Robert Owen.

Robert Owen (s.)- a representative of utopian socialism in England. His social utopia denied all private property. - owner of a factory in New Lanark. He writes a number of works - socialist projects "in order to save mankind": "On the formation of human character" (1814), "Report to the County of New Lenark" (1820), "Remarks on the influence of the industrial system" (1815), "Statement of the rational system of society "(1830), "The Book of the New Moral World" (1840). He sharply criticized capitalism, its inconsistency and chaos, noting the "trinity of evils": private property, religion and marriage based on property. He believed that humanity would not solve its problems until property became public property. But - in a peaceful way, without class struggle Unlike French like-minded people, his program was distinguished by scrupulousness and practicality. A characteristic feature is the reliance on D. Ricardo's labor theory of value. He proposed to destroy money and introduce the equivalent of labor costs - "working money" He organized the "Fair Exchange Bazaar", which quickly went bankrupt (the marketable goods were quickly dismantled for the purpose of resale, and the market was overstocked with slow-moving goods) He suggested that the capitalists sell the means of production to trade unions. He criticized the theory of population of T. Malthus and sincerely believed in the advent of socialism through the adoption of reasonable laws and education of the population. The cell of the future society is a cooperative community, the basis of wealth is compulsory labor for all - from each according to his ability - to each according to his work and Mitherwell, which either collapsed or became collective capitalist enterprises. F. Engels emphasized that "theoretical socialism will never forget that it stands on the shoulders of Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen."

ROBERT OWEN AND EARLY ENGLISH SOCIALISM

“In the living room there was a small, frail old man, gray as a harrier, with an unusually good-natured face, with a pure, bright, meek look - with that deep childish look that remains with people until old age, like a reflection of great kindness.

The daughters of the mistress of the house rushed to the gray-haired grandfather; It was obvious that they were friends.

I stopped at the garden door.

- By the way, as much as possible, - their mother said, holding out her hand to the old man, - today I have something to treat you to. Let me introduce our Russian friend. I think,” she added, turning to me, “you will be pleased to meet one of your patriarshov.

- RobertOwen, - said the old man, smiling good-naturedly, - very, very glad.

I squeezed his hand with a feeling of filial respect; if I were younger, I would perhaps get on my knees and ask the old man to lay hands on me...

“I expect great things from your homeland,” Owen told me, “you have a cleaner field, your priests are not so strong, prejudices are not so stagnant ... but strength is ... but strength is something!”

Tuck tells of his meeting with Owen in 1852, when the latter was in his eighties. After Owen's characterization given by the founders of Marxism (especially F. Engels in Anti-Dühring), this chapter from Past and Thoughts is perhaps the best that has been written about him. It is characteristic that Marx, speaking of Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen, used the same word "patriarchs" that occurs in Herzen.

Of course, the view of Herzen, who himself preached utopian peasant socialism, was essentially different. But for both Marx and Herzen, Owen was one of the patriarchs of socialism.

big heart man

Robert Owen was born in 1771 in the small town of Newtown (Wales) in the family of a small shopkeeper, then a postmaster. At the age of seven, a local school teacher already used him as an assistant, but after another two years, Owen's school education ended forever. With 40 shillings in his pocket, he went to seek his fortune in the big cities. He served as an apprentice and clerk in the textile shops of Stamford, London and Manchester. Books could only be read in snippets. Like Fourier, Owen did not receive a systematic education, but he was free from many of the prejudices and dogmas of official learning.

Manchester was at that time the center of the industrial revolution, and cotton production was developing especially rapidly here. For an energetic and efficient young man like Owen, the opportunity to go out into the world soon presented itself. At first, having borrowed money from his brother, he opened with one partner a small workshop that manufactured spinning machines, which at that time were quickly introduced into industry. Then he started his own tiny spinning enterprise, where he worked himself with two or three workers. At the age of 20, he became the manager and then co-owner of a large textile factory.

While on company business in Scotland, Owen met the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, David Dale, the owner of a textile factory in the village of New Lanark, near Glasgow. His marriage to Miss Dale led in 1799 to Owen's migration to New Lanark, where he became co-owner (along with several Manchester capitalists) and manager of his father-in-law's former factory. As Owen writes in his autobiography, he had long conceived his industrial and social experiment and arrived at New Lanark with a firm plan. Engels says: "And here a twenty-nine-year-old factory owner stepped forward as a reformer, a man with a childishly pure noble character and at the same time a born leader, of which there are few."

Owen did not encroach at that time on either private property or the capitalist factory system. But he set himself the task of proving and proving that monstrous wage-slavery and the oppression of workers are by no means a necessary condition for efficient production and high profitability. He only created elementary human conditions of work and life for the workers, and the return, both in the form of increased labor productivity and in the form of social improvement, turned out to be striking.

Only! But one must imagine how much work, perseverance, conviction and courage this required from Owen and his few assistants! The working day in New Lanark was reduced to 10 and a half hours (against 13-14 hours at other factories), wages were also paid during the period of forced shutdown of the enterprise due to the crisis. Pensions for the elderly were introduced, mutual benefit funds were organized. Owen built tolerable housing for workers and rented them out at a discounted rate. A conscientious retail trade was organized but at reduced, albeit cost-effective, prices.

