Talk:Fourier complex

Fourier complex is different from resentful egalitarianism

I think this article as it is currently written misunderstands the chapter in the book "Liberalism".

Ludwig von Mises is saying that there are several psychological conditions that might cause a person to disagree with the ideas of liberalism.

One psychological condition (what this article currently talks about) is that the person may resent the upper class so much that they wish for equality even if everyone ends up worse off. Mises says that it is possible to reason with these people, and convince them that making everyone better off is more important than eliminating inequality.

A separate psychological condition, which is the one that Mises actually calls the Fourier Complex, is that the person might believe that they have ideas about how society should be reorganized, and the person genuinely believes that these ideas will make society better off, but they are simply wrong, and what they believe contradicts reason and experience. People may resort to this utopian fantasy because they have experienced minor setbacks in life.

Did this term "Fourier Complex" ever catch on? Or does it only appear in this one chapter of this one book by Mises? Nicksh (talk) 21:46, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

To answer this question five years later, the answer is unequivocally "no". The only references I can find to it anywhere online are merely from people summarizing or analyzing Mises's work. It's really not anything more than a way for Mises to attack 1) a belief he doesn't like (a man thinking he will be happier if he makes himself worse off in the process of bringing an enemy down with him) by labeling it a form of insanity and 2) a political enemy (Charles Fourier) by attaching his name to mental disorder Mises just invented. It's no wonder it never went anywhere: it never did anything. I have redirected the article to the book that spawned it. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:56, 16 October 2018 (UTC)