With the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, the 19th century saw the rise of the political ideologies of socialism and communism. In Marxist terms, socialism was "a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism." Socialism appealed to many, in part thanks to the severity of both capitalism and communism. Capitalism was inherently oppressive, people argued, especially for the lower classes (who were the majority), but a communist revolution would be too violent an uprooting of the governments in place. Socialism, the stepping stone to communism, was the happy medium, and took root among the ideologies of the world.
The label "utopian socialism" was first to describe the political philosophies of Thomas More, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and Henri de Saint-Simon. The term was even used by Marx in his Manifesto. "Utopian socialism" largely referred to the "early socialist or quasi-socialist intellectuals who created hypothetical visions of egalitarian, communalist, meritocratic, or other notions of'perfect' societies without actually concerning themselves with the manner in which these societies could be created or sustained," hence, the "utopia." The particular brand of socialism touted by these thinkers was idealistic, seamlessly combining perfected socialist thought into society. Marx and Engels greatly criticized it, viewing it as a somewhat bastardized version of pure communism. Their brand of communism, "scientific socialism," eventually garnered a much greater following, as well as a larger body of intellectual thought.
To the right is a picture of New Lanark, Robert Owen's revolutionary socialist utopia. Owen was a Welsh cotton manufacturer during the Industrial Revolution. After purchasing the New Lanark mills, Owen completely revitalized the living conditions for the workers at the mills. He cleaned up houses, encouraged habits of sanitation and thrift, and tremendously influenced education in Great Britain when he opened the nation's first infant school, and included music, dance, and character development as key ideas in education. Owen and his business partners eschewed exorbitant incomes, instead agreeing on lower incomes for themselves in order to better life for the community as a whole; a true mark of socialism in action.
Robert Owen went on to create additional socialist communities in the style of New Lanark; Queenwood, Hampshire, Orbiston, Lanarkshire, New Harmony (pictured left), and influencing the creation of Ralahine and County Cork. New Harmony garners much attention because it was not in Great Britain as the others were, but in Indiana in the Midwestern United States. About 1,000 people responded to Owen's call to settle in New Harmony. The issue was, they were unskilled in the tasks needed to keep the community running, and as a result, spent most of their time eating away Owen's rations and arguing about politics; both of these problems foreshadow points argued when socialism is suggested or encouraged today, allowing people to write off socialism as costly and impractical. But the values of rational thinking, cooperation, and free education - all values that Owen prioritized and held dear to his heart - are thoroughly incorporated into even the modern United States, where "socialism" is a taboo word.
Charles Fourier (right) was another socialist thinker during the 18th and 19th centuries. He was a proponent of the reorganization of society into cooperative communes, or "phalanxes" (phalanges), "cooperative agricultural communities bearing responsibility for the social welfare of the individual, characterized by continued shifting of roles among its members." Fourier also believed that phalanxes could thrive in any political system, even a monarchy. His particular strain of socialist thought, labeled Fourierism, inspired the creation of phalanxes all around his native France, and especially in the United States. The name of one such American phalanx, Utopia, directly expresses the utopian hopes and ideals that socialist thinkers such as Fourier strove for in the creation of these communities like phalanxes.
Etienne Cabet, like Charles Fourier, was another French utopian socialist thinker. The founder of the school of socialist thought called the Icarian Movement, Cabet wanted to replace capitalism with cooperative work communities. Cabet formed Icarian communes in Texas, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and California. Cabet was heavily influenced by Robert Owen, whom he met while he was exiled from France for five years; during the French Revolution, he came to oppose the new, conservative regime, and chose exile over imprisonment. Owen's ideas greatly influenced Cabet. Within the Icarian settlements in America, education was the top priority, and additional emphasis was placed on the development of culture, including concerts and theatrical productions. The Corning Icarian colony, lasting for 46 years, was the longest lasting experiment in socialism in the United States.
Though all the Utopian philosophers listed here were European, they all created utopias in the United States rather than their native nations (Owen is the exception; he founded communes both in Great Britain and America). In Cabet's case, post-revolution France had been unkind to his political ideals ( earning him 5 years in exile), and America would have provided a location far enough from French supervision to enact his Icarian communes. But for Fourier and Owen, why America? Perhaps the land was cheaper; the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 left the United States with a plethora of spacious land, and no white people living in it; the Native Americans were yet again displaced. Or perhaps the United States offered a fresh start for these philosophers, a place where they wouldn't have the opposition of their home nations and their political opposites or enemies. Regardless of purpose, the Utopian communes left an imprint on the beginnings of American socialism.
American Utopian socialism reached its literary peak with Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward, published in 1888. Bellamy's novel features a protagonist, Julian West, who has fallen into a hypnosis-induced sleep in 1887 and wakes up the year 2000 to discover that his Boston, and the whole of the United States, has been transformed into a socialist utopia. The book is largely a product of Bellamy's issues with capitalism; once Julian West has arrived in the future, it is mainly the solutions to these issues that are the focus of the remainder of the novel. A social-security-like plan is available for retirees at 45, production is owned and controlled by the United States government, and all goods are equally distributed among citizens. The novel spurred the creation of "Bellamy Clubs," which explored and promoted the book's socialist ideals - all while not referring to it as socialism, but "Nationalism" (not to be confused with "nationalism," the political concept of national identity). Bellamy produced a sequel to the novel, titled Equality, and inspired the creation of many other pro-socialist and anti-socialist literature.
Though not dealing directly with the Utopian aspect of socialism in this era, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle nonetheless became an "anti-capitalist classic". The book, exploring the industrial stockyards and slaughterhouses of Chicago, was inflammatory, though largely in ways Sinclair had not intended. He later wrote, "I aimed for their hears, and hit their stomachs;" though he had intended to make known the horrible conditions that wage-laborers were subject to under capitalism, the most prominent part of the book ended up being the conditions in which meat was processed. The book eventually led to the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which, though helping to get the meat industry back on track after a setback thanks the The Jungle, did nothing for advancing Sinclair's socialist, reformist ideals.
A final, more long-lasting experiment in Utopian socialism is the Israeli kibbutz (kibbutz Ketura pictured left). Forced out of Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries thanks to a wave of pogroms, many Jews emigrated to Palestine with the hope of becoming farmers. Becoming an independent farmer was not an option - the grueling work, harsh desert conditions, and raiding Bedouins would have been impossible to face alone. Instead, a socialist model emerged. In a kibbutz, everyone worked together to tend crops, cook meals, and even raise children. It was truly a communal effort. Modern kibbutzim retain much of this original model, with some reforms and modifications.
Sources
1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Marx6.jpg/220px-Marx6.jpg
2. http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1172548117l/188897.jpg
3. http://newlanark.org/uploads/image/Tidy%20Edge%20Watercolour.jpg
4. http://www.findyourspot.com/sites/all/images/fys/city/photos/New-Harmony-Indiana-1_photo.jpg
5. http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/59/11759-004-47870EEC.jpg
6. http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/utopia/gallery_images/uc11c.jpg
7. http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/naal8/section/volB/maps/american12_1.jpg
8. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Looking_Backward.jpg
9. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/TheJungleSinclair.jpg
10. http://www.llworldtour.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/ketura-kibbutz_15_5_1.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment