Introduction
During the 1800s, worker disenchantment grew as living conditions deteriorated. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, the factory owners accumulated great wealth while the working classes retained none.
While industrialists did not want any change in the status quo, workers and intellectuals alike both wanted a complete restructuring of society.
Although Britain had become a constitutional monarchy a century earlier, the vast majority of the population could not vote. As industrial strength grew along with a middle class, electoral reform was a necessity to balance the new society's power structure.
Before 1832, only 6% of the male population could vote - represented by aristocrats who owned large plots of land in the countryside and other properties.
By 1832, the middle class factory owners wanted political power to match their new-found economic punch - this resulted in the Reform Bill of 1832 which enable 20% of the male population to vote.
The middle-class became more or less satisfied, but workers were still not represented by the British electoral system.
Socialism is born!!: The Utopian Socialists
The first self-proclaimed socialists, St-Simon, Owen, and Fourier believed in a gentle socialism created by persuading factory owners to give up profits in exchange for more human conditions for workers.
St-Simon (1760-1825)
French-born aristocrat, renounced his title and supported the French Revolution. As one of the first socialists, he supported public control of means of production.
Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
French-born member of the bourgeoisie. Fourier wished to establish "Phalanxes," self-sufficient communities where people would live according to their natural inclinations. He rejected, however, industrialization and instead imagined a community based on agriculture and a return to the "cottage-industry" of pre-industrial times.
Robert Owen (1771-1858)
English-born entrepreneur turned socialist. He became immensely successful in the textile industry, amassing a large fortune . Called the "Father of British Socialism," Owen first established a community in New Lanark, Scotland, where he modernized the system of production and provided excellent working conditions. He established funded-schools, non-profit stores, and other social services, while the factories in the town managed to increase their profits.
Spurred on by this success, Owen's next project was to create a self-sustaining town; thus was born New Harmony. The venture bankrupted Owen, and the town collapsed; its inhabitants were not necessarily as embracing of Owen's communism as he was.
Aerialview of New Lanark today
Karl Marx (a scientific socialist)
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German-born academic and political philosopher. In 1843 Marx went to Paris (after a newspaper he published was banned) where he befriended Friedrich Engels. Marx embraced socialism, and the two published the Communist Manifesto in 1848, which became the definitive text for socialism and communism. In 1867, Marx produced Das Kapital, which linked economics to history.
Marx outlined his belief that all aspects of an individual's life are determined by that individual's relationship to the means of production.
Classes were established by the various degrees of connection to the means of production. In this way, governing classes always owned the means of production while the least powerful working class (or proletariat, in Marx's words) did not.
Marx believed that the only changes in this power structure would occur through revolution. This theory is known as the Marxist Dialectic.
According to the Marxist Dialectic at the beginning exists the group in control, or the thesis - the existing society, with its power vested in a certain class (in Marx terms the owners of the means of production).
Against the thesis is the antithesis - the group that wants social change and does not have power.
When the tension has grown sufficient, a revolution occurs. In Marx's theory, revolution was the only method to provoke real social change.
The result of the revolution is the synthesis - a combination between the thesis and the antithesis. This, in turn, becomes the new thesis, and remains so until a new antithesis sparks another revolution.
Eventually, the result of this was to be socialism - a utopian society based on equality between individuals with all having equal access to the means of production.
Luddism
In the first few months of 1811, manufacturers in the city of Nottingham began to receive threatening letters from the mysterious "General Ned Ludd and the Army of Redressers." Workers of the area, angry at employers who were reducing wages and even replacing experienced employees with unskilled (and therefore less expensive) laborers, began to revolt, breaking into factories and destroying hundreds of water frames in the space of a few weeks.
The concept became known as Luddism, and over the next year the movement spread throughout the industrial centres of England. Damages inflicted were generally restricted to the destruction of factories and mills, but occasionally extended to violence against people, including the killing of William Horsfall, the owner of a large mill in the area of Yorkshire (Luddites - the machine breakers).
