p In the 19th century capitalism by no means wore tne festive attire in which it was clothed by bourgeois philosophers, historians and economists. It condemned the working people to appalling poverty and back-breaking toil at factories. At the same time, it produced the proletariat, which grad ually occupied an important place in society, and precipitated its dissatisfaction, initially impulsive, with the capitalist system. The resultant class struggle between labour and capital mounted and became the key driving force and content of the historical development.
p The struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and its as yet only instinctive opposition to capitalist wageslavery was reflected in the theories of great socialists of 19 the 19th century—Claude Henri Saint Simon de Rouvroy, Francois Marie Charles Fourier and Robert Owen.
p Claude Henri Saint-Simon de Rouvroy (1760-1825) came from an aristocratic family, but that did not prevent him from ardently championing the humiliated and the insulted. In one of his main treatises—Literary, Philosophical and Industrial Opinions—he dismisses the existence of a Golden Age in the past. He saw the Golden Age of mankind in the future, when oppression would be abolished and people would unite to harness nature and use her for their own good.
p In the future socialist society, in an organised and consciously administered society, he accorded the central place to man, to his requirements and abilities. He considered that the best social system was one that gave the majority of the people a happy life and the maximum opportunity to “satisfy their prime needs" and “develop all their useful abilities".
p He pictured the future socialist society as a free association, a “large workshop”, in which people would collectively influence nature in order to build up universal wellbeing and prosperity. In this society each person would work according to his ability and receive according to his work. There would be no exploitation, no domination of the majority by a minority, while the function of government would be to direct all the work of society. The treatises of Saint-Simon and, in particular, of his disciples contain the idea that the new society would have a “ centralised economy”, that economic development would be planned. Moreover, Saint-Simon was the first philosopher to expound the idea of setting up a world-wide association of people in order to make the best possible use of natural resources. In developing this idea, Saint-Simon’s foremost followers came to the conclusion that this world-wide association would put an end to all social and national antagonism and thereby ensure peace and uninterrupted progress.
p Some of Saint-Simon’s forecasts of the society of the future were brilliant, but by and large his theories were idealistic and Utopian. He failed to see the material foundations of social development and preached peaceful cooperation between the oppressors and the oppressed. He 20 felt that social development depended upon ideas, on the world outlook, and in his plans lor socialism he appealed to the conscience of enlightened industrialists and monarchs. He strove to “induce monarchs to use the power given them by the people to enforce urgent political changes”. He was afraid of the class struggle and rejected the idea of a revolution, pinning his hopes on the preaching of fraternity among peoples, on the miraculous power of reforms carried out from above.
p The strongest point of another French Utopian Socialist Francois Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837), son of a wealthy but subsequently impoverished merchant, was his brilliant criticism of the capitalist system.
p Fourier considered that the natural qualities and passions of man were a major factor of social progress. However, he held that these natural qualities had been trampled and crushed by capitalism, which had brought to ruin and poverty the bulk of the people while concentrating fabulous wealth in the hands of a few.
p Capitalism, he wrote, is a “world turned upside down, a social hell”. In that hell man was a toy in the hands of the elements, a victim of anarchy, of the trend towards “anarchic production”. In that world, wealth was being accumulated by a few, while millions were denied the means of subsistence. With deadly sarcasm he stigmatised the hypocrisy and insincerity of the bourgeois system and of those who, having sacrificed themselves to the Golden Calf, were defending and embellishing it. He exposed the economic and state mechanism of bourgeois society, which “is, in all respects, nothing but an art of robbing the poor and putting more money in the pockets of the rich".
p Fourier was aware that an exacerbation of social contradictions could lead to a people’s revolution that would sweep capitalism away. However, he was afraid of revolution, of independent political action by the masses, and therefore devised a peaceful way of consolidating the new system in which “social harmony" would reign. He pictured this harmonious society as consisting of production associations, which he named phalanges. Each phalange would have 1,600-1,700 members, all of whom would live in a huge communal building, the phalanstery. The 21 main occupation would be farming but there would be small industries, primarily artisan crafts.
p He paid particular attention to the question of the work of the phalange members. He considered that work was man’s most important right and duty, and he contemplated ways and means of putting an end to the capitalist division of labour, which was mutilating man, of turning labour from an enforced and arduous occupation into a pleasure, into a source of joy, and of erasing the distinction between town and country. His view was that every member of the phalange should have the opportunity to choose his vocation, that he should not be chained to one form of work but should have the possibility of changing it freely. This could be achieved by promoting man’s harmonious development. Inasmuch as the choice of work conforms with man’s desires unity of the personal and the social is achieved in the phalange.
p However, Fourier’s ideas about the new society and the ways of achieving it did not go beyond the framework of utopianism. Also Utopian was his idea of harmony between the interests of the propertied and non-propertied. He made allowance for the existence of private property and capitalists in the phalanges, considering that the product of the labour of its members should be distributed not only according to work (5/12) and talent (3/12), but also according to capital investments (4/12). This, he felt, was the only way to achieve class harmony, an alliance between capital, labour and talent. Thus, Fourier did not reject either private property or the division of society into the rich and the poor. He thereby took a step back compared with other Utopian Socialists. A step back from Saint-Simon’s views was Fourier’s aspiration to decentralise society, to split it up into isolated production units—phalanges. This excluded the possibility of consciously governing society. Also Utopian are Fourier’s notions about the ways of achieving the new society. He believed that it could be achieved by expounding socialist ideas, by a gradual reform of capitalist society. He took his phalanstery plans to the feudal aristocracy, capitalists and monarchs, including Napoleon I, but received neither support nor sympathy.
p Robert Owen (1771-1858) was the first Utopian Socialist 22 to dedicate himself entirely to the working class. He was active in the working-class movement and made his mark as an enlightener of the workers of his country. Frederick Engels wrote: “Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen.”
p As manager of the large New Lanark textile mills Owen instituted improvements in the material and everyday life of the workers: he reduced the working day to ten and a half hours instead of the 13-14 hours then prevailing in England, organised the world’s first nursery and kindergarten for the children of workers, opened a model school and set up a hospital fund. Later, when he was ostracised by official society for his communist ideas, he devoted 30 years to efforts to improve the life of workers. He organised a campaign in defence of workers’ rights. The adoption of the first Factory Act limiting child and female labour was due largely to his elforts.
p Owen sharply criticised the capitalist system, but considered that the social contradictions of capitalism stemmed from ignorance and delusion. He believed that capitalism could be done away with by enlightening society, by giving it a plan for an intelligent social system. With the spread of enlightenment people would become ashamed of the monstrous contradictions and absurdities of the existing system and turn their gaze to a new system that would ensure the best conditions for the life and moral improvement of man.
p Owen regarded private properly, which “has been, and is at this day, the cause of endless crime and misery to man”, the main obstacle to the creation of the new society. He firmly believed that the time would come when all items of personal use would become public property, when people would appreciate the incomparable superiority of public ownership over private ownership with its attendant evils. He founded his rational society on a community of property and a community of labour.
However, he was opposed to the attainment of this society by a class struggle and revolution. He feared the class struggle, feeling that it was necessary to prevent the destruction of social life, which was a possibility in view of the growing impoverishment of the working people, and 23 advanced plans for social reforms on communist lines. He submitted these plans to the sovereigns and governments of several countries, and sought to convince society that reforms could be accomplished by setting a good example. He spent a great deal of money and energy on organising communist communities, first at New Harmony, Indiana, U.S.A., and later at Harmony Hall, Britain. These social schemes failed and consumed his entire fortune. Nonetheless, his elforts to implement socialist ideas were of fundamental importance.
Notes