Utopian Socialism

Immediate ideological source of scientific socialism, the ideological system of the early proletarians, which emerged with the appearance of capitalist relations of production, the theoretical manifestation of the independent movement of the early proletarian masses—the forerunner of the modern proletariat. It reflects the antagonism between the exploiters and the exploited under the conditions of the rise and preliminary development of capitalism, and reflects the protest of the early proletarians against the capitalist mode of exploitation and their longing for an ideal social system.

The earliest founder of utopian socialism was Thomas More who was a prominent British politician and thinker. In 1516, More wrote the book titled Utopia in Latin on his mission to Flanders, which was the first outstanding work in the history of utopian socialism. Its full title was “A truly golden little book, no less beneficial than entertaining, of a republic’s best state and of the new island Utopia”. Utopia is derived from the Greek prefix "ou-" (οὔ), meaning "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ίᾱ) that is typical of toponyms; hence the title literally means "nowhere".

According to historical records, the word “socialism” first appeared in the French journal Le Globe hosted by the Saint-Simonians in France, and was first used in 1832 by Joncières, a disciple of the Saint-Simon School. The term “socialist” was first used by Owen’s disciples in the Co-operative Magazine, issued in November 1827, where they referred to those who believed in Owen’s theory of co-operatives as “socialists”. The almost simultaneous use of the terms of “socialism” and “socialist” in England and France was a reflection of the then socio-political and economic realities, for Britain was the country with the most classical development of the capitalist economy at that time, while France was the country with the most classical development of capitalist politics.

For the first time, the term “utopia” was associated with the term “socialism” by the French economist Adolphe Jérôme Blanqui, who was the brother of the famous socialist revolutionary Louis Auguste Blanqui. In 1839, in his book Histoire de l'économie politique en Europe depuis les anciens jusqu'à nos jours, Blanqui for the first time used the word “Utopian Economist” to refer to the “utopian socialism” of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and their followers. Since then, after more than three centuries, “Utopia” was replaced by “utopian socialism”.

Utopian socialism originated in the 16th century when human history just entered the capitalist era and ended in the 1830s and 1840s. After more than three centuries, the historical development of utopian socialism can be summarized as follows: the principles of utopian socialism has gradually become clear, its content has constantly been enriched, the observation and critique of capitalism by utopian socialist thinkers has gradually become profound, and the speculation of future social principles has become more abundant; while utopian socialist thinkers have gradually began to break through the shackles of idealist conception of history, and came into contact with some truths of historical materialism, they have also explored the way to realize an ideal society. Therefore, the development process of utopian socialism is a process of gradually reducing the utopian tint and enhancing the spirit of realism to prepare intellectual material for the birth of scientific socialism.

The development history of utopian socialism for more than three centuries can be roughly divided into three stages.

First stage: Utopian socialism in the 16th-17th century. The corresponding socio-historical condition was by and large the capitalist primitive accumulation. The utopian socialism of the whole period was mainly a utopian depiction of an ideal social system. The chief representative works of this period were: Utopia (1516) by the British Thomas More, The City of the Sun (1602) by the Italian Campanella, the German Thomas Müntzer, and The Law of Freedom (1652) by the leader of the British “Diggers” Gerrard Winstanley, among others.

Second stage: Utopian socialism in the 18th century. The development of utopian socialism in the 18th century was mainly carried out in France, then the largest country in Western Europe. This corresponded to the development of capitalism in France and the social conditions and contradictions arising from it. In its totality, the social and historical conditions corresponding to the utopian socialism in the 18th century were the development of manufacture and the bourgeois revolution. Simultaneously with the theorizing of the doctrine of ideal socialism in this period, thinkers began to seek the path to the realization of the ideal social system in the real world. The prominent representative of this was Babeuf. Babeuf’s straightforward revolutionary positions and firm revolutionary actions have provided valuable ideological clues and materials for scientific socialism. A large number of precious historical documents about Babeuf’s revolutionary activities are included in his comrade-in-arms Philippe Buonarroti’s Conspiracy for Equality, published in 1828 which has become one of the most important socialist literature preceding Marxism.

