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Owenism is the utopian socialist philosophy of 19th-century social reformer Robert Owen and his followers and successors, who are known as Owenites. Owenism aimed for radical reform of society and is considered a forerunner of the
cooperative movement The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement bega ...
.Ronald George Garrett (1972), ''Co-operation and the Owenite socialist communities in Britain, 1825–45'', Manchester University Press ND, The Owenite movement undertook several experiments in the establishment of
utopian communities An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
organized according to communitarian and cooperative principles. One of the best known of these efforts, which were largely unsuccessful, was the project at New Harmony, Indiana, which started in 1825 and was abandoned by 1829. Owenism is also closely associated with the development of the British trade union movement, and with the spread of the Mechanics' Institute movement.


Economic thought

Owen's economic thought grew out of widespread poverty in Britain in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. His thought was rooted in seventeenth century English "
moral economy Moral economy refers to economic activities viewed through a moral, not just a material, lens. The definition of moral economy is constantly revisited depending on its usage in differing social, economic, ecological, and geographic situations and ...
" ideals of “fair exchange, just price, and the right to charity.” "Utopian socialist” economic thought such as Owen's was a reaction to the laissez-faire impetus of Malthusian Poor Law reform. Claeys notes that "Owen’s ‘Plan’ began as a grandiose but otherwise not exceptionally unusual workhouse scheme to place the unemployed poor in newly built rural communities." Owen’s “plan” was itself derivative of (and ultimately popularized by) a number of Irish and English trade unionists such as William Thompson and Thomas Hodgskin, co-founder of the London Mechanics Institute. When this poverty led to revolt, as it did in Glasgow in April 1820, a “committee of gentlemen” from the area commissioned the cotton manufacturer and philanthropist, Robert Owen, to produce a “Report to the County of Lanark” in May 1820, which recommended a new form of pauper relief; the cooperative village. Owen's villages thus needed to be compared with the Dickensian " Houses of Industry" that were created after the passage of the 1834 Poor Law amendment act. Owen's report was to spark a widespread “socialist” movement that established co-operatives, labour exchanges, and experimental communities in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Owen was to disseminate his ideas in North America beginning in 1824. His ideas were most widely received in New York and Philadelphia, where he was greeted by nascent working men's parties. Owen was no theoretician, and the Owenite movement drew on a broad range of thinkers such as William Thompson, John Gray,
Abram Combe Abram Combe (15 January 1785–11 August 1827) was a British utopian socialist, an associate of Robert Owen and a major figure in the early co-operative movement, leading one of the earliest Owenite communities, at Orbiston, Scotland. Life Early ...
, Robert Dale Owen, George Mudie,
John Francis Bray John Francis Bray (26 June 1809 – 1 February 1897) was a radical, chartist, writer on socialist economics, and activist in both Britain and his native America in the 19th century. He was hailed in later life as the "Benjamin Franklin" of Ame ...
, Dr
William King William King may refer to: Arts * Willie King (1943–2009), American blues guitarist and singer *William King (author) (born 1959), British science fiction author and game designer, also known as Bill King *William King (artist) (1925–2015), Am ...
, and Josiah Warren. These men rooted their thought in
Ricardian socialism Ricardian socialism is a branch of classical economic thought based upon the work of the economist David Ricardo (1772–1823). The term is used to describe economists in the 1820s and 1830s who developed a theory of capitalist exploitation from ...
and the
labour theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian e ...
.


