Summary
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.
