The ideal community requires equality. Lack of equality, in Cabet’s mind, presents the biggest barrier in developing utopia.[1] Cabet believed that the development of the Icarian community would be fueled by the desire to achieve happiness and equality saying, “is it not nature that has given men the same desire to be happy, the same love of equality, the intelligence and the reason with which to organize happiness, society, and equality?”[2] Human nature, predisposed to happiness, would be willing accept the utopian system of equality. He said “all [members] are associates, citizens, equals in rights and duties; all share equally the burdens and benefits of the association; all also form but a single family whose members are united by ties of fraternity.” [3] Stemming from the frustration that the ideal of fraternity had been thwarted after the Revolution in France, Cabet and his followers identified strongly with the concept of fraternity and they strove to incorporate it extensively within the community. Cabet emphasized that equality has nothing to do with physical traits, saying,
“I believe that differences in height, form, strength, etc. in no way prevent Equality in rights, in duties, in happiness, just as the differences between children do not prevent them enjoying the same right to the love of their parents, or as the differences among citizens do not prevent their equality in the eyes of the law and tribunal.”[4]
Each member brought a distinct perspective, along with their skills and knowledge, to the community. In Voyage en Icarie, Cabet described utopia, saying participants were “profoundly convinced…that man cannot have happiness without association and equality have joined together in society founded on the basis of the most perfect equality.”[5] Cabet’s attempts to create equality stemmed from the reaction he saw in France to the injustices served by the monarchy and from the inspiration he took from English utopias.[6] The community’s reaction to the emphasis on equality reaffirms the desire they fostered as a result of the revolution.
[1] Etienne Cabet, “Communist Creed (1841),” in Voices of the Industrial Revolution, ed. John Bowditch and Clement Ramsland (The University of Michigan Press, 1961),
[2] Etienne Cabet, “Voyage en Icarie,” in Voices of the Industrial Revolution, ed. John Bowditch and Clement Ramsland (The University of Michigan Press, 1961), 146
[3] Cabet “Communist Creed (1841),” 148
[4] Cabet, “Voyage en Icarie,” 146
[5] Cabet, “Voyage en Icarie,” 146
[6] Sutton, “An American Elysium: The Icarian Communities,” 280