Socialism: from utopian to scientific
By Gene Clancy
Just off Interstate 64 in southwestern Indiana, near the
Wabash River, is a small town of about 1,000 people called New
Harmony. It is located in the "heartland" on the northern edge
of the "Bible Belt." It has, for a long time, been considered a
cultural center in a largely agricultural region.
New Harmony represents a milestone in the evolution of
socialist thought. It retains practical political significance,
even today. Nearly 175 years ago, when it was still a frontier
town, an attempt was made to build a communist society
there.
Many similar ventures were made at the time, both in the
United States and in other countries. New Harmony is notable
because it was organized and inspired by one of the truly great
figures of the 19th century: Robert Owen.
Conventional historical writing in the United States is very
big on "great men," par ticularly straight white men. However,
you would be hard put to find much mention of Robert Owen in
public-school textbooks, except as a footnote. And that
footnote would almost certainly try to show how mistaken,
wrongheaded and, of course, unsuccessful Owen's experiment at
New Harmony was. But let's look at a few facts.
From 1825 to 1827, New Harmony attracted many of the most
idealistic and inventive reformers of the day, as well as women
and men of the natural sciences. In addition, many jobless
people found their way there, inspired by public lectures Owen
gave in many Eastern cities.
The principles of the community were as follow: "Within the
community all work was to be equal. One was to receive that
which was necessary to him or her. The teacher's work was to be
on the same footing with the laborer, the farmer the equal of
either. All were to perform to the best of their ability and
receive the same compensation." (Don Blair, "The New Harmony
Story")
In its few short years of existence, the communist society
at New Harmony introduced into the United States the first
kindergarten, the first infant school, the first trade school,
the first free public school system, the first women's club,
the first free library and the first civic dramatic club. It
was also the seat of the first geological survey.
These are remarkable achievements. They are even more
remarkable when viewed against the historical backdrop.
Half of the United States at that time was under slavery:
Slavery and racism had been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
Nowhere did women have the right to vote, or any legal rights
at all. The Indian Remo val Act was soon to be passed, breaking
solemn treaties and forcing most Native nations west of the
Mississippi, where they would again be assaulted. Labor unions
were outlawed. Anti-immigrant political parties attacked the
mainly Irish and Ger man immigrants who made up the bulk of
factory workers in some cities. Social services and even such
institutions as municipal fire departments were
non-existent.
The progressive achievements of this little utopian colony
became the basis for important demands later taken up by the
working class movement. What was considered utopian at that
time has now become very practical and indeed necessary.
To the extent that such social services are today more
generally available to the workers, it is owing to bitter class
battles across the country. And many are now under attack
again.
What made it utopian
Long after it ceased to be a communist colony, New Harmony
was a social and cultural oasis. It was to become a center of
both the abolitionist and women's movements.
Why did it disintegrate? The common explanation given by
bourgeois critics at the time and ever since is that these
early communist experiments failed to reward personal
incentive, that equality is fine in theory but unworkable in
practice. Of course, "rewarding personal initiative" is just a
substitute phrase for profit.
Actually, the most important reason for the failure was that
it was in competition with the capitalist mode of production
and dependent upon it for the purchase and sale of materials.
Owen had based his conception of communism on the view that the
success of his colonies would enlist the cooperation of the
capitalists, who would join in when they saw how superior those
societies were.
He and the other great utopians, like Claude Henri
Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, overlooked the characteristic
feature of the capitalists: their unlimited greed driven by the
profit motive. Not only does that prevent their conversion to
the idea of a utopian society, but they cannot be persuaded to
grant the workers even the most meager demands without a
struggle.
One of Owen's contemporaries descri bed the profit motive
this way:
"With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10
percent will ensure it employment anywhere; 20 percent certain
will produce eagerness; 50 percent, positive audacity; 100
percent will make it ready to trample all human laws; 300
percent, and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor
a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being
hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will
freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave trade have amply
proved all that is here stated." (T.J. Dunning, as quoted by
Karl Marx in "Capital")
In his book "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," Frederick
Engels, the co-worker of Karl Marx, described the personal
price which Robert Owen paid for his utopian ideals.
"His advance in the direction of Com munism was the turning
point in Owen's life. As long as he was simply a
philanthropist, he was rewarded with nothing but wealth,
applause, honor and glory. He was the most popular man in
Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and
princes listened to him approvingly. But when he came out with
his Commu nist theories, that was quite another thing. ...
"Banished from official society, with a conspiracy of
silence against him in the press, ruined by his unsuccessful
Com munist experiments in America, in which he sacrificed all
his fortune, he turned directly to the working class and
continued working in their midst for 30 years."