The government's reaction to Luddism was quick and crushing. A reward of £50 was offered to anyone who could provide information about the Luddites, and in February of 1812 a law was passed making the destruction of machines a capital offence. Twelve-thousand troops were sent to protect factories in Nottingham and other regions where Luddites were active. At least 23 people were executed for attacks on mills in the summer of 1812, and many others were deported to Australia. Although some violence continued, the Luddite movement in England had disintegrated by 1817.
Chartism
The insubordination of the English workingmen reached its peak in the mid- nineteenth century with Chartism, an ideology that called for political reform in the country. Its name was based on the People's Charter, a document written in 1838 by William Lovett and other radicals of the London Working Men's Association.
The Charter called for several changes to the Parliamentary system:
-Universal Male Suffrage
-Annual Parliaments (against corruption)
-Vote by ballot
-Abolition of the property qualification for MPs
-Payment of MPs
-Equal electoral districts.
Chartist demonstration at Kennington, in 1848
Chartism rapidly gained support among the poorer classes and in Northen England, where economic depression was common. However, the movement soon lost its momentum when its leaders became divided over how its demands were to be enforced. A petition to Parliament was rejected in July of 1839, and most of the movement's leaders were arrested by the end of the year after the November clash between Chartists and the military at Newport, Wales.
Finally people lost interest, appeased by better economic conditions, and a revival of trade unionism, and the movement faded away. Decades later, in 1884, the majority of males were finally granted the right to vote.
Anarchism
The modern anarchistic philosophy was developed by William Godwin in his book Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in 1793. Anarchism has some basic premises:
(1) Man is essentially a benign creature. He was born good, or with the potentiality for goodness, but has been corrupted by the habits and institutions of authority. Religion, education, politics, and economic life have all served to pervert this natural goodness.
(2) Man is a social animal, and men reach their fulfillment when voluntarily and spontaneously cooperating with one another. Society is natural, the state is not; and the quest for the communal life is instinctive to all men.
(3) Prevailing institutions of society - particularly private property and the state - are artificial agencies through which men exploit and corrupt each other. Authority in any form, even democratic government or socialist economy, atrophies the individual.
(4) Social change must be spontaneous, direct and mass-based. Political parties, trade unions are themselves elements of authority. While pursuing reform or even revolution, they are so constituted as ultimately to replace one evil with another of a similar sort. Significant change, then, must express the natural sentiments of a mass of autonomous individuals acting without outside direction.
(5) Industrial civilization, no matter what the form of ownership of the means of production, perverts the human spirit. Machines master men, narrowing their personalities and blocking creativity.
Main types of Anarchism:
a) Individualistic Anarchism:
Advocated by Pierre Joseph Proudhon, which argues that private property should exist but should also be totally free from any state interference or restrictions.
b) Communistic Anarchism:
Rejects the principle of private property and seeks instead the common ownership of all means of production. The forced collectivization which occurs under Marxism is also rejected in favor of voluntary cooperation. Socialistic or Communistic Anarchists believe that the government serves not the people, but instead the interests of capitalist corporations. Thus, both corporations and governments are regarded as unacceptable forms of coercive authority.
c) Terroristic Anarchism:
Following the lead of Max Stirner, seeks the assassination of political leaders and other violent acts designed to undermine structures of power and authority.
Questions:
-Which two main problems did the working class have by 1832?
-Why did workers and intellectuals want "a complete restructuring of society"?
-Which aim did the first socialists share?
-Define "means of production" and then give examples of means of production you could find in a 19th century mill.
-What do you understand in this sentence?: "He supported public control of means of production".
-Which impact did the first socialists have?
-Why do you think that first socialists are also known as "Utopian"? Look up this word and then take into consideration your answer for the previous question.
-Which main ideas are the basics of Marx's theory?
-According to Marx, what's the thesis at his time? And the antithesis? And the synthesis?
-Which word, which was created by Marx, have you seen in class to describe workers?
-Did luddites have any success in their protests?
-Which main claim did chartists have?
-Did the chartists have any success in their demands?
-Would an anarchist fight politically to obtain more rights for the workers as the chartists did? Why?
-What would an anarchist think of competition among individuals?
-Is it democracy positive in an anarchist's opinion? Why?
-Did the Industrial Revolution mean progress for an anarchist? Why?
-Did all anarchists share the same ideas about private property?
