 
depositors and can prepare a far-reaching bankruptcy underhand. I have seen 
some bankruptcies of this type when the loss was 90 per cent. The advantage in 
such a case is that the bankrupt finds enough people who excuse him: ‘Ah, he is a 
very pious man; if he has had no luck in business it is because he sets no store by 
the goods of this world.’—This piety is held up in order to hasten the composition, 
by which the pious apostle retains a good part of the goods of this world, together 
with the prospects of those of the other.” 

The Bunglers 

“In every profession one finds ignoramuses who work without any principles and 
can produce only a bad job with the best material. So among bankrupts too there 
are dunces who can do nothing else but change gold into copper and ruin 
themselves in a very stupid manner where others would do splendid business. I 
want to adduce and deal briefly with four genera, for this really honest category 
has nothing entertaining. I only let them march past for the sake of completeness 
of our analysis. 

“29. Fools’ bankruptcy is that of those befooled people who, enticed by fashionable 
catchwords, venture into trade without knowing its tricks and naturally scorch their 
wings like moths in the candlelight. Since 1789 there have been many big property- 
owners who had no need whatever to get involved in this turmoil; they have been 
seen to lose a rich heritage and end up in bankruptcy by which they parted with 
their fortune and their honour. It must be noted incidentally that only the honest 

man loses his honour in bankruptcy, whereas the rascal, who knows the great 
principles of trade, can manage his bankruptcies in such a way that he acquires 
wealth and honour. But the great gentlemen who found themselves in this wasps’ 
nest of trade wanted to negotiate honestly; they were surrounded by intriguers, 
played with like a ball and forced to end up with the bankruptcy of their illusions. 
Many small landowners have made the same mistake. Swept along by the 
mercantile race, they have abandoned their field, sold their small plot of land to set 
up a shop in town and meet their inevitable ruin. 

“30. Invalids’ bankruptcy is that of an incorrigible who wants to die with arms in 
hand. One sees many who ought to retire and who, weakened by age, can do 
nothing but bungle, are ignorant of the latest achievements and in their old age 
lose a slowly amassed fortune and obstinately hold out until repeated blunders 
make bankruptcy inevitable. How is one to describe a man of eighty who is a 
bachelor and has a fortune of two millicn, indeed sufficient for a single and aged 
man, and still obstinately continues huckstering at an age when he should retire 
and weep over his sins? When such a man gets himself ruined and loses his 
brilliant fortune in his eightieth year he is truly a mercantile fanatic. Such a man 
was the invalid bankrupt who is the prototype of this paragraph; for I have a 
prototype to show for all these species* so that I shall not be accused of 
exaggerating. Incidentally, many of these aged fanatics are to be found in every 
town; because they insist on continuing their trade, they deserve to be shamefully 
ruined, for today, when everything is raised to its quintessence, the need, in trade 
as in war, is for young people educated in modern tactics; and if bankruptcy is 
regarded as a harmless game for young people, it is indeed shameful for wealthy 
old men who should have thought of retiring twenty years ago. 

“31. Crushing bankruptcy is that of enraged competitors who consciously rush 
towards ruin and indeed ruin themselves to dispute a small share of profit from a 
rival. One sees a great number of these who work at a loss in the hope that their 
rival will be ruined before they are, and that they themselves will remain masters of 
the battlefield. This disorder is prevalent particularly in the carrying trade and in 
the cloth markets such as Beaucaire,*“° and it leads to the ‘crushed’ being forced 
to go bankrupt. 

“32. Swinish bankruptcy is that of a greenhorn who, instead of operating according 
to the principles, ruins himself, his wife and children and moreover exposes himself 
to the talons of justice and the contempt of the ‘friends of trade’, who respect 
only fat bankrupts who conform to the principles. In the jargon of commercial 
knaves they say of a bankrupt who thus ruins himself, his wife and children: That 
is indeed really swinish.—If he had had a fat bankruptcy, they would have called him a 
smart young man, a clever brain.” 