Third stage: Utopian socialism in the early 19th century. This was the last and highest stage in the development of utopian socialist thought. The corresponding social and historical conditions were the emergence and development of the industrial revolution and the preliminary formation of the capitalist factory system (especially in Britain). The chief representatives of utopian socialism in this period were the French Saint-Simon and Fourier, and the English Owen. They are also called three representative figures and three thinkers of utopian socialism. With the development of the times, these thinkers pushed the theory of utopian socialism to its zenith and transformed it into the direct theoretical source of scientific socialism. It is in this sense that Engels appreciated them as the “founders of socialism”.

Utopian socialism was a progressive ideological system in human history. It was of great significance for the development of human thought and knowledge and for revolutionizing capitalist society, and it has established certain historical achievements.

(1) A comprehensive critique of the capitalist society. The all-round and ruthless exposure and critique of capitalism is an important content and the most valuable part of utopian socialism. In a nutshell, the critique of capitalist society by utopian socialists gradually developed both in depth and breadth as their knowledge of it deepened. If the early founders of utopian socialism only focused on criticizing the evils brought about by the primitive accumulation of capital, and if the utopian socialists in the 18th century only pointed their critique at the newly-established capitalist system and the rule of the bourgeoisie, then the utopian socialists in the early 19th century have not only attacked all the foundations of capitalism, but also directed the spearhead of their criticism at the entire superstructure of the existing capitalism, and they have also made an extremely exhaustive exposition and attack of the capitalist political system, ideology and morality. They all severely criticized the cruel exploitation brought about by capitalist private property, exposed the antagonism between the rich and the poor as well as the miserable conditions of slavery of the proletarians caused by the capitalist system of exploitation, and especially exposed the anarchy of capitalist production and the serious social consequences brought about by competition, monopoly and economic crises.

Utopian socialists eventually tried to find out the root cause of the evils of capitalism. The utopian thinkers before the 18th century had exposed that private ownership was the root of all evil, but they criticized it by confusing feudal property in land with capitalist private property. The utopian socialists in the 18th century had realized that capitalist private property was the root cause of all the serious consequences in the existing society. Owen directed the spearhead of his criticism at the private property in the means of production by the bourgeoisie. Weitling held that there was no essential difference between capitalist private property and slavery, merely being different forms of exploitation, and that it was the abyss of misery for proletarians and working people.

(2) It put forth a lot of ingenious visions for the future society. On the basis of criticizing capitalism, utopian socialists put forth a comprehensive social reform programme. The social reform programme of utopian socialists included, for example, abolishing private property, eliminating exploitation and oppression, establishing an equal, happy and harmonious ideal society based upon public property, everyone participating in labor, and introducing the rule “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”; organizing social production in a planned way, promoting the development of the productive forces of society, and properly arranging and organizing social life; realizing the socialization of life; replacing the old division of labor with a new one; eliminating the antithesis and distinction between town and country, industry and agriculture, mental and physical labor; attaching importance to education of society, especially for children; advocating the combination of education and productive labor; combining theory with practice; and attaching importance to the cultivation and selection of talents; giving full play to the wisdom and talents of every member of society; advocating political democracy, in which the leaders and the officials of the state or public institutions at all levels to be elected by the people, be public servants of the people, enjoy no privileges, and can be removed at any time; the laws of the state cease to be the arbitrary instruments of a few oppressors, instead become the means of governing the state and protecting the right of the citizens. Of course, these programmes proposed by utopian socialists were only some kind of prophecies and fantasies of a new world, which were fundamentally utopian.

