Abstract

Mill wrote in the 1849 edition of Principles of Political Economy that Fourierism presented “in every respect the least open to objection, of the forms of Socialism”. Why did he think this? If we look at Mill's earlier engagements with the Saint-Simonians and Comte side by side a striking pattern of agreements and disagreements emerges: Comte and Mill were anti-utopians, but the Saint-Simonians were not; Mill and the Saint-Simonians were feminists, but Comte was not; and the Saint-Simonians and Comte sought government by industrialists, but Mill did not. To understand this pattern is to highlight just how much common ground Mill did indeed share with the Fourierists and makes his verdict that they were less “open to objection” than any of the other socialists not so much surprising but practically over-determined.