The False Brothers 

“I give the name of false brothers to those who expose the honourable clan of 
the bankrupts to the contempt of the public. Some of them provoke indignation, 
others laughter. I do not include in this class the transcendents, who steal by the 
million —these are always respectable and never compromise the clan; a great thief 
has never been contemptible in civilisation, whereas the small ones are the people 
to be hanged, and when they excite public opinion against villains and small 
bankruptcies they are unworthy of admission to the corporation and deserve to be 
styled as false brothers. 

* The names of these prototypes are given by Fourier in the original.— Note by 
Engels. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 639 

“33. Villains’ bankruptcy is that of small-scale blackguards who commit such 
obnoxious petty thefts in their bankruptcy that the neighbourhood says they ought 
to be hanged. That would not be the case with thefts of 100,000 talers; but thefts 
of 100 talers* suggest the idea of the gallows. Incidentally these ideas are not 
dangerous for the knave, because the confraternity of the bankrupts” never allows 
its colleagues to be molested; otherwise justice would soon feel authorised to pass 
on from the petty thieves to the big ones, which would be very awkward for those 
who act according to great principles and have found a place in good society after 
an ‘honest’ bankruptcy. 

“34. Gallows-bird bankruptcy is that by which besides dirty tricks, the man con- 
cerned commits also learned acts of perfidy, for instance, robs himself to provide an 
occasion for sentimental tactics. 

“Scapin, a petty crook, ' indulges in a scaramouch bankruptcy involving only 
40,000 francs; he steals 30,000 francs, which constitutes the profit on the 
operation, and then offers the creditors the remainder, amounting to 10,000 
francs. When he is asked about the deficit of 30,000 francs, he says that he does 
not know book-keeping like big merchants, and that he has been ‘unlucky’. 
Perhaps you believe Scapin will be punished because he is a petty thief who steals 
only 30,000 francs—but do not the creditors know that if justice intervenes it will 
eat up the remaining 10,000 francs just for breakfast? And even when these 10,000 
francs have disappeared, nothing will be settled; if they want to have Scapin 
hanged, it will cost them perhaps an additional 10,000 francs and it is still not 
known whether they will succeed. It is therefore better in any case to accept the 
moderate sum of 10,000 francs than to lose it and still have to pay just as much 
over and above. Through his notary Scapin puts forward this argument, so that the 
bankrupt himself threatens his creditors with justice. And why should Scapin’s creditors 
be furious with him? Some of them think of following his noble example, the 
others are already ahead of him in their career. So, as wolf does not eat wolf, 
Scapin soon finds a number of signatories who declare themselves satisfied with his 
proposals; others sign for fear that justice may intervene; others again are 
intractable and speak of sacrificing all to have a blackguard sent to the galleys. 
Then Scapin sends them his wife and children, who implore his mercy with 
well-practised wailings, and so in a few days Scapin and his notary receive the 
majority of signatures. Thereupon the obstreperous, who are no longer needed, 
are made fun of. Their rage is laughed at. Scapin answers them with ingratiating 
words and profound bows, and immediately after the happy issue of the first 
bankruptcy, he starts to think of a new one. , 

“35. Fugitive bankruptcy is customary among small tenants in large towns. As the 
date of payment approaches they bolt and bring their wretched movables to safety 
‘under cover of the night.’ It is very much in vogue among the silk weavers in 
Lyons; it is also resorted to by all elegant individuals of both sexes who order the 
very best things at restaurants, the tailor’s and the shoemaker’s, and are very 
accommodating as far as the price goes because they intend to pay with fine words 
and to bolt as soon as their creditors begin to get unpleasant. 

“This kind of bankruptcy is droll and shows the corporation in a bad light. When 
one scoffs at a man who has cheated twenty petty shopkeepers, one easily becomes 
accustomed to scoffing at a man comme il faut whose bankruptcy ruins twenty 
families. These freedoms of criticism must be suppressed in order not to imperil 
the respect due to the honourable bankrupts among the ‘friends of trade’. 

a ee i o 2 ; x 
Here Fourier has “écus” and further on “livres”, which Engels translates as 
“francs” — Ed. 
Fourier has “la corporation des banqueroutiers” — Ed. 

