ΑΛΛΗΛΕΓΓΥΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ: ΕΞΕΛΙΞΕΙΣ ΣΤΟ ΠΕΔΙΟ ΤΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΦΥΓΙΚΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΤΑΣΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΟΚΛΗΣΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ

Dimitrios Akrivoulis 27 Before closing these short remarks on the meanings of solidarity, let us briefly re- turn to the first quote herewith provided by the Dictionary and mentioned above in passing: Hugh Doherty’s 1841 False Association & Its Remedy . The history of the concept so far discussed is well summarized in the conceptual workings of this very first use. According to the Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Française , the word solidarité first appeared in French in 1765. 33 Often recognised as the one who coined the term, Charles Fourier only used it in 1808. 34 August Comte may have played a key role in popularizing the concept, but it was first extensively dis- cussed by one of Fourier’s disciples, Hippolyte Renaud, in his 1842 Solidarité, Vue Synthétique de la Doctrine de Charles Fourier . As noted above, it was Irish Hugh Doherty, himself a Fourierite, who introduced the word into English in 1841 with socialist connotations, 35 whereas a German translation of Renaud’s book intro- duced Solidarität into German in 1855. 36 In that sense, it might be less important what Fourier meant by solidarité than how the concept was popularized by his followers, Fourierites like Renaud. It might be less important what he wrote than how he was read. The writings of Fourier’s, or even Renaud’s, were less significant than their productive misreadings. The act of translation —the creative transfer of a concept from one cultural system to another— further facilitated this produc- tive misreading. Very few things have admittedly changed in this linguistic trans- fer from solidarité to solidarity. Yet, neither Fourier nor Renaud could any longer control the meaning of solidarity. Fourier died four years before the publication of Doherty’s book. Yet he, as an author, has been ‘dead’ (unable to authoritatively control the meaning of his work) since 1808, when his Quatre Mouvements was first published. 37 33. See Oscar Bloch and W. von Wartburg, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue fran- çaise , Paris : Librairie classique d’Eugene Belin, 1928. 34. Charles Fourier, Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinées générales suivi du Nouveau monde amoureux , Paris, 1808, p. 269. See Charles Gide and Charles Rist, Histoire des doctrines économiques depuis les physiocrates jusqu’à nos jours , Paris : Librairie de la société du recueil, 1909, pp. 671-73. 35. In 1844, another Fourierite, American Parke Godwin, used the term in regret, as an “uncouth” word. Parke Godwin, A Popular View of the Doctrines of Charles Fourier , New York: J.S. Redfield, Clinton Hall, 1844. 36. See Arthur E. Bestor, Jr., “The Evolution of the Socialist Vocabulary”, Journal of the History of Ideas , Vol. 9, No. 3, 1948, pp. 259-302. 37. See Roland Barthes, «La mort de l’auteur», in Le bruissement de la langue. Essais critiques IV, Paris : Seuil, (1967) 1984, pp. 63-9. This argument may be particularly ap- plicable in the case of Fourier and the relation of his ideas with those of his followers. “Fourierists, who emerged as a movement led by Victor Considérant when the Saint-Si- monian movement fragmented at the end of 1831, revered Fourier, but few could ever have read his works. Their ideas quickly diverged from those of their master.” Pamela Pilbeam, “Fourier and the Fourierists: A case of mistaken identity?” French History and Civilization: Papers from the George Rudé Seminar I , 2005, p. 187.