Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
Popular conceptions of the politics of Robert Owen have changed surprisingly little since the early nineteenth century. Within a short time of the advent of his national campaign for Poor Law reform, Owen came under attack from radical parliamentary reformers on the grounds of his ostensible political conservatism. Among the rumours then afloat among the reformers, Richard Carlile later wrote, one was “that Mr. Owen was an instrument of the Government, to bring forward this plan of providing for the lower and poorer classes, for the purpose of drawing their attention from Parliamentary Reform”.
1 Republican, 14 01 1820, p. 10.Google Scholar
2 Sherwin's, Political Register, 26 04 1817, pp. 59–62.Google Scholar
3 Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, 208 1817, p. 569. The most full account of the radicals' reaction to Owen is in the Reformists' Register, 28 08 1817, pp. 129–60Google Scholar, in an article entitled “Let Us Alone, Mr. Owen”. See also Cullen, A., Adventures in Socialism (Glasgow, 1910), p. 101, and Gans, J., “Robert Owen et la Classe Ouvrière”, in: Le Mouvement Social, No 80 (1972), pp. 77–80.Google Scholar
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5 Podmore, F., Robert, Owen (London, 1906), p. 427; Beer, M., A History of British Socialism (2 vols; London, 1929), I, p. 162; Harvey, R. H., Robert, Owen, Social Idealist (Berkeley, 1949), p. 87; Miii⊙and, R., “ The Politics of Robert Owen”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas, XV (1954), pp. 233–35; Garnett, R. G., Co-operation and the Owenite Socialist Communities in Britain, 1825–45 (Manchester, 1972), p. 29; Tsuzuki, C., ‘Robert Owen and Revolutionary Politics”, in: Robert Owen: Prophet of the Poor, ed. by Pollard, S. and Salt, J. (London, 1971), p. 13Google Scholar; Butt, J., “Robert Owen of New Lanark: His Critique of British Society”, in: The Victorians and Social Protest, ed. by Butt, J. and Clarke, J. F. (Newton Abbot, 1971), p. 43; Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1968), p. 861.Google Scholar
6 Jones, L., The Life, Times, and Labours of Robert Owen, 2nd ed. (London, 1895), p. 213; Harrison, J. F. C., Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (London, 1969), p. 76.Google Scholar
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9 The original regulations are reprinted in Owen, R., The New Existence of Man Upon the Earth (London, 1854), V, pp. ix–xi.Google Scholar
10 Id., “A New View of Society”, in A New View of Society and Other Writings, ed. by Butt, J. (London, 1977). pp. 63–90, 36.Google Scholar
11 Id., “Further Development of the Plan for the Relief of the Poor and the Emancipation of Mankind”, ibid., pp. 228–31.
12 Id., “Address Delivered at the City of London Tavern on Thursday, August 21, 1817”, ibid., p. 218. Bellers is identified with this general scheme at p. 213. Owen reprinted his Proposals for Establishing a Colledge of Industry (1696) the following year. See p. 16 of the original edition for Bellers's comments on supervision at age 60.
13 The Age of Civilization, 11 04 1818, p. 80Google Scholar; Owen, R., “An Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark”, in A New View of Society and Other Writings, op. cit., p. 118; The Mirror of Truth, 1 10 1817, p. 8; 7 11, p. 59.Google Scholar
14 R. Owen, “Report to the County of Lanark”, in New View of Society and Other Writings, p. 287; Proceedings of the First General Meeting of the British and Foreign Philanthropic Society (London, 1822), pp. 46–56; Permanent Relief for the British Agricultural and Manufacturing Labourers and the Irish Peasantry (London, 1822 or 1823), p. 9
15 “Mr. Owen's Discourse on a New System of Society”, loc. cit., p. 31. See the New Harmony Gazette, 25 April 1827, p. 234. A general history of government at New Harmony is given ibid., 28 March, pp. 206–07. See also Bestor, A. E., Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663–1829 (Philadelphia, 1950), pp. 160–202.Google Scholar
16 “Mr. Owen's Second Discourse on a New System of Society”, in: Johnson Robert Owen in the United States, op. cit., pp. 53, 56; New Harmony Gazette. 7 February 1827, p. 145; 21 February, p. 161.