“36. Bankruptcy for fun is that of a small retailer who goes bankrupt according to 
the very best form just like the high and mighty bankers and does not give his 
creditors more than five per cent. Among others, a Lyons actor, distinguished for 
his comical roles and therefore very much loved by the public, went bankrupt in 
this way. In all due form he offered his creditors the sum of three per cent. Some of 
them were vexed and wanted to send the bailiff to him; but he mystified justice as 
he mystified it on the stage in the Avocat Patelin, and all the public were on his 
side. His bankruptcy was a highly amusing comedy, which afforded many a 
priceless scene. The creditors could swear, the public only laughed at them as they 
did at Guillaume in the Avocat Patelin. 

“I have now gone rapidly through all these definitions. However, my list is so 
incomplete that it can be considered as a mere outline to which everybody can 
supply the missing features.* There are masses of remarkable ones. Only a few 
days ago the Paris papers reported a brilliant bankruptcy, that of a certain Y., who 
established a pompously publicised agency with no more than 10,000 francs. I 
believe it was an office for the regeneration of trade or some other pompous title, 
by means of which he obtained a million from a few jackanapes, whom he paid as 
usual with a good bankruptcy. In a word, the number of bankruptcy genera which 
I have collected here can easily be doubled.” 

VII 
CONCLUSION? 

“When one reflects that bankruptcy is only a single one of the thirty-six features 
of trade, one finds difficulty in explaining why this so fearful mine of crimes, this 
mechanism of trade, has not yet been analysed; and that in this century, which is so 
uncompromising towards the crimes of all classes in society and has made public 
the crimes of kings and popes. 

“When one reads this collection of merchants’ filth, one cannot help wondering 
how it comes that a century which calls itself the friend of lofty truth has been able 
in all seriousness to grow enthusiastic over this lying trade, arguing that after all 
one cannot do without trade; as if for that reason one must accept fraud and 
theft such as those which we have listed in one single crime of trade, namely 
bankruptcy. 

“However, let us finish what we have to say about this. 

“The saying that justice sends only petty thieves to the gallows is proved false in 
trade. The bankrupt, even the smallest, evades prosecution, protected by the 
merchants themselves. We saw that under the last category (false brothers), which is 
that of miniature bankrupts. 

“It would be vain to quote the punishment of a few fraudulent bankrupts; 
ninety-nine manage to get away with it, and if the hundredth fails he must be a 
stupid devil and not know how to pursue his intrigue. For the operation is so 
simple nowadays that the old precautionary measures have long ago been 
forgotten. Formerly a bankrupt used to flee to Trient, Liége or Carouge, but since 
the rebirth of 1789 this custom has been abandoned. Everybody now goes 
bankrupt en famille. The matter is quietly prepared, and when it explodes, one 
goes for a month to the country, to the intimacy of one’s relatives and friends; 

* At the beginning and the end of this paragraph Fourier’s text is somewhat 
paraphrased by Engels. —Ed. 
Fourier has “Conclusion on Bankruptcy”.— Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 641 

the notary meanwhile puts everything in order. After a few weeks one reappears, 
and the public is so accustomed to this kind of story that it regards it as a pleasant 
joke; it is called ‘being confined’ and one says quite dispassionately: ‘So-and-so is 
back, he has just had his confinement.’ 

“I have noted that bankruptcy is the only social crime which becomes epidemical 
and forcibly carries the honest man along the road of the scoundrel. If to bankruptcy 
we add stockjobbing and so many other infamies, we shall find that I was right when I 
affirmed that civilised people had never committed so many political follies as since 
they plunged into trade. Never have the philosophers, who dream of nothing but 
counterbalance and guarantees, thought of providing the social body with the 
guarantee which governments, judiciously enough, demand of their fiscal agents! A 
prince assures himself of the rectitude of his treasurer by means of a cash security 
and the prospect of inevitable punishment if he were to dare risk or squander the 
public monies deposited with him. Why does it not happen that the collectors of 
public monies appropriate the revenues from taxes and write letters of lamentation 
to the government saying: The misfortunes of the times, the critical circumstances, 
the deplorable accidents, etc., in a word, I have gone bankrupt, insolvent, or 
whatever you call it. Your treasury should contain ten million; I offer you half of 
that sum, five million, payable in five years. Allow yourself to be moved by the 
misfortune of a lamentable treasurer, maintain me in your confidence and the 
administration of your treasury, without which I am not even able to pay you the 
half which I now offer you; but if you leave me my position and my income, I shall 
endeavour to discharge my obligations towards you honourably, that is, to treat you 
to a second bankruptcy as soon as the treasury is full again. 

