And there was no lack of stars in the heaven of social reform to occupy
both intellectual and wage earner. First, there was the efficiency
scheme of the followers of Charles Fourier, the French socialist, or, as
they preferred to call themselves, the Associationists. Theirs was a
proposal aiming directly to meet the issue of the prevailing industrial
disorganization and wasteful competition. Albert Brisbane, Horace
Greeley, and the Brook Farm enthusiasts and "Associationists" of the
forties, made famous by their intimate association with Ralph Waldo
Emerson, had much in common with the present-day efficiency engineers.
This "old" efficiency of theirs, like the new one, was chiefly concerned
with increasing the production of wealth through the application of the
"natural" laws of human nature. With the enormous increase in production
to be brought about by "Fourierism" and "Association," the question of
justice in distribution was relegated to a secondary place. Where they
differed from the new efficiency was in method, for they believed
efficiency would be attained if only the human instincts or "passions"
were given free play, while the efficiency engineers of today trust less
to unguided instinct and more to "scientific management" of human
"passions."

Midway between trade unionism and the simon-pure, idealistic reform
philosophies stood producers' and consumers' cooperation. It had the
merit of being a practical program most suitable to a time of
depression, while on its spiritual side it did not fail to satisfy the
loftiest intellectual. It was the resultant of the two most potent
forces which acted upon the movement of the forties, the pressure of an
inadequate income of the wage earner and the influence of the
intellectuals. During no other period has there been, relatively
speaking, so much effort along that line.