What are the origins of socialism?
Robert Owen:
- Labelled ‘utopian’ socialist by Marx (argued earliest socialists had appealing but naive goals
which lacked scientific/historical basis)
- ‘A New View of Society’ (1813): world often operates on assumption that each individual man
forms his own character + is therefore accountable for his sentiments/habits
- Argued man’s character is “without a single exception, always formed for him”
- Those growing up in poverty w/o access to education/opportunity are inevitably
shaped into v. different people/characters than those who grew up in supportive
wealthy families
- Crime isn’t rampant among the poor b/c of their characters but b/c the conditions they
lived in were perfect for creating alcoholism etc.
- Purchased cotton mill in New Lanark 1799 (employed 2K+ people); said the population was
“existing in poverty, crime and misery”
- Upgraded existing housing
- Environmental improvements: better sanitation, water supplies, new gardens/
allotments/public walkways
- Banned employment of children <10, reduced working hours for older children to 10
hrs max. (b/c found children as young as 5 working up to 13 hrs a day there)
- Started world’s 1st nursery + required all children to attend new school (progressive
broad curriculum)
- Cut adult working hrs + asked workers to contribute 1/60 of their wages to cover
medical insurance/pensions/sick pay
- Founded Institute for the Formation of Character; adult education/social activities
- Mill had company-owned shop + workers were paid in labour tokens that could only
be redeemed there (not in cash); Owens bought quality goods at low prices (where
other owners would sell poor goods at high prices to exploit their workers); profits
used to fund education
- Conflicts w/ classical liberalism:
- Owen’s rule was authoritarian: ‘silent monitor’ (painted block next to each worker
indicating how hard they’d worked prev. day; marked in a logbook w/ ratings for their
character/behaviour outside work), curfews, random searches to prevent theft, night
patrols in the village (anyone caught drunk was fined), home inspections, requirement
for all children to be education by the community (not their families); this undermined
individuals’ negative freedoms
- Owen would have considered these reforms to have promoted positive
freedoms
- Lobbied Parliament to raise taxes + incr. spending on the poor/ban employment of
children <10/limit working hrs for children <18/introduce national public education
system; classically liberal factory owners resistant to these changes
Why Owen made these reforms:
- Believed they were morally right
- Believed it made economic sense: happier healthier workers produce more even if they
worked shorter hours
,Report to the County of Lanark (1820):
- Called for creation of self-sufficient ‘villages of cooperation’: 800-1.2K people would live +
work together in farming/manufacturing
- Families would have apartments in large buildings w/ communal sitting rooms/kitchens/
schools/libraries
- All children >3 would board at village school
- Wages would be replaced by ‘labour notes’ (could be exchanged for goods produced by the
community)
New Harmony:
- Town in Indiana bought by Owen
- Invited people to join the experiment: attracted w/c farmers/labourers, scientists, teachers,
journalists etc.
- People lived for free in the buildings he had purchased
- Food/commodities sent to village store (non-profit)
- Work rewarded w/ labour notes, exchanged for goods at village store
- Experiment ended in 2 years
- Owen only lived there for a few months; town couldn’t then agree on how to put his
ideas into practice, + had 7 constitutions in 2 years
- Lower/upper class residents clashed due to diff. backgrounds/cultures
- Town had range of religions/cultures; caused clashes
- Committees struggled to make decisions on what to plant/make etc.
- Not enough skilled labourers (could make greater individual work elsewhere), too
many people interested in offer of free accommodation/goods
- Buildings became overcrowded
Socialist ventures post-New Harmony:
- Cooperative stores = shops owned collectively by ordinary members (vs. rich shareholders)
- Prioritised selling quality local goods at fair prices
- All profits either reinvested or distributed back out to store’s members as dividends
- Established 1800s
- Labour exchanges
- 1832: Owen helped found National Equitable Labour Exchange; aimed to reward all
work equally
- Workers would bring goods they’d produced + be issued labour notes that factored in
cost of materials/hrs worked; these could purchase other goods (valued in same way)
- Disputes arose from how to accurately value goods
- People took advantage of the system: would bring in goods they couldn’t sell
to purchase more desirable items which they then sold for profit
- Trade unions
- Owen helped form Grand National Consolidated Trade Union 1834
- Only last a few months; businesses/govt responded negatively + Owens’ views
differed to many union members
- Owen was opposed to strikes/violent protest; his view of utopia only possible
if all classes worked together
, What did Marx and Engels contribute to socialism (part one)?
- Believed human character/beliefs/ideas are influenced by our environment
- Disagreed w/ idea that humans are naturally selfish/individualistic
Karl Marx
Theory of Alienation: under capitalism we work in ways that separate us from our humanity
- Capitalism separates workers from their ‘species-essence’ (their own humanity)
- Key distinction between humans/animals is humans’ ability to produce their “means of
subsistence” (essentials of life); animals follow their instincts/immediate needs, humans can
consciously use their creativity/imagination to produce a range of things for a variety of
purposes
- “conscious activity is man’s species-character”; work makes us feel truly human
- Capitalism alienates workers from:
- Products of their labour: workers spend their time making things that aren’t useful to
them b/c they don’t belong to them; taken away + sold to others, appearing in shops
w/ prices too high for them to afford
- Process of their labour: capitalism treats humans like machines; pre-IR, skilled
craftspersons would make items step-by-step from start to finish; IR lead to
production line w/ clear division of labour (more efficient but less fulfilling; workers
repeat simpler alien tasks w/ little meaning); labour became another commodity
controlled by someone else (e.g. a manager)
- Their species-essence/humanity: human labour can be conscious + creative but
under capitalism work is often basic/animal-like; work is a means to an end (vs. an
expression of humanity)
- Other people: humans are all part of global system of cooperation (we rely on
labour/contribution of others); under capitalism we fail to see/appreciate these
connections (instead we see others as competitors/rivals)
- Criticised Owen for treating people as machines that could be improved w/ right rules/lessons/
conditions
- “Social existence determines … consciousness”; it’s a person’s social existence (type of
society they live in/their social class/their daily activities + relationships w/ others) that
fundamentally shapes them
- To build a better society, not enough to try to convince wealthy to raise wages, build
schools, try to improve conditions; change requires revolution to fundamentally
transform society by changing way humans work together to produce material goods
Historical materialism: human history is story of our increasing productive capacity; the way goods are
produced impacts all other aspects of society
- Until Marx, history seen largely as series of unconnected events driven forward by
accidents/key historical figures/influential ideas
- Marx: humans had clearly progressed through series of stages (primitive communism,
slavery, feudalism, capitalism), each shaped by the way goods are produced
- All human societies have had to produce material goods (food/water/clothes/shelter)
to survive; societies must work out how to best produce essentials before they can
devote time to culture/laws etc.; therefore best to define history by means of
production (= methods society uses to produce material goods; tools/technology/
human knowledge/skills available at that time) + relations of production (= social
relations that form as a result of this production; apart from hunter gatherers each
stage of history has had unfair class divisions develop based on ownership of means
of production)
- All societies rely on class struggle; one social class exploits another
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