The Life of Robert Owen

[00 iLO 'cn en ICO U- bohn's libraries were inaugur- ated IN 1847 BY HENRY GEORGE BOHN, AND IN 1864 WERE TAKEN OVER BY THEIR PRESENT PUBLISHERS. ROBERT OWEN WAS BORN AT NEW- TOWN, MONTGOMERY, ON MAY 1 4, 177 1, AND DIED AT NEWTOWN ON NOV. ig, 1858. THIS VOLUME IS REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1857-1858, WHICH HAS BEEN OUT OF PRINT FOR MANY YEARS. > ii > MX 5\« \ INTRODUCTION < Robert Owen (1771-1858) is a' unique figure in the general history of socialism. Ûnlike Plato; and Saint- Simon, (he was of \humble parentage, and unlike Thomas More, Karl Marx,) and Sidney Webb,(ihis scho'^l education was of the most elementary kind) and he started out on his career with the three R's. Moreover, unUke all communist, socialist, and anarchist leaders, he was a most successful business man, manufacturer, and social reformer Auto- ; as such he knew no failure. His biography will endure as a monument of strength of character, of charm of personality, of pure and high- minded resolve in the service of humanity. In the Middle Ages, he might have been a socialist Loyola or an Arnold of Brescia. When he arrived at the con- viction that by the application of his views, mankind could be made wise, wealthy, and happy, he did not hesitate for a moment to sacrifice all he possessed. " And my decision was made to overcome all opposition " and to succeed or to die in the attempt (see infra, p. 181). He strove to make social progress the result of the conscious and purposeful efforts of man, instead of Igiying it to the fortuitous play of blind forces. was the first British '/jHe vvriter^ho grasped the mean- ing of the Industrial Revolutiolf?;!^While British States- men and statisticians were astonished and bewildered at vi INTRODUCTION cthe industrial phenomena that overtook them during and after the Napoleonic Wars, Owen, with his strong and simple intellect, saw the source and volume of the ^ new wealth, and he_^tempted__to_jegulate the con- stream of tn control the ;^ jinnally^ risirvg producima^— inanimate machinerj^s^well as the^êed of the employers, and to_educaj£^theJ[aSounng population, with of to to a peaceful diustment ^he r^^w â^view jâ sor.ietji;^"' ' ' conditionsT —-^^^ ^^^SîTreform activities he could not but arrive at the conclusion that the social problem was essentially a moral one. ( He witnessed, on the one hand, the low mental condition of the factory operatives, and, on the other, the ruthless lust of gain of the employers and fv their hostility towards all attempts to lift Labour to a level of The character of then, higher human lifey( man, stood in the way of reform. But how was character formed ? Evidently, either by man himself or by present and past circumstances. Owen adopted the JL-view, since _it was^n conformity with the ideas ^. I he had_^ûiied_from^practical experience as well as " /iEQEâtionalist literatura.an(iît was also in accordanceaccorda witKJhe^trildng^^haiiês^w he h^d seen arising \',Jn_the process of the Industrial Revolution, jvhen the JQ^^c^torstanceTlfactory system) produced new social ' strata and~viewsj( The~ mission of the reformer, there- ~Iore, coulcTnot consist of preaching, admonishing, and punishing the sinners, but of changing the social circumstances—of removing the evil conditions that favoured ignorance, selfishness, crime,'^misery, hypocrisy, super- - stition, enmity, and war, and^f_creating good conditions thai favoured knowledge, health, courage, ^ brotherly and social : feelings, service) ^ (.The creation of good circumstances depended on 1«wo conditions •) abundance of wealth and (education of INTRODUCTION ' the masses/; Th4JsfiMw« conditions ^he, saw being ful filled in the years from 1812 onwards, 1 With might and main he worked for popular education, factory legislation, co-operative labour, and village communities for the unempj[oyed. His refomiing zeal and rationalist views drew, upon him the enmity of Capital andifhe disfavour of the Church, and finally drove hiinjnto the ^rms of communism (l8 i7)and Labour propaganda. (Meanwhile, his New Lanark establishment, with its model social reform and educational achievements, acquired worldfwide fame—and made converts to the Views. In 1821 Owen was at the zenith of "êw "yl his successful manufacturing and reforming career, but already immersed in his communist plans which he was sketching out for the future. He_w[thdrew fro in_ business, and sank his money in communist experiments in America (1824-28). In these he failed. His failure was due to the incompleteness ofhis theory of character formation. For, contrary to» rationalist views, new social surroundings and circumstances do not operate directly on our intellect and volition, nor do they accomplish their work within the period of a few years. Their noiseless transforming operations