Owen did a lot for children, facilitating their work in the factory by creating a school where kids were accepted from the age of two. This school was the prototype of future kindergartens. Such concern for children was in line with the main principle that Owen took from the philosophers of the 18th century: a person is what his environment makes him; to make a person better, it is necessary to change the environment in which he grows up.

Owen had to fight constantly with his partners, who resented these, from their point of view, ridiculous ideas and even more ridiculous costs and demanded that all profits be distributed by shares. In 1813 he managed to find new partners, among whom were several wealthy Quakers and the philosopher J. Bentham. They agreed to receive a fixed return of 5% on capital, and left Owen free rein on the rest. By this time, Owen's name was widely known, and New Lanark began to attract crowds of visitors. Owen made acquaintances and found patrons in the highest London spheres: few people still worried about his peaceful charitable work, and for many it seemed like a good way to resolve acute social problems. Owen's first book, A New View of Society, or An Essay on the Principles of Education of Human Character (1813), was well received, as its ideas went little beyond cautious reformation, especially in the field of education.

But philanthropy was less and less satisfying for Owen. He saw that even with certain successes, it was powerless to solve the fundamental economic and social problems of the capitalist factory system. Subsequently, he wrote: “In a few years I did everything for this population that the factory system allowed. And although the poor working people were satisfied and, comparing their factory with other factory enterprises, and themselves with other workers living under the old system, considered that they were treated much better than others, and more taken care of, and was quite satisfied, however, I understood that its existence is pitiful in comparison with what could be created for the whole of mankind with the huge funds at the disposal of governments.

The immediate impetus for Owen's transformation from a capitalist-philanthropist into a preacher of communism was the discussions of 1815-1817 related to the worsening economic situation in England, the growth of unemployment and poverty. Owen presented to the government committee his plan to alleviate these difficulties by creating cooperative villages for the poor, where they would work together, without capitalist employers. Owen's ideas ran into misunderstanding and irritation. Owen then spoke directly to the general public. In several speeches delivered in London in August 1817, to a considerable gathering of people, he first laid out his plan. After that, he continued to develop and deepen it. The further, the more the modest project associated with a specific problem developed into a comprehensive system for the reorganization of society on a communist basis. Owen thought of this reorganization in terms of labor cooperative communities, somewhat reminiscent of Fourier's phalanxes, but based on consistent communist principles. He attacked the three pillars of the old society that stood in the way of this peaceful revolution: private property, religion, and the existing form of the family. Owen expressed his ideas most fully in the "Report to the County of Lanark on a Plan for the Relief of Public Disasters", published in 1821.

Speaking out against the foundations of bourgeois society demanded great civic courage from Owen. He knew that he would provoke the fury of powerful forces and interests, but this did not stop him. With selfless faith in the rightness of his cause, he embarked on a path from which he did not leave until the end of his days. In 1817 -1824. Owen traveled all over Britain, went abroad, gave many speeches, wrote a lot of articles and leaflets, tirelessly preaching his ideas. Strangely naive for all his sober realism, he believed that those in power and the wealthy should quickly understand the beneficence of his plan for society. In these and subsequent years, Owen endlessly offered it to the government of England and American presidents, Parisian bankers and the Russian guy AlexanderI.

All Owen's efforts were in vain, although there were influential people who sympathized in one way or another with his plans. In 1819 a committee was even set up to raise funds for his experiment; the committee, along with the Duke of Kent, included, in particular, David Ricardo. However, they managed to raise only a small fraction of the necessary money, and the idea failed.

Disillusioned with the English "educated society", having no connection with the labor movement of those years, having even lost his influence in New Lanark, Owen and his sons left for America. He bought a plot of land and founded the New Harmony community in 1825, the charter of which was based on the principles of egalitarian communism. A practical mindset and experience helped him avoid many of the mistakes that the organizers of other similar communities made. Nevertheless, this enterprise, having absorbed 40 thousand pounds sterling - almost the entire state of Owen, ended in failure. In 1829 he returned to his homeland. Having allocated some funds to his children (there were seven of them), Owen subsequently led a very modest lifestyle.

By this time he was about 60 years old. For many, this would be the end of vigorous activity, retirement. Owen, on the contrary, did in the 1930s what other utopian socialists could not do: he found his place in the mass labor movement.

During these years, industrial and consumer cooperatives grew rapidly, uniting artisans and, to some extent, factory workers. Owen soon found himself at the head of the cooperative movement in England. In 1832, he organized the Fair Labor Exchange. The exchange accepted commodities (both from cooperatives and other sellers) at a valuation based on labor costs and sold other commodities with "labor money". In the end, the exchange went bankrupt, and Owen had to cover the losses from his own funds. Owen stands at the origins of another movement of the working class, which was destined for a great future - the trade union. In 1833-1834. he led an attempt to create the first general national trade union, which united up to half a million members. Organizational weakness, lack of funds, the resistance of the owners, who had the support of the government - all this led the union to disintegration. Owen's wonderful undertakings were fatally doomed to failure, but none of them was in vain.