17 Ibid., 28 March, p. 206.
18 Ibid., 23 August 1826, p. 383: 10 January 1827, p. 113; London Co-operative Magazine, 1 March 1830, p. 37. For a bitterly critcal reflection upon Owen's goverment at New Harmony, see P.Brown, Twelve Months in New Harmony (Cincinnati, 1827).
19 Proceedings of the Third Co-operative Congress (London. 1832), pp. 53–54.Google Scholar
20 Ibid., p. 93.
21 Lovett, W., The Life and Struggles of William Lovett (London, 1967), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar
22 Ibid. For other accounts of Owen's behaviour at this congress, see Holyoake, G. J., The History of Co-operation (2 vols; London, 1906), 1, p. 120Google Scholar, and R. K. P. Pankhurst, William Thompson (London, 1954), pp. 157–79.
23 Rules and Regulations of the Equitable Labour Exchange (London, 1832), pp. 4–6; Proceedings of the Third Co-operative Congress, p. 47.
24 Pioneer. 7 June 1834, p. 393.
25 Crisis, , 19 04 1834, pp. 12–13: Pioneer. 26 April, pp. 317–19: A. Somerville. Autobiography of a Working Man (London, 1967), p. 286.Google Scholar
26 See for example Owen's comments in the Poor Man's Guardian, 14 March 1835, pp. 460–61, and O'Brien's response ibid., 21 March, pp. 465–68.
27 Trades' Newspaper and Mechanics Weekly Gazette. 2108 1830.Google Scholar
28 Robert Owen's Reply to the Question, “What you Do If You Were Prine Minister?” (London, 1832), pp. 12, 3. Owen had also run for Parliament twice in 1819–20.Google Scholar See Podmore, , Robert Owen, op.cit., p. 264, for details.Google Scholar
29 New Moral World, 1710 1835, pp. 401–03; 24 10, p. 409; Robert Owen's Opening Speech, and His Reply to the Rev. Alex. Campbell in the Recent Public Discussion in Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1829), pp. 141–42.Google Scholar
30 Cole, G. D. H., The Life of Robert Owen. 3rd ed. (London, 1965), p. 11.Google Scholar
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32 Id., Report of the Proceedings at the Several Public Meetings Held in Dublin, op. cit., pp. 55–56.
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35 Ibid.
36 “Socialism” first occurs in the London Co-operative Magazine, November 1827, p. 509, note. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first English usage of “individualism” as 1840, and presumes it to be taken from the French. I have found it used in English as early as 1834, however, and it is obvious that the conceptual opposition between “socialism” and“individualism” had begun to assume a new form as early as the turn of the century. On the new “social” language of the early-nineteenth-century working-class movements, see in particular Stedman Jones, G., “Rethinking Chartism”, in: Studies in English Working Class Radicalism and Culture, 1830–1860Google Scholar, ed. by D. Thompson and J. A. Epstein (forthcoming, 1982).
37 Owen, R., A Development of the Principles and Plans on which to establish Self-Supporting Home Colonies (London, 1841), p. 34.Google Scholar
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48 Owen, R., The Marriage System of the New Moral World (Leeds, 1838), pp. 25–27.Google Scholar For a general discussion of Owen's view of marriage, see Saville, J., “Robert Owen on the Family and Marriage System of the Old Immoral World”, in: Rebels and Their Causes, ed. by Cornforth, M. (London, 1978), pp. 107–21Google Scholar. An extremely comprehensive treatment can be found in Taylor, B., “The Feminist Theory and Practice of the Owenite Socialist Movement in Britain, 1820-1845” (Ph.D. thesis, Sussex University, 1980).Google Scholar
49 New Moral World, 27 December 1834, p. 67. This text is from lectures given by Owen in 1834, which were reprinted, substantially unchanged, as The Marriage System of the New Moral World, op. cit.
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54 Owen, R., The Catechism of the New Moral World, 2nd ed. (Leeds, 1838), p. 7.Google Scholar An earlier treatment of this theme is in Claeys, G. and Kerr, P., “Mechanical Political Economy”, in: Cambridge Journal of Economics, V (1981). pp. 268–71.Google Scholar
55 New Moral World. 26 September 1835. p. 382. For further treament of the productive/unproductive distinction and its implications, see my “The Role of ‘Unproductive Labour’ in the Development of early British Socialist Theory: Form Godwin to 1850”, in After Adam Smith: Essays on the Development of Political Economy in the early Ninteenth Century, ed. by Hont, I. (Cambridge, forthcoming).Google Scholar
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