Who Does No Work, Shall Not Eat

Chris Brooke chris.brooke at magdalen.oxford.ac.uk
Sun Jan 20 16:54:11 PST 2002


Michael Pugliese wrote:


>Was it Bakunin or Proudhon who said that after the revo. (well it's a
>continuous, permanent revolutionizing but, y'all get my point...) that
>children would pick up the garbage since they love to play in the dirt?

It was Charles Fourier.

"Two thirds of all boys have a penchant for filth. They love to wallow in the mire and play with dirty things. They are unruly, peevish, scurrilous and overbearing, and they will brave any storm or peril simply for the pleasure of wreaking havoc. These children will enroll in the Little Hordes whose task is to perform, dauntlessly and as a point of honor, all those loathsome tasks that ordinary workers would find debasing.. In performing these tasks they will be divided into three corps: the first is assigned to foul functions such as sewer-cleaning, tending the dung heap, working in the slaughter houses, etc; the second is assigned to dangerous functions such as the hunting of reptiles or to jobs requiring dexterity; the third will participate in both these kinds of work. The older members of the Little Hordes will ride on their own drawf horses..."

-- "The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier", eds. Beecher and Bienvenu, pp.317-8.

It was passages like this that Marx was thinking of, I take it, when he wrote against Fourier's belief that "labour can be made merely a joke", and noted that "really free labour, the composing of music for example, is at the same time damned serious and demands the greatest effort". (McLellan ed, p.124).

Chris



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