The differences between Owen and other leaders of the labor movement ran along two lines. On the one hand, for many of them, cautious and business-minded, the approach to cooperation and trade unions as steps to the anti-capitalist transformation of society was unacceptable. On the other hand, Owen denied class struggle and political action, which no longer satisfied those people who soon formed the backbone of the Chartist movement. With this major working-class movement of the 30s and 40s, Owen could never find a common language.

Owen was not an easy person to deal with in person. The absolute conviction that he was right often made him stubborn and intolerant. In his 30 years at New Lanark and at New Harmony, he was used to leading rather than collaborating. He became less receptive to new ideas. The charm of humanistic enthusiasm, combined with efficiency, which so distinguished Owen in his youth and in his mature years and attracted people to him, partly gave way to an obsessive monotony of speech and thought. Having retained great clarity of mind to death, he did not escape senile oddities. In the last years of his life, Owen became interested in spiritualism, became prone to mysticism. But he retained the charm of kindness, which Herzen noted. All his life he loved children very much. Owen's views on education remain relevant today.

After 1834, Owen did not play a big role in public life, although he continued to write a lot, published magazines, participated in the organization of another community, and tirelessly preached his views. His followers formed a narrow sect, often speaking from rather reactionary positions.

In the autumn of 1858, Owen, at the age of 87, went to Liverpool and felt unwell on the podium of the meeting. After recuperating for several days, he suddenly decided to go to his hometown of Newtown, where he had not been since childhood. There he died in November 1858.

Owen and political economy

Owen's attitude to political economy is different from that of Saint-Simon and especially of Fourier. Not only does he not reject this science, but, on the contrary, he claims that his plan rests on its principles, referring to the work of Smith and Ricardo. Engels writes: "The whole of Owen's communism, in so far as it enters into economic polemics, rests on Ricardo." Owen was the first to draw anti-capitalist conclusions from the principles of the classical school.

However, from bourgeois classical political economy, Owen took only what he needed for his system, ignoring and even outright rejecting much more. He deals with economic issues in his writings casually, without dealing with them specifically. His main economic thoughts are contained in the Report to the County of Lanark. Owen was a practitioner and tried to implement his economic ideas in life: first in New Lanark, then in America and, finally, in the cooperative movement and on the Fair Labor Exchange.

Owen's views are based on Ricardo's labor theory of value: labor is the creator and measure of value; the exchange of goods must be carried out according to labor. But unlike Ricardo, he believes that, in fact, under capitalism, exchange is not carried out according to labor. In his opinion, labor exchange assumes that the worker receives the full value of the goods produced by him. In reality, this is not the case at all.

But to explain the violation of the “fair” law of value, Owen turns to ideas that are almost reminiscent of Boisguillebert: money is to blame for everything, this is an artificial measure of value that has supplanted the natural measure - labor.

Owen's political economy is normative in the most extreme degree: he needs all these considerations only to justify the measure he proposes - the introduction of the labor unit as a measure of value, the exchange of goods on the basis of this measure, the rejection of the use of money. This, according to Owen, will solve the most difficult problems of society. The worker will receive a fair remuneration for his work. Since the remuneration received by the workers will correspond to the true value of the goods, overproduction and crises will become impossible. Such a reform is by no means beneficial only to the workers alone, but landowners and capitalists are also interested in it: "...only labor, properly remunerated, makes it possible to profit from the sale of agricultural and industrial products."

How exactly does money turn a "fair" exchange into a total fraud? What ultimately determines prices if commodities are not exchanged according to the amount of labor involved in each of them? Where will the income of the capitalist and landowner come from if the worker receives the entire value of the product created by his labor? Such questions to Owen can be asked endlessly, and we will not even find an approximation to the answer from him.

Owen's economic views would obviously have been no higher than the petty-bourgeois illusions about eliminating the evils of capitalism by reforming the sphere of circulation alone, especially by eliminating money, if they were not inextricably linked with his plan for the radical transformation of society, including production relations. It turns out that a fair exchange according to labor value requires the liquidation of the capitalist system! Only in a future society without private property will the worker give his labor "at full value." In this case, the question of capitalists and landowners also disappears. They will benefit from the reorganization of society, not as capitalists and landowners, but like people. Of course, the historical nature of commodity production and the law of value is completely unclear to Owen. For him, these are just as eternal and natural phenomena as for Ricardo. But Ricardo drew from this the conclusion about the eternity and naturalness of capitalism, and Owen - the exact opposite conclusion: about its "temporality" and "unnaturalness". For Owen, the historical pessimism of Ricardianism is also unacceptable, which he, not without reason, associated with the influence of Malthus and his theory of population. Owen opposed this theory. Citing data on the actual and potential growth of production, in particular agricultural, he stated that it was not nature that was to blame for the poverty of people, but the social structure.

