Chapter X: Cabet and the American Icarians

Cabet was born at Dijon in 1788. He was a lawyer by profession, and had taken an active part in the revolution of 1830. He was appointed Procurator-General in Corsica, and was recalled and elected a deputy in 1834. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and retired to England, whence in 1839 he brought back his “Voyage en Icarie,” written under the influence of Morelly's “Basiliad” and of the ideas of Owen. Under this title, with a peculiar typographical arrangement of his catchwords he brings together all the vague and high sounding expressions which were current in Socialist circles:

These catchwords are always in fashion. The book, written in a declamatory style, is divided into three parts; the first is devoted to a description of the inhabitants, the second to a history of Icaria, the third to the principles upon which Icarian civilisation is founded. We find once again the symmetry which was seen in the earlier romances; one hundred provinces contain ten divisions. The counties contain a county town, eight villages and a number of farms. There are one hundred provincial county towns, nine hundred divisional county towns, and eight thousand villages surrounding the capital of the land of Icaria. The police has attained a degree of perfection which all the cities of the world may well envy to-day. There are several harvests a year.

The principal meals are taken in common, but for the making of soup each family is furnished with the “Cook's Guide,” an official and perfect publication. All Icarians are perfumed, and they have at their disposal dirigible balloons, thanks to the communism which had also succeeded in abolishing the tooth-ache. The State directing everything is in advance in everything—this is the greatest miracle of Icaria.

There is only one great newspaper, the “National Journal,” for the liberty of the Press is of no value in this land of liberty. There is but one national history—for children must be brought up to moral unity. Statistics are the chief instrument of Government, they regulate all occupations, the callings of the young, victualling and all other requirements. Daily labour, which occupies seven hours in the summer and six in the winter, is compulsory on all men up to the age of sixty-five, and on women up to fifty. Anyone refusing to work is confined in a public prison.

The Government is in the hands of a president and of fifteen ministers elected biennially by the people. The Sovereignty of the people is ensured by two thousand representatives, at the rate of two for each division. Officials receive no salary. Fifteen special committees control the fifteen ministers and regulate all the conditions of social life, including the bill of fare of the common meals and the dress of the ladies.

There is naturally neither civil law nor a judicial bench. Inasmuch as there can only be minor offences, criminal law is supplanted by a few minor censures. There are places of worship, priests and priestesses, whose functions are confined to preaching, for there is no ritual.

Cabet does not venture to accept the necessary consequence of his conception of society, the community of women.

I put aside the history of the transition which at the end of a violent crisis brought this astonishing State under the control of the Grand Icarian, invested with the dictatorship.

Cabet enumerates the twenty-three decrees by virtue of which all property remains vested in the existing holder without the possibility of alienation, wealth is to be cut down, the condition of the poor improved, wages and the price of commodities fixed, and the cost of government limited, but supplemented by five hundred million francs per annum to procure work for the unemployed, and by one hundred millions for the training of the workers of the future.