(3) The elements of materialism and dialectics in the conception of history. These elements were mainly manifested in the thoughts of Saint-Simon, Owen and Fourier, i.e., the three great thinkers of utopian socialism. They put forward the point of view that there were laws in the development of social history; they saw the existence of classes and the antagonism between the rich and the poor; they believed that human history was constantly developing and progressing, showing a movement from the lower to the higher; they believed that the capitalist system would not last forever. Fourier clearly put forth the important idea that labor was no longer a means of earning a living, but an element of joy in life, and that the level of women’s emancipation should be regarded as the natural criterion for judging the emancipation level of any society. Saint-Simon not only put forth the embryonic form of the thought “from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution”, but also he speculated that the state would become an organization of production and the political rule over persons will turn into the administration of things and the conduct of processes of production, which included the ideological element of the “withering-away of the state”. Owen’s utopian socialism proposed the important idea that the industrial revolution provided the objective conditions for the communist society. Some of the utopian socialists also put forth the important argument that science and technology were the driving force for promoting productive development and social progress, and that advanced science and technology must be applied in modern large-scale production.

The fundamental shortcomings of utopian socialism are as follows:

First, the idealist conception of history as its guiding ideology. During the heyday of the Renaissance in Western Europe in the 16th century, the humanist current became an important ideological source of utopian socialism. The theory of human nature and rationalism preached by the humanists were accepted and developed by the utopian socialists. They regarded thoughts and opinions as the manifestation of eternal rationality inherent in human nature and regarded the future they sought to realize as a kingdom of reason. They addressed social problems with idealistic, metaphysical speculations and devised a vision of a society rich in ideals. Of course, the reason emphasized by the utopian socialists had a fundamentally different class content from the rationalism preached by the humanists. The rationalism of bourgeois humanism was based on safeguarding the private property in the means of production of the bourgeoisie, while the utopian socialists, with the help of rational weapons, demonstrated the rationality of abolishing private property and establishing an ideal society based on public property, and expressed the aspirations and demands of the proletariat and the working people. Thus, utopian socialism was a doctrine reflecting the interests of the forerunners of the modern proletariat, and in its theoretical form it manifested itself as a socialist doctrine dominated by the idealist conception of history in the form of reason. Such an idealist conception of history found its concrete expression in three major representatives: “rationalistic conception of history”, “heroistic conception of history” and “genius conception of history”. This has made them incapable of recognizing either the general laws of the development of human society, much less the essence of capitalist wage slavery, and of understanding the historical law of the inevitable downfall of capitalism and the inevitable victory of socialism. This has been its fatal shortcoming and the main cause of its other shortcomings. It is a profound illustration of the fact that only revolutionary theory can lead to revolutionary action and that theory is the precursor of action.

Second, utopian socialists failed to understand that class struggle is the immediate driving force and lever of the development of class society, could not find a correct path to change and transform the capitalist society. All the three prominent utopian socialists opposed class struggle and workers’ revolution and upheld the reconciliation and cooperation of classes. Saint-Simon counted on those in power in the ruling class to adopt his program for top-down reform, and wrote to Napoleon several times to that end. Fourier hoped that the capitalists would invest in his Phalanstéres, advertised widely for it, even waiting at home at 12 noon every day for the capitalists who came to invest, and insisted on doing so for many years. Alongside his “experiments” and “examples”, Owen tirelessly engaged in propaganda and appeals. From 1825 to 1837 alone, he made more than 200 propaganda trips and thousands of speeches, issued about 500 appeals, and wrote 2,000 articles for the press. Owen also appealed to Queen Victoria of England, Czar Nicholas I of Russia, the President of the United States, the Provisional Government of France, the British Parliament and the monarchs of the Holy Alliance fantasizing about their assistance in establishing communism. It was all doomed to be a pipe dream.

Third, utopian socialists failed to understand the historical position and mission of the proletariat, thus they could not find the social force to overthrow capitalism and realize socialism. They merely regarded the proletariat as a suffering, pitiable class worthy of sympathy, rather than a social force for the realization of self-emancipation. They simply did not understand that this class is the very gravedigger of the capitalist system.

In the historical period of the activity of the utopian socialists, the capitalist mode of production was not yet developed, its inner contradictions were not yet fully unfolded, and the methods of solving the various contradictions were still in their infancy. Immature theory corresponded to the immature conditions of capitalist production, to the immature class conditions. The solutions to social problems were still hidden in undeveloped economic relations and so could only emerge from the mind. Therefore, only after a thorough reformation by the founders of Marxism could idealistic socialism truly and practically become an ideological source for scientific socialism.