Communism

As an economic concept, Communism represents the establishment of communes, where large numbers of people work for the collective good. For many people during the 19th century, an agricultural cooperative was seen as a good idea in theory. However, many of these cooperatives failed. Robert Owen's establishment of New Harmony in Indiana in 1825 was one of the best-known of these cooperative ventures, but it failed. There was then the influence of Charles Fourier, who promoted the concept of communes. Both Brook Farm and Fruitlands, run by the Transcendentalists during the 1840s, failed within a few years of their formation. A large number of similar cooperatives in Latin America during the middle of the 19th century also failed.

The Communist Manifesto of 1848 by Karl Marx ...