Owen, Robert

Robert Owen (1771–1858) was a Welsh manufacturer and social reformer who was one of the pioneering figures in what came to be known as utopian socialist thought. Owen insightfully identified the most pressing economic issues of his time, such as poverty, and turned his proposed solutions into practice through various community experiments with considerable success. His initiatives inspired a co-operative movement around the world. His core political ideas/ideals are expressed in his book A New View of Society, published in 1813.

Owen witnessed the emergence of massive industrialization accompanied by a considerable growth in poverty. He argued that the working class was not destined to be oppressed and to live in poverty. He attributed poverty to a set of economic, legal, social, and political institutions that ...