Owen communism

Marx and Engels distinguished Owen's utopia from other utopias of that era, emphasizing it communist character. We read from Marx: “In the Ricardian period of political economy, we are also confronted by the opponents [of bourgeois political economy] - communism (Owen) and socialism (Fourier, Saint-Simon) ...” From Engels: “The transition to communism was a turning point point in Owen's life." As we have seen, the systems of Saint-Simon and Fourier were not completely socialist. In their future society, private property remained with certain restrictions, and there were also capitalists who, in one form or another, disposed of the means of production and received income from capital. Owen's system not only bears a consistently socialist character, but also depicts a second, higher phase of communism, where private property and even all sorts of class distinctions have been completely abolished, there is an obligatory labor for all and, on the basis of the growth of productive forces, distribution according to needs. Owen's utopia is completely devoid of religious and mystical coloring, it is distinguished by a certain realism, sometimes even business practicality. This does not, of course, make Owen's system any less utopian. Like Saint-Simon and Fourier, he did not see the real paths that lead to a communist society.

Something else is important. Owen's example shows that ideals
communism grow out of the real conditions of a more developed society, such as England was at the beginning19th century Owen is free from many of the petty-bourgeois illusions of the French socialists. He has no doubt about the exploitative nature of the capitalist class and the need
complete elimination of private capitalist property. Based on the factory system, he saw much more clearly the specific ways of such an increase in labor productivity that would create real abundance and introduce distribution according to needs. Owen's communism differs sharply and favorably from the projects of crude, ascetically leveling, "barracks" communism that periodically appear and, unfortunately, have not lost their relevance in our time. He dreamed
about a society where, simultaneously with a huge increase in production and wealth, the person himself will develop harmoniously, where the value of the human person will increase immeasurably. Owen was one of the first to show that, despite the slander of the mercenaries of the bourgeoisie, communism and humanismnot mutually exclusive concepts. On the contrary, true humanism flourishes in a truly communist society.

The cell of communist society for Owen is a small cooperative community with a desirable number of members from 800 to 1200. Private property and classes in the communities are completely absent. The only difference that can create a certain inequality both in labor and in distribution is the "difference in age and experience." Owen hardly describes the mechanism of distribution, making (again like Fourier) a few vague remarks about the exchange of products according to work within the community and limiting himself to indicating that in abundance "everyone will be allowed to freely receive from the common warehouses everything he needs."

Owen pays much attention to the formation of a new person, and he connects the change in psychology primarily with material factors - the growth of wealth and the satisfaction of needs. As a consequence of both, “all striving for individual accumulation must disappear. Individual accumulation of wealth will appear to people as unreasonable as the accumulation of water in conditions where there is more of this necessary liquid than it can be consumed.

Going beyond the community, Owen tries to describe a society that brings together a large number of such cells. Between them there is a significant division of labor, and mutual exchange is carried out on the basis of labor value. For the purposes of this exchange, some union of communities will issue special labor paper money against the backing of goods in warehouses. In Owen's view, this new society had to coexist for some time with the "old society" and its state, pay taxes to the latter and sell goods to this society for ordinary money.

Owen avoided the crucial question of how, from whom, the communities would receive the initial means of production, including land. It can sometimes be understood in the naive sense that the means of production will be donated to the communities by the state or by rational capitalists. But elsewhere he more realistically says that the members of the community will have to "pay the interest on the capital required to give them work." It turns out that the communities will not be able to get rid of the capitalists. In the best case, communities can keep entrepreneurial income with them, since they themselves will manage production, but give back the loan interest!

Owen's system is utopian and therefore full of contradictions and inconsistencies. We know the general reason for this: the immaturity of class relations made it impossible for the utopians to work out a real way of reorganizing society. To do this, it was necessary to understand the historical role of the working class, to understand the necessity and laws of the socialist revolution. Such an understanding was objectively impossible for Owen, as well as for other utopians.

But without their mistakes, as well as without their achievements, the progress in social science that led to the emergence of Marxism during Owen's lifetime would have been impossible.

Robert Owen

Introduction

"My own life experiences and reflections have led me to the conviction that human nature is fundamentally good and can be taught, educated and placed from birth into a position that, in the final analysis (i.e., as soon as the most significant errors and distortions of this false and immoral system will be overcome and eradicated), it must become completely internally united, kind, wise, rich and happy. And I felt that in order to achieve this glorious result, one can sacrifice one's own character, happiness and life. And my decision was to overcome all obstacles and succeed in this attempt or die."

Robert Owen, the son of a saddle maker and ironmonger, became one of the most prosperous manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution, earning a reputation for superior cloth. However, he left his mark on history not as a successful and respected entrepreneur, but as one of the most prominent social reformers of the era, the founder of modern British socialism and the inspirer of the cooperative and trade union movements.

Robert Owen is an original thinker, a man of imagination, a philanthropist, a visionary and an idealist, but at the same time had the strength to make an attempt and realize his ideas.

Childhood and apprenticeship

"I was the best runner and jumper in school. I sat in the libraries of priests, doctors and lawyers. Usually I read a whole volume in a day. I read all the biographies of philosophers and great people that I could find."