Utopian communities


United Kingdom

* New Lanark founded originally by
David Dale David Dale (6 January 1739–7 March 1806) was a leading Scottish industrialist, merchant and philanthropist during the Scottish Enlightenment period at the end of the 18th century. He was a successful entrepreneur in a number of areas, m ...
, passed on to a partnership that included Robert Owen, who became mill manager in 1800. In Owen's time approximately 2500 people worked at the mill, many from the poorhouses of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He improved conditions there notably, focusing in particular on children, for whom he provided the first infant school in 1817.The mills were a commercial success. When other partners were unhappy at the expense occurred by his welfare programs, Owen bought them out. New Lanark today is recognized by UNESCO and is one of Scotland's six world heritage sites. * George Mudie, a printer, formed an Owenite community at
Spa Fields Spa Fields is a park and its surrounding area in the London Borough of Islington, bordering Finsbury and Clerkenwell. Historically it is known for the Spa Fields riots of 1816 and an Owenite community which existed there between 1821 and 1824. Th ...
, in the London Borough of Islington between 1821 and 1824. Mudie published a weekly journal, the ''Economist'', which ran from 27 January 1821 to 9 March 1822. The printer
Henry Hetherington Henry Hetherington (June 1792 – 24 August 1849) was an English printer, bookseller, publisher and newspaper proprietor who campaigned for social justice, a free press, universal suffrage and religious freethought. Together with his close asso ...
was a member. Mudie moved to Orbiston after this community failed. * Archibald James Hamilton, the radical laird of Dalzell and Orbiston, owned an estate 8 miles outside Glasgow. He was one of the gentlemen who commissioned Robert Owens’ “Report to the County of Lanark”. In 1821, he and several other Owenite sympathizers such as
Abram Combe Abram Combe (15 January 1785–11 August 1827) was a British utopian socialist, an associate of Robert Owen and a major figure in the early co-operative movement, leading one of the earliest Owenite communities, at Orbiston, Scotland. Life Early ...
formed the Edinburgh Practical Society that operated a co-operative store, and a school. In addition, Hamilton provided his 290-acre estate, Orbiston, for the first Owenite co-operative community in the United Kingdom, in 1825. The community collapsed in 1827 on the death of its founder. *
Ralahine Ralahine ''( Irish, Ráth Fhlaithín)'' is a townland of County Clare, it is best known for its historic and extraordinary experiment in communism in 1831, long before communism, as we have come to know it, became a reality. The Ralahine Commune ...
Community, County Clare, Ireland (1831–1833) was organized on the estate of John Vandeleur by Edward T. Craig. Unlike other Owenite communities, workers were paid “labour notes” which they could spend in the co-operative store. By this time, Owenism had moved on to its Labour Exchange phase. The experiment ended when Vandeleur lost his estate through gambling. * Harmony Hall Community at Queenwood Farm, Hampshire (1839–1845). This is the only other colony than New Harmony in Indiana founded by Robert Owen himself. In 1839 his Association of Classes of All Nations acquired five hundred acres at Queenwood farm.


United States

* New Harmony, Indiana (1825–27). Founded by Robert Owen himself. He purchased the community of New Harmony from the religious communists known as the Rappites. The influential Owenite newspaper, "The Free Enquirer" was published here. * Yellow Springs, Ohio on a site now occupied by Antioch College, Miami Township, Greene County (1825). *
Nashoba Commune The Nashoba Community was an experimental project of Frances "Fanny" Wright, initiated in 1825 to educate and emancipate slaves. It was located in a 2,000-acre (8 km²) woodland on the side of present-day Germantown, Tennessee, a Memphis s ...
, Tennessee (1825–28) was organized by Fanny Wright to educate and emancipate slaves. To ensure emancipation without financial loss to slaveholders, slaves would buy their freedom and then be transported to the independent settlements of Liberia and Haiti. * Franklin or Haverstraw Community, Haverstraw, Rockland County, New York (1826). * Forestville Commonwealth, Lapham's Mills, Coxsackie, Greene County, New York (1826–1827). Also known as the "Coxsackie Community." Founded by Dr. Samuel Underhill, under the influence of Dr Cornelius Blatchly's "An Essay on Common Wealths" (1822). Saddled with debt, 27 members decided to join the Kendal community, leaving on 23 Oct. 1827. * Kendal Community, Ohio, Massillon, Ohio (1825–9). Also known as "Friendly Association of Mutual Interests at Kendal." * Valley Forge Community, Valley Forge, Chester County, PA (1826). Also known as "Friendly Association of Mutual Interests." * Blue Spring Community, Van Buren Township, Monroe County, Indiana (1826) * Promisewell Community, Munroe County, PA (1843). Also known as the Society of One-Mentians. * Goose Pond Community, Pike County, PA (1843). An offshoot of Promisewell, built on the site of Fourierist phalanx "Social Reform Unity." * Hunt's Colony, Spring Lake, Mukwonago Township, Waukesha County, Wisconsin (1843). Also known as the Colony of Equality. Founded by several English organizations.


Canada

* When Orbiston collapsed in 1827 on the death of its founder, most of the residents moved to Upper Canada, where they formed the short-lived Owenite community of Maxwell near Sarnia.


