Severian
17th June 2005, 12:37
Frederick Engels
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific Chapter 1 - The Development of Utopian Socialism
Text of this chapter can be found here. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm)
Summary/discussion starter:
Even though modern socialism comes from the class conflicts of present-day society, its ideas have had to evolve from the ideas inherited from the past. Starting with the ideas of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions like the Great French Revolution. These bourgeois-democratic ideas claimed to represent pure reason, to design a society based on pure reason, even though they really represented only the interests of the rising capitalist class.
The ideas of the first great utopian socialists, starting from this foundation, likewise claimed to represent pure reason and the freedom of humanity in general, not a particular class. They set out to design a truly free and reasonable society. They thought, that for such a society to happen, all that was required was for someone to come up with a good idea, and to publicize it, and perhaps to set up "communist colonies" - we'd say communes nowadays - to show by example the benefits of the new idea.
Of course their ideas for a future society had all kinds of flaws and were unrealistic in many details. This undeveloped concept of socialism was a product of the undeveloped state of capitalism and the working class. It shouldn't stop us from appreciating what was bold and insightful about these utopians' ideas.
First was Saint-Simon, who lived during the French Revolution. He recognized the revolution was a class war, not only between the nobles and the bourgeoisie, but also involving the propertyless laborers. Saint-Simon proposed that scholars, merchants, manufacturers, and above all bankers would collectively regulate a social economy. He hinted at the idea that political institutions flow from economic conditions, and predicted the replacement of government over by people by merely the administration of things.
Fourier gave a brilliant, witty, criticism of the existing order and its hypocrisy. He was especially strong in criticizing the oppression of women. Fourier described history in terms of stages of social evolution, pointed out the paradox of poverty from overproduction/ surplus, and used a dialectical method of reasoning.
Robert Owen, the third great utopian, began as a factory manager during the Industrial Revolution, who sought to treat his employees and their children with a certain amount of decency, and managed to make a profit while doing so. Owen pointed out how much wealth was produced by workers using the new industrial machinery and processes...and yet, they did not benefit from it. He came out for communism, and against the obstacles to achieving it: private property, religion, and "the present form of marriage." He lost his money and his respectability, but continued working along these lines. Owen fought for labor laws, was active in trade unionism, founded co-ops and "labor bazaars".
The utopians, for all their merits, saw socialism as an expression of abstract ideal of truth, justice, etc. Eternal and absolute. Each utopian thinker came up with a unique, subjective, version of these "eternal truths", and the versions clashed with each other, and could only be combined by removing the distinctive features and making a "mish-mash".
"To make a science of Socialism, it had first to be placed upon a real basis." But that's the subject of the next section.
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific Chapter 1 - The Development of Utopian Socialism
Text of this chapter can be found here. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm)
Summary/discussion starter:
Even though modern socialism comes from the class conflicts of present-day society, its ideas have had to evolve from the ideas inherited from the past. Starting with the ideas of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions like the Great French Revolution. These bourgeois-democratic ideas claimed to represent pure reason, to design a society based on pure reason, even though they really represented only the interests of the rising capitalist class.
The ideas of the first great utopian socialists, starting from this foundation, likewise claimed to represent pure reason and the freedom of humanity in general, not a particular class. They set out to design a truly free and reasonable society. They thought, that for such a society to happen, all that was required was for someone to come up with a good idea, and to publicize it, and perhaps to set up "communist colonies" - we'd say communes nowadays - to show by example the benefits of the new idea.
Of course their ideas for a future society had all kinds of flaws and were unrealistic in many details. This undeveloped concept of socialism was a product of the undeveloped state of capitalism and the working class. It shouldn't stop us from appreciating what was bold and insightful about these utopians' ideas.
First was Saint-Simon, who lived during the French Revolution. He recognized the revolution was a class war, not only between the nobles and the bourgeoisie, but also involving the propertyless laborers. Saint-Simon proposed that scholars, merchants, manufacturers, and above all bankers would collectively regulate a social economy. He hinted at the idea that political institutions flow from economic conditions, and predicted the replacement of government over by people by merely the administration of things.
Fourier gave a brilliant, witty, criticism of the existing order and its hypocrisy. He was especially strong in criticizing the oppression of women. Fourier described history in terms of stages of social evolution, pointed out the paradox of poverty from overproduction/ surplus, and used a dialectical method of reasoning.
Robert Owen, the third great utopian, began as a factory manager during the Industrial Revolution, who sought to treat his employees and their children with a certain amount of decency, and managed to make a profit while doing so. Owen pointed out how much wealth was produced by workers using the new industrial machinery and processes...and yet, they did not benefit from it. He came out for communism, and against the obstacles to achieving it: private property, religion, and "the present form of marriage." He lost his money and his respectability, but continued working along these lines. Owen fought for labor laws, was active in trade unionism, founded co-ops and "labor bazaars".
The utopians, for all their merits, saw socialism as an expression of abstract ideal of truth, justice, etc. Eternal and absolute. Each utopian thinker came up with a unique, subjective, version of these "eternal truths", and the versions clashed with each other, and could only be combined by removing the distinctive features and making a "mish-mash".
"To make a science of Socialism, it had first to be placed upon a real basis." But that's the subject of the next section.