A History of Socialism, Part I

With all the Tea Party talk about socialism, I’ve decided to discuss what socialism really is.  I plan to write a three-part series, first examining utopian socialism, followed by “scientific” socialism, usually called Marxism or Communism.  Part III will look at 

Eduard Bernstein’s “revisionist” socialism, which is the kind of socialism practiced in France or Germany today.  Feel free to stop me at any time with questions--just raise your hand.

Utopia was written in 1516 by Thomas More to describe an ideal society.  The word has come to mean any ideal society.  The word “dystopia” is its opposite, usually an unfree and vicious society.  I haven’t seen the “Hunger Games,” but I believe that would be an example of a dystopia.  My purpose here is not to discuss dystopias, but to take a look at utopian socialism.

New Lanark in England was one of the first attempts to form a working utopian community.  Set up by Robert Owen, an early industrialist, it tried to mitigate the worst effects of wage labor.  It wasn’t a total failure, since it served as inspiration for many other attempts, such as the Amana colonies in Iowa.

Pennsylvania was a hotbed of utopian experiments, including the Ephrata Cloister and the Harmony Society.  Some utopian communities involved lots of sex, like Oneida, where older women initiated younger men into sexual activity.  Some utopian communities didn’t have any sex, like the Shakers, who depended on converts to keep the group functioning, which it did for almost 200 years.

Certain historic periods, for some reason, seem to be more favorable to utopian socialism.  The 1840s were one such period, the 1930s were another, and the 1970s saw all kinds of communal societies form and dissolve.

Three prerequisites are needed for long-term success.  Deeply shared values, often religious, is one.  Another is a simple, usually agrarian, economy.  Finally, you need a fairly small population.  Once you get into electric grids and centralized sewage, utopian socialism no longer works.  

Karl Marx himself studied utopian societies.  In his view, however, industrialization was key to a socialist economy.  But that will be discussed in Part II.