Co-operative movement and labour exchange

Although the early emphasis in Owenism was on the formation of utopian communities, these communities were predicated upon co-operative labour, and frequently, co-operative sales. For example, the Edinburgh Practical Society created by the founders of Orbiston operated a co-operative store to raise the capital for the community.
Abram Combe Abram Combe (15 January 1785–11 August 1827) was a British utopian socialist, an associate of Robert Owen and a major figure in the early co-operative movement, leading one of the earliest Owenite communities, at Orbiston, Scotland. Life Early ...
, the leader of that community, was to author the pamphlet ''The Sphere for Joint Stock Companies'' (1825), which made clear that Orbiston was not to be a self-subsistent commune, but a co-operative trading endeavor. For the majority of Owenites who did not live in these utopian communities, the working-class Owenite tradition was composed of three overlapping institutions: "the cooperative store, the labour exchange and the trade union." The cooperative ideas of Owen and Combe were further developed by the Brighton doctor,
William King William King may refer to: Arts * Willie King (1943–2009), American blues guitarist and singer *William King (author) (born 1959), British science fiction author and game designer, also known as Bill King *William King (artist) (1925–2015), Am ...
, publisher of
The Co-operator
" Although the paper was only published for two years between 1827 and 1829, it served to unify the movement. The next attempt to broaden the cooperative movement was the British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative Knowledge (B.A.P.C.K.) founded in 1829. It was the successor to the London Cooperative Society, and served as a clearing house of information for Britain's 300 cooperatives. It provided pamphlets, lectures and "missionaries" for the movement. It held its quarterly meetings in the London Mechanics Institute, with frequent lectures from
William Lovett William Lovett (8 May 1800 – 8 August 1877) was a British activist and leader of the Chartist political movement. He was one of the leading London-based artisan radicals of his generation. A proponent of the idea that political rights could ...
, and many other radical Owenites who would go on to lead the
London Working Men's Association The London Working Men's Association was an organisation established in London in 1836.
. B.A.P.C.K. rejected joint stock cooperative efforts as "systems of competition." Its aim was the establishment of an agricultural, manufacturing or trading community. They recognized that the success of cooperation depended upon parliamentary reform, and this proved the basis for working with the radical reformers who would go on to create the Chartist movement. The National Equitable Labour Exchange was founded in London in 1832 and spread to several English cities, most notably
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, before closing in 1834. Beginning from the Ricardian Socialist view that labour was the source of all value, the exchange issued "Labour Notes" similar to banknotes, denominated in hours. John Gray proposed a ''National Chamber of Commerce'' as a central bank issuing a ''labour currency''. A similar time-based currency would be created by an American Owenite, Josiah Warren, who founded the
Cincinnati Time Store The Cincinnati Time Store (1827-1830) was the first in a series of retail stores created by American individualist anarchist Josiah Warren to test his economic labor theory of value. The experimental store operated from May 18, 1827 until May 183 ...
. A short-lived Labour Exchange was also founded in 1836 in Kingston, Upper Canada.


Political and labour organization

Robert Owen was resolutely apolitical, and initially pursued a non-class based form of community organization. However, as the focus of the movement shifted from the formation of utopian communities to cooperatives, Owenites became active in labour organization in both the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom, Owenites became further involved in electoral reform (now envisioned as part of a broader
Reform Movement A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social system, social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more Radicalism (politics), radical socia ...
).


United Kingdom

Between 1829 and 1835, Owenite socialism was politicized through two organizations; the British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative Knowledge, and its successor, the
National Union of the Working Classes The Rotunda radicals, known at the time as Rotundists or Rotundanists, were a diverse group of social, political and religious radical reformers who gathered around the Blackfriars Rotunda, London, between 1830 and 1832, while it was under the mana ...
(founded in 1831, and abandoned in 1835). The aim of B.A.P.C.K. was to promote cooperatives, but its members recognized that political reform was necessary if they were to achieve that end. They thus formed a "Political Union" which was the principal form of political activity in the period before the
Great Reform Act of 1832 The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major changes to the electo ...
. Political Unions organized petitioning campaigns meant to sway parliament. The B.A.P.C.K. leadership thus formed the National Union of the Working Classes (N.U.W.C.) to push for a combination of Owenism and radical democratic political reform. Owen himself resisted the N.U.W.C.'s political efforts at reform, and by 1833, he was an acknowledged leader of the British trade union movement. In February 1834, he helped form Britain's first national labour organization, the
Grand National Consolidated Trades Union The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union of 1834 was an early attempt to form a national union confederation in the United Kingdom. There had been several attempts to form national general unions in the 1820s, culminating with the National A ...
. The organisation began to break up in the summer of 1834Harrison, J.F.C. (1969) ''Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America'', Routledge, , p.212 and by November, it had ceased to function. It was from this heady mix of working class trade unionism, co-operativism, and political radicalism in the disappointed wake of the 1832 Reform Bill and the 1834 New Poor Law, that a number of prominent Owenite leaders such as
William Lovett William Lovett (8 May 1800 – 8 August 1877) was a British activist and leader of the Chartist political movement. He was one of the leading London-based artisan radicals of his generation. A proponent of the idea that political rights could ...
, John Cleave and
Henry Hetherington Henry Hetherington (June 1792 – 24 August 1849) was an English printer, bookseller, publisher and newspaper proprietor who campaigned for social justice, a free press, universal suffrage and religious freethought. Together with his close asso ...
helped form the
London Working Men's Association The London Working Men's Association was an organisation established in London in 1836.
in 1836. The London Working Men's Association led the Chartist movement demanding universal suffrage. Many have viewed Owenite socialism and
Chartism Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, w ...
as mutually hostile because of Owen's refusal to engage in politics. However, Chartists and Owenites were “many parts but one body” in this initial stage.


