Utopian Socialists

UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS WERE a group of authors who were against the poverty of human societies; they lived from the end of the 18th century to the start of the 19th century. They believed the capitalist economy to be unjust, and conceived ideal social formulas based more on universal fraternal love than on the class struggle. F. Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, proposed the name Utopian Socialists in 1880 to identify the French utopians Henri de Rouvroy, Count of Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier, along with the English author Robert Owen, and to differentiate them from the scientific socialists defended by Karl Marx.

Henri de Rouvroy, Count of Saint-Simon (1760– 1825), dreamed of a society based on science and governed by the most able (entrepreneurs and scientists), who would solve all conflicts and help man reach happiness. From 1814 on, he dedicated his work to extol the role of industrialism, the progress of which would reduce poverty and ignorance. According to this author, the working class was uppermost—laborers, farmers, craftsmen, manufacturers, bankers, and artists—as opposed to the idle (those of independent means). He also defended inequality, since each person should take benefit from his or her social contribution, there being differences based on capacity and work.

Saint-Simon also insisted that the social structure should raise the physical and moral welfare of “the most numerous and poorest class,” and confirmed the thesis that “all men should work.” In 1821, he wrote Henry Saint-Simon to the Working Men, in which he proposed to improve their situation by means of a project of grand labors. In his final work, New Christianity, he put forward a mystic creed based on the principle of fraternal love, by which man's goal on earth was to work in favor of the poorest and most numerous classes. His followers, P. Enfantin (1796–1864) and Saint-Amand Bazard (1791–1832), considered private property to be unjust and called for equal opportunities [Page 1129](“each man according to his capability and each capability according to his works”), rejecting inheritance as a random distribution of property. They also wanted the state to take control of the instruments of work and divide them out to the maximum social advantage (collectivism). Saint-Simonism also had a practical application, inspiring great firms involved in banking, industry, railways, roads, and the building of the Suez Canal.

The thesis of Charles Fourier (1772–1837) was based on a life of cooperation as a means to modify the surroundings and create a new man. He criticized the abuses of free competition, the power of the monopolies, the errors made in agriculture, the proletarianization of the masses, alienation in the factories, and political and moral corruption. In 1803 he proposed that a minimum wage be established.

According to Fourier, civilization moved in a vicious circle in which “poverty stems from abundance itself.” His solution for this was to set up cooperative or “phalanstery” communities, where farming and crafts would be the main trades. Collective work would improve the situation and production would increase, meaning that working from the age of 18 to 28 would be enough for a person to live easily for the rest of his life.

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