Chapter 3. Utopia and the Utopias

Chapter 4. Rousseau and Some Others

‘Répétons-le encore: Tous les maux sont à leur comble; ils ne peuvent plus empirer; ils ne peuvent se réparer que par un bouleversement total!!! Que tout se confonde donc!... que tous les élémens se brouillent, se mêlent et s’entrechoquent!... que tout rentre dans le cahos, et que du cahos sorte un monde nouveau et régénéré’ (p. 264).

Chapter 5. William Godwin

‘It is absurd to expect that the inclinations and wishes of two human beings should coincide through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and to live together, is to subject them to some inevitable portion of thwarting, bickering and unhappiness.... The supposition that I must have a companion for life, is the result of a complication of vices. It is the dictate of cowardice, and not of fortitude. It flows from the desire of being loved and esteemed for something that is not desert.

Chapter 6. Saint-Simon and The Saint-Simonians

—Autrement dit, c’est un fou.

—Très exactement, beaucoup plus nettement que Rousseau lui-même; mais c’est un fou très intelligent, comme il arrive.’

Chapter 7. Charles Fourier

‘I suspect, indeed, that it is not accident that both the teaching of Jesus and the doctrine of the Communist Manifesto are at one in their emphasis upon the danger of the family which, in an acquisitive society, acts as a barrier between men and women, instead of a link which binds them together.

Chapter 8. Robert Owen

Chapter 9. Louis Blanc

For we’ve established SHAVING BANKS,
For shaving o’ the lower ranks,
For which we claim the gratefu’ thanks,
     Withouten flattery,
Of you, wha are but useless blanks
     In life’s great lottery.

Chapter 10. P. J. Prqudhon

Et ne faut-il pas bien que monsieur contredise,
À la commune voix veut-on qu’il se reduise,
Et qu’il ne fasse pas éclater en tous lieux
L’esprit contrariant qu’il a reçu des cieux?
Le sentiment d’autrui n’est jamais pour lui plaire;
Il prend toujours en main l’opinion contraire;
Et penserait paraître un homme de commun,
Si l’on voyait qu’il fût de l’avis de quelqu’un.
L’honneur de contredire a pour lui tant de charmes,

Chapter 11. Early English Socialism

The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.

Sow seed,—but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth,—let no impostor heap;
Weave robes,—let not the idle wear;
Forge arms,—in your defence to bear.

Chapter 12. Scientific Socialism

‘The writings of Karl Marx were given to me like a sort of Bible, to learn the fundamentals of socialism from them. Like the Scriptures, they were deeply absorbing in stretches and absolutely barren in others. Like the Scriptures, they contained much intentional or unintentional darkness. Like the Scriptures, they contradicted themselves and, as with the Bible, it was a hopeless undertaking ever to get through reading it all’ (p. 135).