Robert Owen was born in New Town (Middle Wales) in 1771. He was the sixth child of a local saddle maker and ironmonger. A cheerful and active boy, he enjoyed doing everything that is inherent in children: he played football, learned to dance and play the clarinet. At school, he excelled so much that at the age of seven he became a "student-teacher." Robert was an exceptional child in many ways. Before he was ten years old, he read many of the popular classics, such as Travels of the Colonists and Robinson Crusoe, as well as books on history and theology, generally considered too difficult for a child.

After leaving school at the age of nine and spending a year as an assistant in a local haberdashery, Robert was sent to London to live with his older brother. He became an apprentice to James McGaffod and a draper to Stamford in Lincolnshire. His master was a kind and generous man and encouraged Robert to continue his education. Robert was happy in the McGaffod family, and the liberal views on religion characteristic of its members greatly influenced the boy.

Having finished his studies, in 1785 Robert returned to London with the aim of gaining experience and getting a job as an assistant in a large and well-known manufactured goods store on London Bridge. It was a very different job with long working hours and poor conditions. Robert's health began to fail, and after a few months he found a new job and moved to Manchester.

From assistant in the store to senior spinner in the cloth factory

"I had no idea about these new machines. I looked at the workers with a competent air, although I knew absolutely nothing. However, thanks to a keen observation of everything that happened, I maintained order and continuity in the work of the entire factory."

At the end of the 18th century, a major revolution took place in the textile industry, and Manchester became the center of the cotton industry. At first cloth production was concentrated in the countryside, but the invention of hydropower spinning machines such as Arkwright's ring spinning machine, Hargrave's batch spinning machine and later Compton's mules led to the emergence of cloth mills.

B met Ernest Jones, a young engineer who convinced him of the prospects for the production of new spinning machines. In 1789, he borrowed £100 from his brother, and two other people entered the business besides him. Although Jones was a good engineer, it was Robert Owen who moved things forward.

The partnership did not last long, and Robert Owen opened a cotton yarn business with just three workers. This enterprise was successful and helped him get a job as a manager in a large factory. At the age of 20, he began running a steam-powered factory with 500 workers. He soon mastered the art of cotton spinning and gained a reputation as an excellent craftsman in this field. His career developed rapidly and he eventually became a partner in the Chorlton Twist Company.

Robert Owen remained in Manchester for 13 years and became a respectable businessman and intellectual figure. In 1793, at the age of 22, he received an invitation to become a member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. Here he met with new ideas and a completely different stratum of society. He soon became friends with the most famous intellectuals, including Dr. Percival, the public health reformer, the poet Coleridge, and the chemist John Dalton.

As an active member of the Society, Robert Owen took part in discussions and wrote articles on "Improvement of the cloth industry", "usefulness of learning", "general happiness and industrialization" And "social influence on faith". These headlines suggest that he was already forming ideas for social reform, and when the Manchester Board of Health came into being in 1796, he expressed a desire to join its committee as a representative of the cloth industry.

New Lanark

"My goal was not just to become a director of cloth factories, but to change the conditions of life of people who have a harmful effect on the character of the entire population. The society was truly unhappy, and vice and immorality grew to monstrous proportions."

Many of the Chorlton Twist Company's potential customers lived in the north of Manchester, and Robert Owen often traveled as far north as Glasgow to take orders. On one of these trips he met Caroline Dale (whom he later married), the daughter of David Dale, a wealthy Glasgow businessman and owner of large cloth mills in New Lenark. In 1799, Owen and his partners bought the factories of New Lanark and shortly thereafter he and his young wife moved to New Lanark. From the beginning, Robert Owen was determined to modernize the factories and improve both the working and social conditions for his workers.

At this time, the factory employed between 1,500 and 2,000 people, including 500 children. These children were sent here from the parish workhouses and worked as apprentices. Factory owners had to feed, clothe, educate and house their apprentices, but few of them were good at this part of their duties. As a result, the children were small and weak, because of poor conditions they could not grow normally, and they usually remained illiterate. There were virtually no safety rules, and many children were killed or maimed in accidents at work.

In most factories, working conditions were appalling. Workers were forced to spend long hours in dark, poorly ventilated rooms for very low wages. Immorality and drunkenness were common among the workers. Only a few people, like Robert Owen, realized that these problems were the direct result of poverty and poor conditions.

The factories of New Lenark were probably better than most other factories, and yet, by today's standards, the conditions there were terrible. For Robert Owen, these factories provided an ideal setting for an experiment in social reform. Although he acted from good intentions, he needed to earn the trust of his workers. In this he succeeded after paying their wages for four months, despite the shutdown of factories during the embargo on the export of cloth to America. Such an act won him the loyalty and love of his workers.

Social reform at New Lanark

"I had to start with bad and imperfect conditions, but these were conditions to which people had become accustomed for a long time and to many of which they were strongly attached. I had to answer the objections of my associates, who were good businessmen and were looking for a good return on their investment." their capital."

Robert Owen fought hard in New Lanark. In the beginning, the workers were suspicious of his new projects, and his associates, although sympathetic to his aspirations, feared for their investments. Despite these problems, he was determined to carry out his experiment.