Appealing to the inherent goodness of the capitalists is an
exercise in futility. But the utopian socialists cannot really
be blamed. At the time that they began to develop their ideas,
said Engels, "the capitalist mode of production, and with it
the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was
still very incompletely developed."
To the utopians, communism was a logical outgrowth of the
defining event of the 18th century: the French Revolution, the
most thoroughgoing social upheaval that had ever been seen.
Through this revolution capitalism had gained the upper hand
over feudalism in Europe. At the time that Owen, Saint-Simon
and Fourier began to write and organize--about 1800--the
bourgeoisie was still locked in a relentless battle against the
old feudal ruling classes.
In this battle, the new capitalist class claimed to be
struggling for the emancipation of all oppressed classes, so as
to enlist them as allies. The ideological basis for the French
Revolution was what is sometimes called the Age of Reason, the
Enlight enment. The philosophers and writers of the 18th
century believed that all human problems could be solved by
reason. They thought that a rational government, a rational
society could and should be founded as though from a blueprint;
everything that ran counter to eternal reason was to be
remorselessly done away with.
However, even by the early 1800s, it was obvious to the
utopian reformers that the new society was far from rational.
Engels wrote:
"The development of industry upon a capitalistic basis made
poverty and misery of the working masses conditions of
existence of society. Cash payment became more and more ... the
sole nexus between man and man. The number of crimes increased
from year to year.
"Formerly, the feudal vices had openly stalked about in
broad daylight; though not eradicated, they were now at any
rate thrust into the background. In their stead, the bourgeois
vices, hitherto practiced in secret, began to blossom all the
more luxuriantly.
"Trade became to a greater and greater extent cheating. The
'fraternity' of the revolutionary motto was realized in the
chicanery and rivalries of the battle of competition.
Oppression by force was replaced by corruption. ...
Prostitution increased to an extent never heard of. Marriage
itself remained, as before, the legally recognized form, the
official cloak of prostitution, and, moreover, was supplemented
by rich crops of adultery."
The utopian socialists recognized that the new bourgeois
world was irrational and unjust, but they did not recognize
fully that this was the outgrowth of historical and economic
forces. They believed, said Engels: "If pure reason and justice
have not hitherto ruled the world this has been the case only
because men have not rightly understood them. What was wanted
was the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who
understands the truth."
Ruined by capitalist world market
Sam Marcy, writing on "Soviet Social ism: Utopian or
Scientific?" (Workers World, Jan. 30, 1992), noted: "Above all,
Owen and the other utopian socialists could not foresee the
emerging anarchy of capitalist production. ... Owen started his
first cooperative venture in 1800 at New Lanarck [in Scotland].
By 1825, when he tried to develop New Harmony as an island of
cooperation in a world torn asunder by class antagonisms, the
first worldwide capitalist crisis was under way."
Although short-lived, it was universal in character. It
vitally affected New Har mony, because no community can stand
alone in the face of such great devastation.
"The destructive force unleashed by the periodic paroxysms
of capitalist crisis would not allow even a tiny oasis to carry
out the systematic planning needed to build his egalitarian
society," wrote Marcy. "Indeed, these cooperative ventures with
their more limited resources are among the first to be swept
away, as later history was to show. Many of the cooperative
enterprises, built up by years of hard work and self-sacrifice,
fell victim to the crises the capitalist mode of production
inevitably brings. These crises eventually can sweep away even
the largest of corporations and banks."
By the time Marx and Engels wrote "The Communist Manifesto"
in 1848, the bourgeoisie had revealed all its basic social and
political tendencies. Using the philosophy of Hegel and the
scientific method of analysis, they determined that socialism
was not the expression of some absolute truth, which had only
to be discovered in order to conquer all the world by virtue of
its own power. It was not independent of time, space and of the
historical development of humanity.
Marx and Engels, and their successors, were able to see what
was not clear to the utopians: that people "make their own
history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do
not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from
the past." (Karl Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte")
One of the most important discoveries of Marx and Engels was
that the mainspring of history is the class struggle. Moreover,
they identified the new industrial proletariat, which was just
then coming into being, as the class that is at the same time
indispensable and yet most antagonistic to the capitalist
class. Many progressive reformers, including the utopian
socialists, had empathized with the working class and sincerely
wanted to change the terrible conditions it was forced to
endure. However, their attitude was generally
paternalistic.
To Marx and Engels the working class was not merely an
object of pity but was the revolutionary agent that, in its
struggle to emancipate itself, would free all of humanity from
class oppression.
But first the working class has to free itself.
Once they had identified the workers as the revolutionary
class, Marx and Engels put themselves at the service of that
class and its emancipation. In so doing they provided us with
one of our most important weapons: a revolutionary theory and a
guide to action.
Reprinted from the Nov. 18, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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