on our nervous system and mentality are a slow biological process which may take generations before the old im- pulses, strivings, and passions are sufficiently weakened as to allow the new emotions to take effect. These psychological processes are the cause of those painful disappointments to which revolutionary enthusiasts are exposed whenever they try to force the sudden emergence of socialism from capitalist society. At the return of Owen from America (1828) the British working classes were "eslablishing cu-upeiaLive' societies, and making ready to enter the political and economic stniggle for emancipation. Although differ- viii INTRODUCTION ing in some respects from their methods and ends, he assisted them as best he could. He and they knew that the path of Labour's progress was strewn with and ideals— lost strikes, miscarried plans, shatte^d and, for all that, they were marching on.Ôwen will of live in their annals as the pioneer poputarfeducation, i f movement, and as one actory legislation, jco-operative of the gieate^t, most unselfish, ahd least demagogical teachers and l eaders they ever hi'^X NOTE References are made throughout this book to varioiis documents which the author intended to collect in a supplementary volume. This volume, owing to the author's death, was never issued. It has, however, seemed advisable ôt to alter these references in the text. PREFACE The greatest discovery that man has made for the universal happiness of his race through all future time " is the knowledge of the facts for practice,— That the " made receives all its qualities from its maker, and " that the created receives all its qualities and powers " from its Creator." It is the greatest discovery, because man to this day, in opposition to the myriads of facts existing around him through all past generations to the present, has been taught to think that the made and created make their own qualities and powers. Such, in fact, has been the teaching of the superstitions, governments, laws, and institutions of all sucb- men, through past generations ; is their at this this teaching day ; and teaching deranges the rational faculties of all so taught, and perverts their judgment to so great an extent as in most cases to make it worse than useless on all subjects of the highest importance to the individual and to our race. It is the greatest discovery, —because it thus discloses the origin of evil among men, and the means by which to remove the evil for ever. It is the greatest discovery,—because it discloses the cause why men have never yet been made to become and and so a mass good, wise, united, happy ; why large of the population of the world has always been kept in X PREFACE a state of gross ignorance and degradation, and has been afflicted with so much mental misery and physical suffering. It is the greatest discovery,—because it opens the brond, plain, and easy path, for the authorities of the world to adopt decisive practical measures to make all to become good, wise, united, healthy, abounding in wealth, and always physically and mentally happy. It is the greatest discovery,—because the knowledge of our nature which it discloses will induce all to en- deavour to promote the happiness of all, by the gieat unceasing pleasure which each will derive from the practice. It is the greatest discovery,—because it will terminate all anger, ill-will, contests, and wars, among men and nations, and will make the art of war to be no longer taught, and to cease for ever. It is the greatest discovery, —because it discloses the means by which the human race, through futurity, may with ease and pleasure be made <o become full-formed superior men and women, with all their physical and mental faculties, powers, and propensities, cultivated to be each exercised to the point of temperance. It is the greatest discovery,—because it discloses the incalculable importance of superior surroundings in which to place humanity—surroundings all superior, to the exclusion of those which are inferior. It is the greatest discovery,—because it opens a new book of life to man, and will enable him to perceive more what manner of he is that he is formed clearly being ; by a double creation—the one, previous to birth, a mysterious and divine organization of wonderful powers, yet more wondrously combined, physically and mentally ; the other a secondary or new creation, superadded, to bring the first to its earthly maturity, and chiefl}- through y PREFACE xi the agency of matured humanity, to which is given the greatest interest that this secondary creation should be in accordance with the first, and without which, man ^vill be misformed, and will not attain the happiness for which he is evidently intended by the perfection of his first or divine creation.

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