The early life of Robert Owen resembles a Horatio Alger story. Born into a poor Welsh family, Owen's schooling ended at age nine when he was apprenticed to a linen merchant. Nine years later, he moved to Manchester, borrowed $100, and began manufacturing machinery for the textile industry. Bold for a small capitalist, he became factory manager of a large spinning mill, even though he knew nothing about the trade. By age twenty, Owen advanced to part owner, becoming the boy wonder of the textile industry. A few years later, with borrowed funds, he bought a group of textile mills at New Lanark, Scotland, married the former owner's daughter, and made a fortune.
Within five years, Robert Owen revolutionized mill operation by eliminating the typical evils of the British factory system and transforming New Lanark into a model workers' community, which was visited by writers, reformers, and skeptics—even the Tsar of Russia. By raising wages, reducing hours of work, improving factory sanitation, rebuilding workers' homes, and providing schools for employees' children, he reversed the standard concept of labor relations. Having improved conditions through benevolence, Owen gained productivity and efficiency. With New Lanark as a laboratory to test his hypothesis, he proved that a capitalist's concern for workers is profitable.
What was his philosophy? Owen believed that humanity is no better than its environment. Since people are shaped by environment, improvement of that environment can produce a paradise on earth. Owen shocked business and government leaders by stating that the development of machine production, if organized entirely for profit, would inevitably lead to poverty and degradation for workers. His solution was cooperation. Envisioning Villages of Cooperation—planned communities where 800-1200 persons worked together and lived in private apartments—Owen insisted that kitchens, reading rooms, and sitting rooms be used in common. Young children would be boarded; older children would tend the gardens. The community would carry on a variety of occupations insuring self-sufficiency. At a distance from the commune would be the factory unit.
Naturally, with the concept of laissez faire in full vogue, few persons gave serious consideration to Owen's scheme. In spite of David Ricardo's willingness to test the plan, the idea lacked funds and support. Undaunted, Owen sold the New Lanark mill to finance New Harmony, a cooperative based in Posey County, Indiana, on July 4, 1826. Because he chose poor associates, Owen's scheme lacked sufficient practical planning. One associate defrauded him and set up a whiskey distillery, rival communities sprang up, and the end result was complete failure. Owen lost 80 percent of his fortune. Finally, he sold the land and tried in vain to interest President Jackson and Santa Anna of Mexico in another venture.
Returning to England, Owen continued to stick to his views—notably that money and private property are trustworthy. His philosophy made a deep impression on workers; evolving from his teachings, a series of producers' and consumers' cooperatives developed throughout England, some based on a moneyless system. What survived was the consumer cooperative movement, begun by twenty-eight backers who called themselves Rochdale Pioneers.
Owen, who launched a moral crusade for the working class, inspired the Pioneers but was not directly involved with them. Instead, joining with the leaders of the movement, he formed a Grand National Moral Union in 1833 with a membership of 500,000 workers. This forerunner of modern industrial trade unions called for broad social change, particularly better wages and working conditions, the setting up of cooperatives, and the abolition of money.
For two years, Owen traveled the countryside advocating unionism, but he met failure because he encountered too many obstacles. Not only did government disrupt the movement with anti-union legislation, but local unions failed to control their members, and strikes weakened the movement. Even worse, Owen and his lieutenants quarreled and ended their association.
At the age of sixty-four, Robert Owen, the successful capitalist who disavowed capitalism, realized that his utopian projects had ended in failure. But he did not give up. Instead, he publicized his ideas in tracts and wrote his Autobiography. At the age of eighty-seven, he died, still optimistic. The most romantic of the Utopians, he influenced capitalism by proving that industry could sponsor humanitarian projects and still make profits.
Commentary
Robert Owen, known as the founder of British socialism, first used the words socialist and communist. However, he created a concept of socialism that is quite different from Karl Marx's concept of class warfare. Owen's philosophy passed down to the Fabian Society of Great Britain, whose leaders included George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and H. G. Wells, and finally down to Britain's Labour Party, a moderate socialist party. The legacy of Robert Owen includes British socialism, the passage of legislation to correct deplorable working conditions, modern trade unions, and consumer cooperatives.