“Such in brief is the content of all bankrupts’ letters. If treasurers do not follow 
this example, it is because they know that no philosophical theory can save them 
from the punishment which the bankrupt evades—under the protection of the 
principle: ‘Leave the merchants complete ‘~eedom without demanding any guaran- 
tee against their machinations.’” 

* * x 

So writes Fourier. The continuation of this article in the second 
issue of the Phalange contains three chapters on Stock Exchange 
operations, speculative purchase (accaparement) and parasitism, the 
greater part of which, however, has already been reprinted in the 
Quatre mouvements.”? Partly for this reason, partly because the 
fragment given above is fully adequate for my purpose, I break it 
off here. 

Let the learned German Herren, who so zealously sail the 
“stormy sea” of bottomless* theories, and above all fish for the 
“principle” of “socialism”, follow the example of the commis 
marchand” Fourier. Fourier was no philosopher, he had a great 
hatred of philosophy and savagely ridiculed it in his writings and 
in this connection said a multitude of things which our German 

* The German word “grundlos” can mean both “bottomless” and “without 
foundation” — Ed. 
Salesman.— Ed. 

“philosophers of socialism” would do well to take to heart. True, 
they will object that Fourier, too, was abstract, that by means of his 
series he speculatively constructed God and the world in defiance 
of Hegel, but that will not save them. Fourier’s eccentricities, 
which are, after all, products of genius, are no excuse for the 
boring so-called systematic expositions of arid German theory. 
Fourier speculatively constructs the future, after correctly under- 
standing the past and the present; German theory first of all ar- 
ranges past history according to its liking and then prescribes to the 
future, too, what direction it should take. Compare, for example, 
Fourier’s epochs of social development (savagery, patriarchate, 
barbarism, civilisation) and his characterisation of them with Hegel’s 
Absolute Idea, which laboriously makes its way through the 
labyrinth of history and despite the four world empires 223 at the 
end, but still grunting and groaning, achieves the semblance of a 
trichotomy—not to speak of the post-Hegelian speculative construc- 
tions. For, although Hegel’s speculative construction still made 
some sense, even if it is turned upside-down, that of the post- 
Hegelian system manufacturers no longer makes any sense at all. 

It is truly high time that the Germans at last stopped making 
such a fuss about their thoroughness. With a few meagre data they 
are capable not only of concocting any kind of theory, but also of 
linking it with world history. On the basis of the first fact that 
happens to reach them at third hand, concerning which they do 
not even know at all whether it occurred in such and such a way 
or some other, they will prove to you that it must have occurred in 
this particular way and no other. Has anyone in Germany written 
on social questions without also saying something about Fourier by 
which German thoroughness has most thoroughly exposed itself to 
ridicule! Among them is a Herr Kaiser,* who immediately used 
“L. Stein’s excellent work” > for a world-historic speculative construc- 
tion, the only pity about which is that all the facts it is based on 
are false. German theory has already at least twenty times allotted 
Fourier his “place in the development of the Absolute Idea”— 
each time a different place—and each time German theory relied 
for the facts on Herr Stein or other dubious sources. For this very 
reason, too, German “absolute socialism” is such terribly poor 
stuff. A little “humanitarianism”, as the thing is called nowadays, 
a little “realisation” of this humanitarianism or, rather, monstros- 
ity, a very little about property from Proudhon—at third or fourth 

* H.W. Kaiser, Die Persénlichkeit des Eigenthums.—Ed. 
> L, Stein, Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreichs.—Ed. 

