Victor Prosper Considerant (12 October 1808 – 27 December 1893) was a French
utopian socialist
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
philosopher and economist who was a disciple of
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical ...
.
Biography
Considerant was born in
Salins-les-Bains
Salins-les-Bains (), commonly referred to simply as Salins, is a commune in the Jura department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. It is located on the departmental border with Doubs, 34.8 km (21.6 mi) to the south-southw ...
, Jura and studied at the
École Polytechnique
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
(1826 diploma). He entered the French army as an engineer, rising to the rank of captain. However, he resigned his commission in 1831, in order to devote himself to advancing the doctrines of Fourier. Subsequently, working as a musician, he collaborated with Fourier on newspapers. He edited the journals ''La Phalanstère'' and ''La Phalange''. On the death of Fourier in 1837, Considerant became the acknowledged head of the movement, and took charge of ''La Phalange''.
Considerant wrote much in advocacy of his principles, of which the most important is ''La Destinée Sociale''. He authored ''Democracy Manifesto'', which preceded by five years the similar Communist Manifesto by
Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
1848 Revolution
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...
s. He is also known for having devised the
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
system. He also advocated such measures of " direct democracy" (a term he coined) as referendum and recall.
The failure of an insurrection against
Louis Napoléon
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
obliged Considerant to go into exile in Belgium in June 1849. On an invitation by
Albert Brisbane
Albert Brisbane (August 22, 1809 – May 1, 1890) was an American utopian socialist and is remembered as the chief popularizer of the theories of Charles Fourier in the United States. Brisbane was the author of several books, notably ''Social D ...
and helped by
Jean-Baptiste Godin
Jean-Baptiste is a male French name, originating with Saint John the Baptist, and sometimes shortened to Baptiste. The name may refer to any of the following:
Persons
* Charles XIV John of Sweden, born Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, was King o ...
, between 1855 and 1857, with his wife, Julie, and his mother-in-law, Clarisse Vigoureux, he founded the colony
La Réunion
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
in Texas on Fourier's principles.
He was a member of the
First International
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...
, founded in 1864, and took part in the 1871
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
.
He died in Paris in 1893.
Contrary to a common error, his name is not written Considérant as he explained: "... there is no acute accent on my e. I have fought in vain for more than sixty years ever since my name was printed to defend it rom the accent"Louis Bertrand, ''Histoire de la démocratie et du socialisme en Belgique depuis 1830'', Brussels, éd. Dechenne, t. 1, p. 280, 1906
Citations
Further reading
* Jonathan Beecher, ''Victor Considérant and the Rise and Fall of French Romantic Socialism''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000.
* Carl J. Guarneri, ''The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.