PSIR Short Notes Dr.

Piyush Chaubey

UTOPIAN SOCIALISM

What is Socialism?
Socialism is a social system which comes into being as a result of the socialist-proletarian
revolution. It is a form of society which resulted from the overthrow of the capitalist system. No
society can be socialist before having gone through the stage of capitalism. It is capitalism which
creates the conditions for the growth of socialist movements and ideology, and eventually for the
building of a socialist society. Socialist society destroys private ownership of means of production

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and in its place creates public ownership of means of production. This means that all resources out
of which wealth can be created no longer remain the property of one person or group of persons.
They become the property of the whole people. The workers who work them are the owners of these

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resources, and they derive from them the wealth created by their own labour, because they now
themselves own these resources.

What is Utopian Socialism?

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● The term Utopian socialism denotes a variety of morally based theories and practical
movements, aimed at abolishing suppression, exploitation and alienation according to visions
of a perfect social order.
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● Characteristic of Utopian socialism is its aim of overcoming the social contradiction between
the rich and the poor through violent or peaceful means.
● It is not sufficient to achieve liberty and equality in the political field, it must be achieved
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throughout society as a whole.

● The goal is a society without classes and without heteronomy.
● The history of Utopian socialism is connected with the rise of capitalism, its heyday coinciding
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with the era of the economical and political revolutions from the end of the 18th to the middle
of the 19th century.
● Although the impoverishment of the working classes presented a new dimension of social
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conflict, with strikes and the first trade-unions and cooperatives, there was as yet little
understanding of the notion, that the working classes themselves had the power to achieve a
just social order.
● Utopian socialism is distinguished by its treatment of the working class not as a prime mover
but as the object of an emancipation to be brought about by an enlightened philanthropic elite.
● The Utopian Socialists like Robert Owen in England, and Charles Fourier and Henri de Saint
Simon in France regarded poverty as the principal source of ills of society and private property
as the chief cause of poverty.

Major Exponents of Utopian Socialism:

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 PSIR Short Notes Dr. Piyush Chaubey
● Robert Owen: Owen shared with Saint Simon the belief that industrialization offered a choice
to the governments: either to neglect the poor or create a society through the power of
education and wider purchasing power for all to secure their wellbeing and happiness.
● Charles Fourier: He defined socialism as maximising individual freedom and minimising public
regulations with the help of a proper understanding of the desires and capacities of the human
being.
● Saint-Simon: According to him there must be redesigning of social institutions with the aim of
moral, intellectual, and physical improvement of the poorest who also happen to be the most
numerous classes in society. He accepted the core idea of the Enlightenment that reason and
knowledge could end human miseries and transform society.

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Critical Evaluation of Utopian Socialists:
● Marx was indebted to Saint Simon for his theory of the separation of civil society from the
state and later on of government from administration (Ionescu).
● He praised Owen for his emphasis on virtues of cooperation based on social organisation of

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labour within the factory system.
● Fourier was complimented for his emphasis on the diverse needs of the community and for
stressing the importance of reciprocity within the community.
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● However, at the same time Marx and Engels were critical of them too for being anti-scientific
and anti- revolutionary. Marx felt that their detailed blueprints were doomed to fail and become
fantasies. He shared with them their ideal but differed in the method. Furthermore, the
greatest failure of the early socialists according to Marx was their inability to recognize the
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revolutionary potential of the working class. Marx was both critical and appreciative of these
writings on socialism. He critically referred to them as purely “Utopian” in character.
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PYQ: Discuss the key features of pre-Marxist socialist theory. 2015/200 /15
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