Communism Early Forms
Communism Early Forms of Communism
Communist ideas can be traced back to ancient times. In his 4th-century bc work The Republic, Greek philosopher Plato maintained that minimizing social inequality would promote civil peace and good government. In Plato’s ideal republic, an elite class of intellectuals, known as guardians or philosopher-kings, would govern the state and moderate the greed of the producing classes, such as craftsmen and farmers. To cement their allegiance to the state instead of their own desires, the guardians would own no private property and would live communally, residing in barracks together and raising their children as a group instead of in small families.
In the medieval Christian church, the members of some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and goods. Such groups believed that concern with private property takes away from service to God and neighbor. In the 16th century English writer Thomas More, in his treatise Utopia (1516), portrayed a society based on common ownership of property, whose rulers administered it through the application of pure reason. More evidently intended the work as a satire of perfectionist projects for human betterment, but the book was a stinging critique of the misgoverned European states of his time. In 17th-century England a Puritan religious group known as the Diggers advocated the abolition of private ownership of land.
Criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Immanuel Kant in Germany and Jean Jacques Rousseau in France. Philosophers of the Enlightenment maintained that it is the natural condition of human beings to share equally in political authority and the rewards of labor. The French Revolution (1789-1799), which overthrew the monarchy, developed from this philosophical basis. The upheaval of the Revolution brought forth a flurry of communistic ideas. François Noël Babeuf, a revolutionary firebrand, espoused the goals of common ownership of land and total economic and political equality among citizens.
Babeuf was executed in 1797 for conspiring against the government of France, but his philosophy, known as Babouvism, had a considerable influence on other communistic reformers in early 19th-century France and Italy. French socialist Louis Blanc advocated “social workshops,” or associations of workers funded by the state and controlled by the workers. These, he said, would promote the development of balanced human personalities, instead of the greedy competitiveness encouraged by capitalism. Blanc is perhaps best known for originating the social principle, later adopted by Karl Marx, of how labor and income should be distributed: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Another French revolutionary of the 19th century, Louis Auguste Blanqui, made an important contribution to communist thought: the idea that a working-class revolution could not succeed without a small group of disciplined conspirators to lead the way. Both Blanc and Blanqui were influential in the Revolution of 1848, which overthrew the reestablished French monarchy. Communistic reformers participated in a number of unsuccessful revolutions against other monarchies (see Revolutions of 1848).
A number of communist or socialist theorists of the early 19th century rejected political revolution in favor of longer-term social transformation. Charles Fourier, a French philosopher, condemned the disorder, waste, and alienation he believed were endemic to modern capitalism. He proposed the reorganization of society into phalansteries (also called phalanxes), self-governing communistic communities of about 1,600 people each. Another French theorist, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, blended socialist and Christian thought. He believed that the most trained and competent members of the industrial community-such as scientists, engineers, and industrialists-should assume the leadership of society. He asserted that once this new elite realized that their own good was dependent on the good of the community, they would work to improve the lot of the working classes. A revival of Christian morality would guide the new society.
In Britain, Robert Owen, a philanthropic Welsh manufacturer, strove against the social problems brought about by the Industrial Revolution and sought to improve the welfare of workers. As manager of a cotton mill, he enhanced the environment of his workers by improving their housing, modernizing mill equipment for greater safety and sanitation, and establishing low-priced stores for the workers and schools for their children. Owen believed that workers, rather than governments, should create the institutions of a future communistic society. Motivated by mutual interest rather than profit, workers would band together in cooperative societies for the purchase and sale of commodities (see Cooperatives). In 1825 Owen took over a colony in Indiana, naming it New Harmony, and transformed it into a community modeled on his own socialist views; however, the community failed after three years. Similarly idealistic communities were initiated by Fourier or his followers (at several locations in France and the United States), by French socialist Étienne Cabet (at Nauvoo, Illinois), and by adherents of Saint-Simon (at the Ménilmontant estate near Paris). (1)
Leave a Reply