The Utopian Socialists

[KC]

I'm writing a paper on these three Utopian Socialists and any info on the following subjects would be greatly appreciated:

Robert Owen
o Who he was
o His theory of Socialism
o Attempts at Socialism (New Lanark/New Harmony)

Francois-Marie-Charles Fourier
o Who he was
o His theory of Socialism

Henri de Saint-Simon
o Who he was
o His theory of Socialism

Criticisms of Bourgeois Society
o Private Property
o Property Marriage
o Gender Inequalities

Fall of Utopian Socialism and the rise of Scientific Socialism


Criticisms of bourgeois society is basically answering the question "According to the socialists, what were the negative aspects of modern society?"

Again, help is greatly appreciated! :)

[Scars]

G.D.H Cole wrote an excellent history of Socialism from 1789-1939 (it's about 8 volumes), Owen, Fourier and Saint-Simon are all covered and this will give you a good outline of their beliefs and actions. You'll want Volume One 'The Forerunners 1789-1850'.

Fourier Archive:
http://www.marxists.org.uk/reference/archi...urier/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org.uk/reference/archive/fourier/index.htm)

Owen's most important work:
http://www.marxists.org.uk/reference/subje.../owen/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org.uk/reference/subject/economics/owen/index.htm)

My main interest and sympathy lies with Cabet, primarially for his advocacy of worker control and being anti-political.

[Conghaileach]

Hidden from History: Feminism in the Radical and Early Socialist Movement (http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/rowbotham-sheila/hidden-history.htm) by Sheila Rowbotham. It mentions Owen and Saint-Simon, amongst others.

[LoneRed]

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/fourier/index.htm


http://marxists.org/reference/subject/phil...fr/st-simon.htm (http://marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/st-simon.htm)


http://marxists.org/glossary/people/s/a.htm#st-simon

Of Saint-Simon, Engels wrote in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

“Saint-Simon was a son of the great French Revolution, at the outbreak of which he was not yet 30. The Revolution was the victory of the 3rd estate – i.e., of the great masses of the nation, working in production and in trade, over the privileged idle classes, the nobles and the priests. But the victory of the 3rd estate soon revealed itself as exclusively the victory of a smaller part of this “estate”, as the conquest of political power by the socially privileged section of it – i.e., the propertied bourgeoisie. And the bourgeoisie had certainly developed rapidly during the Revolution, partly by speculation in the lands of the nobility and of the Church, confiscated and afterwards put up for sale, and partly by frauds upon the nation by means of army contracts. It was the domination of these swindlers that, under the Directorate, brought France to the verge of ruin, and thus gave Napoleon the pretext for his coup d’etat.

“Hence, to Saint-Simon the antagonism between the 3rd Estate and the privileged classes took the form of an antagonism between “workers” and “idlers.” The idlers were not merely the old privileged classes, but also all who, without taking any part in production or distribution, lived on their incomes. And the workers were not only the wage-workers, but also the manufacturers, the merchants, the bankers. That the idlers had lost the capacity for intellectual leadership and political supremacy had been proved, and was by the Revolution finally settled. That the non-possessing classes had not this capacity seemed to Saint-Simon proved by the experiences of the Reign of Terror. Then, who was to lead and command? According to Saint-Simon, science and industry, both united by a new religious bond, destined to restore that unity of religious ideas which had been lost since the time of the Reformation – a necessarily mystic and rigidly hierarchic “new Christianity.” But science, that was the scholars; and industry, that was, in the first place, the working bourgeois, manufacturers, merchants, bankers. These bourgeois were, certainly, intended by Saint-Simon to transform themselves into a kind of public officials, of social trustees; but they were still to hold, vis-a-vis of the workers, a commanding and economically privileged position. The bankers especially were to be called upon to direct the whole of social production by the regulation of credit. This conception was in exact keeping with a time in which Modern Industry in France and, with it, the chasm between bourgeoisie and proletariat was only just coming into existence. But what Saint-Simon especially lays stress upon is this: what interests him first, and above all other things, is the lot of the class that is the most numerous and the most poor (“la classe la plus nombreuse et la plus pauvre”).

“Already in his Geneva letters, Saint-Simon lays down the proposition that "all men ought to work". In the same work he recognizes also that the Reign of Terror was the reign of the non-possessing masses.

“See,” says he to them, "what happened in France at the time when your comrades held sway there; they brought about a famine.”

“But to recognise the French Revolution as a class war, and not simply one between nobility and bourgeoisie, but between nobility, bourgeoisie, and the non-possessors, was, in the year 1802, a most pregnant discovery. In 1816, he declares that politics is the science of production, and foretells the complete absorption of politics by economics. The knowledge that economic conditions are the basis of political institutions appears here only in embryo. Yet what is here already very plainly expressed is the idea of the future conversion of political rule over men into an administration of things and a direction of processes of production – that is to say, the "abolition of the state", about which recently there has been so much noise.

“Saint-Simon shows the same superiority over his contemporaries, when in 1814, immediately after the entry of the allies into Paris, and again in 1815, during the Hundred Days’ War, he proclaims the alliance of France and England, and then of both of these countries, with Germany, as the only guarantee for the prosperous development and peace of Europe. To preach to the French in 1815 an alliance with the victors of Waterloo required as much courage as historical foresight.”




http://marxists.org/reference/subject/econ.../owen/index.htm (http://marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/owen/index.htm)


http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/188...c-utop/ch01.htm (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm)


http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm


http://marxists.org/subject/utopian/index.htm