He graduated in medicine from the University of Basel and was trained as a doctor in Bern.

"[1] This is because he lived in financial distress while serving as a medical doctor to the lower class.

In the 1840s, inspired by Charles Fourier and Wilhelm Weitling, Sutermeister believed that the welfare of his country depended on a communist transformation.

Three years earlier in 1837, he had appealed to the public for the first time with a social reform manifesto.

These works were disseminated in Switzerland by the Bund der Gerechten (Justice League).