To begin with, Robert Owen wanted to reduce the working day from 13 to 10 hours, but under pressure from his partners he was forced to increase it to 14 hours. This was a serious step backwards, and the 12-hour day was not introduced until 1816. In other areas it was more successful: a minimum age of 10 years for apprentices was introduced and only local children were hired.

Robert Owen's intentions were not limited to his factory. He also wanted to improve the living conditions of his workers. He began by improving existing houses and building new ones, paving roads and introducing a street cleaning system. All private shops were closed, and the factory shop opened by David Dale was enlarged, and the profits from its operation were used to open a free village school.

Not satisfied with improving the living and working conditions of workers, Robert Owen also tried to influence their moral principles. A local government and a special card index were created to record drunkenness. At the factory, the behavior of the workers was recorded by caretakers using "silent monitors". Each worker's workplace now has colored labels: black for bad behavior, blue for indifference, orange for good, and white for excellent behavior. This system was very effective, and gradually the number of orange and white marks began to increase.

New Lenark School

"The houses of poor workers were usually quite unsuitable for the education of young children. Therefore, the treatment and communication with children was exactly the opposite of what was required for well-trained and well-bred children."

Robert Owen(born Robert Owen; May 14, 1771 - November 17, 1858) was an English philosopher, educator and socialist, one of the first social reformers of the 19th century.

Biography

early years

Robert Owen was born in 1771 in the small town of Newtown (Wales) in the family of a small shopkeeper. At the age of seven, a local school teacher used him as an assistant, but two years later, Owen's school education ended forever, and he went to seek his fortune in big cities. Owen served as an apprentice and clerk in the textile shops of Stamford, London and Manchester, but he did not receive a systematic education.

Years in Manchester

Manchester was at that time the center of the industrial revolution, and cotton production was developing especially rapidly here. In Manchester, Owen made friends with many members of the local philosophical and literary society, and was especially friends with Dr. Parseval, who first expressed the idea of ​​the need for labor and sanitary legislation. Owen himself read several papers on labor legislation in this society.

At first, having borrowed money from his brother, he opened with one partner a small workshop that manufactured spinning machines, which at that time were quickly introduced into industry. Then he started his own tiny spinning enterprise, where he worked himself with two or three workers.

He was passionately fond of chemistry and finding new ways to process coarse American cotton, Owen became the manager and then co-owner of a cotton manufactory at the age of 20.

Social experiment at New Lanark

Owen meets Caroline Dale, the daughter of David Dale, a wealthy owner of a textile factory in the village of New Lanark near Glasgow, and marries her.

In 1799, Owen moved to New Lanark, where he became co-owner (along with several Manchester capitalists) and manager of his father-in-law's former factory. He had long conceived his industrial and social experiment and arrived in New Lanark with a firm plan for the reform of industrial relations.

Using the example of his factory, he wanted to show that the obligation to take care of hired workers coincides with the interests of the employer. Based on his own experience, he developed a system of "patronage", which he later theoretically developed in the essay "Experiments on the Formation of Human Character" (Essay on the Formation of Character, published in 1813), proving that a person is a product of external environmental conditions and education. ; the higher the latter, the more human nature is ennobled and improved.

In the first decade of the 19th century, the New Lanark factory attracted crowds of visitors who were astonished at its commercial success and the well-being of its workers. Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Emperor Nicholas I, also visited this factory. Surprised by Owen's success, hearing from all sides about the disasters of the working population, which then everyone explained by its excessive reproduction, he suggested that Owen take with him two million excess British population and move to Russia , but Owen categorically refused and remained to live in England.

An attempt to expand the experiment

In 1813, Owen founded a new company, which included, as shareholders, Quaker William Allen and philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The essence of the doctrine that Owen preached was the following: the character of a person is shaped by circumstances and the social environment, so people are not responsible for their actions. They should be trained and educated, as soon as possible, begin to instill in them the rules of correct behavior. Owen's economic views were based on the principle that labor is a universally recognized natural good.

The immediate impetus for turning Owen into a preacher was the discussions of 1815-1817 related to the deteriorating economic situation in England, rising unemployment and poverty. Owen presented to the government committee his plan to alleviate these difficulties by creating cooperative villages for the poor, where they would work together, without capitalist employers. His ideas met with misunderstanding and irritation. Owen then spoke directly to the general public. In several speeches delivered in London in August 1817, to a considerable gathering of people, he first laid out his plan. The further, the more the modest project associated with a specific problem developed into a system for reorganizing society on a communist basis. In the years 1817-1824, Owen traveled all over Britain, traveled abroad, made many speeches, wrote a lot of articles and leaflets, tirelessly preaching his ideas.

(1771-1858) - one of the great utopian socialists of the 19th century. From 1800 to 1829 he managed a large factory enterprise in New Laparks (Scotland). Owen reduced the working day at the factory to 10 1/2 hours, while at other enterprises it reached 13-14 hours, improved working conditions and the life of workers, created an exemplary school for their children, organized a nursery and a kindergarten. In his first work, A New View of Society or an Experience in the Formation of Character (1813-1814), Owen outlined the Newlanark experience and the principles that guided his work.