A Fragment of Fourier’s on Trade 643 

hand—a little moaning about the proletariat, and a little about the 
organisation of labour and wretched associations for raising the 
lower classes of the people 224— together with boundless ignorance 
of political economy and the real character of society—that is the 
sum total of all this “socialism”, which moreover loses its last drop 
of blood, the last trace of energy and strength through its non- 
partisanship in matters of theory, its “absolute tranquillity of 
thought”. And with this tedious stuff they want to revolutionise 
Germany, set the proletariat in motion, and make the masses think 
and act! 

If our German half or fully communist university lecturers had 
only taken the trouble to have a look at Fourier’s main writings, 
which after all are as easy for them to obtain as any German 
book — what a treasure-trove of material for speculative construc- 
tion and other uses they would have found in them! What a mass 
of new ideas—still new for Germany even today—would have 
offered itself to them there! Up to now these good people find 
nothing to reproach present-day society with except the condition 
of the proletariat, and even about that they are not capable of 
saying very much. Of course, the condition of the proletariat is the 
main point, but does that exhaust the criticism of present-day 
society? Fourier, who, except in his later works, hardly touches 
on this point at all, provides the proof that even without it existing 
society can be seen to be thoroughly reprehensible, and that by 
criticism of the bourgeoisie alone — namely of the bourgeoisie in its 
inner relationships, apart from its attitude to the proletariat— 
one can arrive at the necessity of a social reconstruction. For this 
aspect of criticism, Fourier up to now remains unique. Fourier 
inexorably exposes the hypocrisy of respectable society, the con- 
tradiction between its theory and its practice, the dullness of its 
entire mode of life; he ridicules its philosophy, its striving for 
perfection de la perfectibilité perfectibilisantes and auguste vérité>; he 
ridicules its “pure morality”, its uniform social institutions, and 
contrasts all this with its practice, le doux commerce, which he 
criticises in a masterly manner, its dissolute delights which are no 
delights, its organisation of adultery in marriage, its general chaos. 
All these are aspects of contemporary society which have never yet 
been mentioned in Germany. True, there has been talk here and 
there about free love, about the position of woman and her 
emancipation; but what has been the result? A few confused 

* Perfecting the perfectibility which is in process of becoming perfect.— Ed. 
5 August truth.— Ed. 

phrases, a few blue-stockings, a little hysteria and a good deal of 
moaning about the German family—not even one bastard came 
out of it! 

Let the Germans first acquaint themselves with the social move- 
ment abroad, both practical and literary—the practical movement 
includes the whole of English and French history during the last 
eighty years, English industry and the French Revolution—let them 
then do as much as their neighbours as regards practice and 
literature, and only after that will the time have come to raise such 
idle questions as that of the greater or lesser achievement of the 
various nations. But by then there will no longer be any audience 
for these sophistical disquisitions. 

Until then it would be best for the Germans above all to acquaint 
themselves with what has been achieved abroad. All the books 
about this that have so far appeared are without exception bad. 
Anyhow, brief summaries of that kind can at best give only a 
criticism of those works, not the works themselves. The latter are 
partly rare and unobtainable in Germany, partly too voluminous, 
and in part mixed with matters which are now only of historical or 
literary interest and no longer interest the German public of 1845. 
To make available those works, the valuable contents of which are 
even now still new for Germany, requires a selection and editorial 
treatment such as the French, being in such matters also much 
more practical than we are, carry out in respect of all material 
coming to them from abroad. Such editions of the epoch-making 
socialist literature from abroad will shortly begin to be published. 
A number of German Communists, among them the best brains of 
the movement, who could just as easily produce works of their 
own, have joined in this undertaking,””> which, it is to be hoped, 
will show the wise German theoreticians that all their wisdom is old 
stuff, the pros and cons of which have already been thoroughly 
discussed on the other side of the Rhine and the English Chan- 
nel long ago. Only after they have seen what was done before them 
will they have an opportunity to show what they themselves can do. 

Brussels 

Signed: F. Engels