Socialism

THE ORIGINS OF SOCIALISM are obscure. Historians have traced its roots to the religious utopias of the Old Testament, the principles of Mosaic Law, the antiindividualism of radical sects that emerged from the French Revolution, and the publication of the Communist Manifesto.

The word socialism made its first appearance in print in Italian in 1803, although its meaning at that time appeared to differ somewhat from current interpretations. For this reason, the origin of the term is usually attributed to a latter publication, in English. The word socialist was used in 1827 in the London Cooperative Magazine to designate followers of Robert Owen. In 1832, a French periodical, Le Globe, used it to characterize the writings of Saint-Simon. Despite such murky beginnings, by 1840 the concept ...