Chapter XI: American Experiments

Short duration of each experiment—The religious motive—Necessity of a dictatorship—Unproductive labour—Complete deadlock—Communistic programme of the “Labour Party.”

Mr. Morris Hilquitt sums up the various communistic experiments in the United States as follows:—The average duration of the group of communities founded by Owen was two years; with the exception of the North American Phalanx, of Brook Farm and of Wisconsin Phalanx, the communities established by followers of Fourier were equally short lived, while the Icarian settlements were in a perpetual condition of reconstruction and dissolution.

Noyes and Greeley consider religion to be the one indispensable bond of every community, while Nordhoff maintains that even with religion a dictator is also indispensable.

Mr. Morris Hilquitt says that the religious communities were only more successful because they consisted of German farmers accustomed to agriculture whose wants were limited. The Icarian communities were composed of workmen whose calling was unsuited to agriculture and who were accustomed to a far more complex style of living. The aim of the religious communities was propaganda and not communism; they employed paid labour. The Communists of Amana recognised that their hired labourers did twice the work which they could do themselves. “Many hands make light work,” said the Shakers.

Mr. Morris Hilquitt concludes that the American communists have ended in complete failure. Nevertheless the programme of the Labour Party declares that “the true theory of economics is that the machinery of production must likewise belong to the people in common.”