United States

Robert Dale Owen emigrated to the United States in 1825 to help his father run New Harmony, Indiana. After the community dissolved, Robert Dale Owen moved to New York City and became the co-editor of the ''Free Enquirer'', a socialistic and anti-Christian weekly, with Frances Wright, the founder of the
Nashoba community The Nashoba Community was an experimental project of Frances "Fanny" Wright, initiated in 1825 to educate and emancipate slaves. It was located in a 2,000-acre (8 km²) woodland on the side of present-day Germantown, Tennessee, a Memphis s ...
, from 1828 to 1832. They also founded a "Hall of Science" in New York like those being created by Owenites in the United Kingdom. From this base, Owen and Wright sought to influence the Working Men's Party. The Working Men's Party emerged spontaneously out of strike action by journeymen in 1829 who protested having to work more than 10 hours a day. They appointed a Committee of Fifty to discuss organization, and they proposed running a ticket of journeymen in the legislative elections. At the same time, Owen and Wright were continuing their own efforts to organize New York City's working classes. The two groups uneasily merged, and were encouraged by their success in the elections. To support the movement,
George Henry Evans George Henry Evans (March 25, 1805February 2, 1856) was a radical reformer who was in the Working Men's movement of 1829 and the trade union movements of the 1830s. Evans was born in Bromyard, Herefordshire, England, the son of George Evans and S ...
began publishing the ''Working Man's Advocate''. The new party quickly fell victim to factionalism over several controversial proposals. Owen's controversial contribution was a proposed "state guardianship plan" where children would be removed from their homes at the age of two and placed in government run schools, to protect them from the degeneracy of slum life and allow their optimum development through free schooling. By late 1830, the party was effectively dead.


Canada

Owenism was introduced to
Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...
(now Ontario) in 1835 by the Rev. Thaddeus Osgood, a Montreal-based evangelical minister. Osgood returned to London in 1829. Deep in debt, he was unable to return to Canada, and spent the succeeding five years preaching in London's
workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...
s and prisons. It was in this working class milieu that Osgood met and debated with Robert Owen. Although attracted by the “home colony” model of poverty relief, Osgood was offended by Owens’ anti-religious rhetoric. Drawing on Owenism, rather than Owen, Osgood proposed to found “Relief Unions” for the poor when he finally returned to Canada in 1835. Through Osgood's influence, Robert Owens’ ideas were widely debated in Toronto. Osgood's proposal elicited support from across Upper Canada in early 1836, and petitions for the Relief Union's incorporation were sent to the Assembly and Legislative Council. Significantly, Osgood's plan was proposed at the same time as the new Lt. Governor, Sir
Francis Bond Head Sir Francis Bond Head, 1st Baronet KCH PC (1 January 1793 – 20 July 1875), known as "Galloping Head", was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada during the rebellion of 1837. Biography Head was an officer in the corps of Royal Engineers of t ...
was arriving in Toronto. Bond Head was an Assistant Poor Law Administrator, and intent on imposing workhouses for the poor, not Owenite colonies.


Acknowledgements

Last paragraph of Chapter III in ''The Communist Manifesto'' Marx mentions that ″The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively, oppose the Chartists and Reformists."


See also

*
Cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...
* Owenstown


References


External links


Owenite Societies Archives
at the International Institute of Social History
Essays by Owen
at the Marxists Internet Archive {{Co-operatives , topics Eponymous political ideologies Social philosophy Utopian socialism