In the future, Owen moved from philanthropic ideas to communism. The transition to communism was a turning point in Owen's life. Confident in the correctness of his ideas and their practical feasibility, Owen went to America and organized the communist colony "New Harmony" there. But, having failed, he returned to England, where he took an active part in the labor professional and cooperative movement, from which he subsequently moved away. After that, his teaching completely acquired a sectarian character. Owen passed away at the age of 87. Propaganda and educational activities of Owen had in the 30-40s of the XIX century. positive value. He did a lot to educate the workers. Evaluating Owen's long-term activity, Engels wrote: "All the social movements that took place in England in the interests of the working class, and all their real achievements are associated with the name of Owen."

In his sociological views, Owen was close to the French materialists of the 18th century. A person is a product of circumstances, and his character is created against his will and independently of him, Owen argued.

It is not the people themselves who are to blame for all the vices and shortcomings of people, but the social system in which they live. The crimes of people "are the crimes of society itself, and not of one or another individual who is punished with flagrant injustice for the ignorance and delusions of the social environment." Change the conditions of social life, improve the social system, then the morals of people will also change - this is Owen's conclusion, made by him following the philosophers of the 18th century. But, while the French materialists considered the society of private property and bourgeois freedoms to be the best, Owen considered bourgeois society as imperfect as the feudal social system. Only a socialist society is a perfect society, Owen wrote. He opposed the teachings of bourgeois economists, who proved the naturalness and rationality of the capitalist system. He considered bourgeois society to be transient. Unlike the French philosophers, who sought only the destruction of class privileges, Owen sought to destroy class contradictions and establish social equality between people.

He sharply criticized the essential features of the capitalist system: private property, the class structure of society, the division of labor, the dominance of competition, the growing impoverishment of the workers, etc. existing unreasonable social system that it produces misery and crime instead of wealth and virtue!” Owen saw this contradiction as one of the greatest evils of his contemporary social order. But, like all utopian socialists, Owen saw the main cause of social evil not in the capitalist mode of production, but in the ignorance of people, in their misunderstanding of their own nature. Accordingly, he believed that social contradictions would be eliminated through the dissemination of knowledge, the introduction of truth.

A rational, socialist society will arise not from struggle, but will appear as a result of the knowledge of the truth. Owen idealistically viewed history as a gradual progress in human knowledge. Dreaming of a new, socialist system, the cell of which was to be a small community, Owen resolutely rejected the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. The socialist transformation of social relations, in his opinion, cannot be carried out by means of a violent revolution. “Like other utopian socialists, Owen did not understand the historical role of the working class. He pinned his hopes on the initiative of the ruling classes and governments, vainly turning to their assistance in establishing a reasonable social order. Owen addressed his projects to Nicholas I, the King of France and etc.

The essential shortcomings of WEP socialism, as Engels pointed out, are its tolerance for the bourgeoisie, the abstract nature of its principles, and its failure to understand the laws of historical development. The English socialists, writes Engels, are "quite humble and peace-loving", consider the "embitterment" of the workers against the bourgeoisie "unfruitful and preach to them philanthropy and universal love". Nevertheless, Owen's historical merits are great. Along with the teachings

Robert Owen (1771-1858). unlike the above-mentioned utopians, he carried out his theoretical views in practice.

Utopian socialism in England, in comparison with France, had some peculiarities. It developed as a more radical movement, rejecting private property in any form. He was not characterized by Saint-Simonist admiration for industrial society and Fourier's inherent overestimation of the role of capitalist trade. English utopian socialism was free from romance and religious form. Owen's views are expounded in many works including: "On the Formation of Human Character" (1813-1814), "Report to the County of Lenarc" (1820), "Remarks on the Influence of the Industrial System" (1815), "An Exposition of the Rational System of Society" (1830 ), "The Book of the New Moral World" (1836-1844).

R. Owen criticized capitalism, characterized it as an unreasonable system, as a chaotic, disunited, contradictory system that gives rise to the poor, ignorance, strife and war. Owen reveals the anti-people essence of capitalism, hostile to the interests of the working people. R. Owen considered private property to be the main enemy of society. Owen considered the worst phenomena of capitalism to be the "trinity of evils": private property, religion, and marriage based on property protected by religion. “Private property,” Owen wrote, “has been and is the cause of countless crimes and disasters experienced by man ... it causes incalculable harm to the lower, middle and upper classes”

Owen proclaimed physical labor to be the source of wealth. He believed that not individual labor, but labor in general, taken as average labor, is the measure of value. Owen, having considered the question of the capitalist application of machines, noted that workers do not receive proper remuneration for their work. And in the future intelligent society, in his opinion, the machine will be the greatest boon of mankind.

In his projections of the development of society, Owen foresaw that the socialist organization would eliminate poverty and eliminate crises. Owen characterized money under capitalism as a tool of injustice and oppression, as a fetish that everyone worships. Owen saw money as a thing, a technical means that facilitates the exchange process, and believed that initially they were useful, but in bourgeois society they turned into the greatest evil, as they serve the interests of ignorant egoism. Money

proposed to replace it with receipts indicating the amount of labor,

spent by the employee. According to this principle, he intended to organize a fair exchange market.

The goal of the future society, Owen believed, is the constant improvement of the world and the provision of a happy future for the entire human race. In a rationally organized future society, private property, Owen argued, would be replaced by public property. According to his state structure, Owen thought of the future system as a community, which would be divided into several departments: agriculture, industry and mechanics, literature, science and education, household, general economy, trade.

Owen considered labor to be the necessary duty of every healthy person as the source of all material and spiritual values ​​in the future society. In this society, the principle should operate: from each according to his ability, to each according to his work. Owen considered it necessary to organize labor in communities in such a way that occupations in agriculture and industry would alternate, and the education of youth should involve the most versatile activities of youth.

R. Owen's teaching is one of the sources of scientific communism. Robert Owen in 1800, became the head, co-owner and manager of a spinning enterprise in New Lanark (Scotland), where he put his ideas into practice. He tried to create at this enterprise the so-called ideal industrial community, which, in his opinion, guarantees both the well-being of workers and high productivity,

and high profits. R. Owen accustomed the workers to organization and order, reduced the working day to 10.5 hours. improved the living conditions of workers, took care of organizing their reasonable rest, fought alcoholism, and was engaged in raising the children of his workers.

Under his leadership, kindergartens, a cultural center, etc. were built.

The enterprise flourished during the economic crisis of 1815-1816, but after the departure of R. Owen in 1829, his brilliant experiment failed.

In 1824, he attempted to implement his plan for the reorganization of society in the United States, establishing the communist community "New Harmony" there, but failed and lost most of his fortune. Eight years later, he tried to organize a "National Bazaar for a Fair Exchange" and again failed. Failures did not break R. Owen, and until the end of his life he continued his activities, promoting his ideas.

R. Owen's teaching is one of the sources of scientific communism.

Owen is the only one of the great utopians who made an attempt, albeit based on an incorrect, utopian theory, to involve the workers themselves in the cause of the socialist transformation of society.

Robert Owen is an outstanding English utopian socialist. Owen was born into a petty-bourgeois family. From the age of ten, he independently earned his livelihood. By the age of twenty, he was already a factory director. From 1800, Owen managed as a co-owner of a large textile enterprise in New Lanark (Scotland). Owen's work in New Lanark made him widely known as a philanthropist. Owen introduced at the factory a relatively short working day for that time, at 10.5 hours, created a nursery, a kindergarten and an exemplary school for children and workers, carried out a number of measures to improve working conditions and the living conditions of workers. In 1815, Owen came up with a draft law that limited the working day for children and established compulsory schooling for working children. In 1817, Owen compiled a memorandum from a parliamentary commission in which he put forward the idea of ​​a labor commune as a means of combating unemployment. By 1820, Owen's social ideas had finally taken shape: he became convinced of the need for a radical restructuring of society on the basis of community ownership, equality in rights and collective labor.

Owen imagined the future "rational" society as a loose federation of small socialist self-governing communities, including no more than 3 thousand people. The main occupation in the community is agriculture; but Owen was against the separation of industrial labor from agricultural labor (the community also organizes industrial production). With common ownership and common labor, there can be neither exploitation nor classes. Work is distributed among citizens according to needs. Considering, following the French materialists of the 18th century,

that human character is a product of the social environment surrounding a person, Owen was convinced that a new person would be born in his new society. Proper upbringing and a healthy environment will teach him to feel and think rationally, and will eradicate selfish habits in him. Courts, prisons, punishments will become unnecessary.

Owen was convinced that it was enough to found one community, and its advantages would inevitably cause a desire to organize others. In an effort to demonstrate the practical feasibility and advantages of labor communes, Owen went to the USA in 1824 to organize an experimental colony there on the basis of community ownership. However, all of Owen's experiments in the United States served only as proof of the utopian nature of his plans. After a series of failures, Owen returned to England, where he took an active part in the cooperative and professional movement.

Simultaneously with the reorganization of circulation, Owen promoted a broadly conceived utopian reorganization of production, also as a measure for a peaceful transition to the socialist order. Owen assumed that the trade union organizations of workers could take over the respective branches of industry and organize production in them on a cooperative basis without resorting to any violent measures. In 1834, the "Great National United Union of Industries" was organized, which set itself the task of implementing this Owen plan. Capitalist reality shattered Owen's utopian hopes. A number of organized lockout entrepreneurs, as well as unsuccessful strikes, harsh court sentences led to the liquidation of the "Great Unions" in the same 1834.

The failure of the "Grand Alliance" was the beginning of the decline of Owenism. Condemning the political struggle of the working class, Owen and most of his supporters remained aloof from the powerful class movement of the English proletariat - Chartism, and had a negative attitude towards it. Nevertheless, Owen's merits are great. Owen preached the ideas of socialism for forty years. All his conscious life he served the interests of the working class, fighting for factory legislation, for the improvement of working conditions. Owen is the only one of the great utopians who made an attempt, albeit based on an incorrect, utopian theory, to involve the workers themselves in the cause of the socialist transformation of society.