ROBERT OWEN: BIOGRAPHY, IDEAS, CONTRIBUTIONS, WORKS - ARTE - 2025

Robert Owen (1771-1858) was an entrepreneur and social activist who sought to bring new utopian ideals to businesses and local communities. His New Lanark textile mill in Scotland was an influential experiment in improving conditions for factory workers. With its social and industrial welfare programs, its New Lanark mills became a pilgrimage site for statesmen and social reformers.

Owen was one of the most influential defenders of utopian socialism, in the early 19th century. He was one of the first socialist and cooperative thinkers. He is often called the "father of British socialism."

Robert Owen Source: John Cranch (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

It improved conditions in its own factories, and also lobbied for bills to reform the factory law to be passed in Parliament. Although these reforms were not perfect, Owen's efforts helped make factory work more bearable.

Socialist ideals

Owen believed that private property, wealth, class, competition, and ignorance created social ills.

However, he believed that these social ills could be eradicated, not through religion or individual responsibility, as many people of the time thought, but through socialist ideals.

Owen's philosophy for social reform became known as Owenism, and it stated that, in general, business and society could be transformed for the better by utopian socialist ideals.

As a utopian socialist, he believed that if a community shared everything and made community decisions, it could create a near-perfect welfare state.

Biography

Robert Owen was born in Newtown, Wales, in 1771 and died in 1858. At the age of 10, he was taken out of school to be sent to apprentice at a local newspaper at Stanford.

After three years of apprenticeship, she found work in a large curtain business in Manchester.

There he became interested in the textile manufacturing business, which was thriving in Lancashire. Despite being only 19 years old, he took out a loan of £ 100 to set up a clothing manufacturing business.

This experience of running his own textile business gave Owen the opportunity to work as a manager of a large yarn mill in Manchester.

In 1799, he married Caroline Dale, daughter of David Dale, a successful businessman, owner of the Chorlton textile company in New Lanark, Scotland.

With the help of other Manchester entrepreneurs, Owen arranged to buy the mill complex from his father-in-law for £ 60,000.

Acting in the factory

Owen believed that it was his duty to provide workers with education and also a respectable environment for his entire family. He ordered the construction of a school, prohibited corporal punishment and also restricted the employment of children under the age of 10, sending them to school.

Owen's philanthropy towards his own workers was rare for his business partners, who feared that it would reduce the return on their investment. This conflict was a continual source of tension.

To solve it, Owen borrowed money from a Quaker to buy shares from the other business partners. Subsequently, he sold these shares to investors sympathetic to his goals.

Owen also successfully established new management practices and found ways to encourage his workers to be more productive.

Ideas

The main point in Owen's philosophy was that man's character was shaped by circumstances over which he had no control. For this reason, man was not an appropriate entity to praise or blame.

These convictions led him to the conclusion that the great secret for the correct formation of the character of man was to place him under the right influences from his earliest years.

The non-responsibility of man and the effect of early influences were the hallmark of Owen's entire system of education and social improvement.

Owen believed in the advancement of humanity and, by improving the circumstances of life, hoped that innate human kindness would more easily be displayed.

Education

An example of his philosophy is taken from his 1816 address to New Lanarks:

“Society can be formed in such a way that it can exist without crime, without poverty, with much better health, and with intelligence and happiness a hundredfold increased. No type of obstacle intervenes at this time, except ignorance, to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.

Education was key to Owen's utopian plan, because he believed that the environment in which people grew up determined their character.

If people grew up around crime and poverty, these same social problems would likely persist. However, if education was provided from an early age, a perfect society could be achieved.

Utopian socialism

Owen was one of the pioneers of socialism. He was one of the first to use the term "socialist" in various publications. He also founded the first socialist or cooperative groups.

However, his approach was to rely more on the philanthropy of the capitalist class to establish utopian communities. Their socialism had a different stamp than later socialist movements, which emphasized their confidence in the protest of the working class for better conditions.

Owen raised in the public consciousness the ideal of communities that would work together and thus end inequality, based on collective property.

In the UK, Owen was invited to give testimony on factory working conditions to a committee of Parliament. However, he was disappointed with what was enacted, feeling that the Factory Law of 1819 was inadequate.

Utopian communities

Owen increasingly felt that the solution was the creation of independent utopian communities of between 500 and 3,000 people who would work cooperatively for the common good.

In these utopian communities there would be no private property, only a community based on sharing the common good, with equal wages.

In a writing of his authorship he indicated: "There is only one way by which man can perpetually possess all the happiness that his nature is capable of enjoying, that is, by the union and cooperation of all, for the benefit of each one".

It was in 1825 that he sought to implement his vision of a utopian community in America, called "New Harmony." He invested much of his capital in this experiment, but unfortunately, it was not a lasting success.

His son, who helped run the community, wryly commented that the utopian community attracted a diverse mix of charlatans, tramps, and lazy theorists as well.

Other contributions

Religious point of view

Owen was a religious freethinker. He was critical of organized religion, such as the Church of England. He argued that religion tended to create prejudice in men, thus it was a barrier to peace and harmony.

In his autobiography "Life of Robert Owen", published in 1857, he stated: "Seeing the error of your institution, I was forced to abandon all religious beliefs that had been taught to man."

"However, my religious feelings were immediately replaced by the spirit of universal charity, not by a party, a country or a color, but by the human race, with a real and burning desire to do good."

This religious criticism separated him from other social reformers, making his works less popular. Despite expressing agnostic views towards the end of his life, he became interested in spiritism.

Leadership of the trade union movement

Owen indicated that a reform was not enough and that a transformation of the social order was required.

His proposals for the communities attracted the youngest workers, trained under the factory system.

The growth of unionism and the emergence of a working-class point of view caused Owen's doctrines to be accepted as an expression of workers' aspirations.

In the unions, Owenism encouraged the formation of self-managed shops. The need for a market for the products of such stores led in 1832 to the formation of the National Equitable Labor Exchange, which applied the principle that labor was the source of all wealth.

He formed the Great Consolidated National Trade Union in 1835, which was an early attempt to form a national confederation of trade unions in the United Kingdom.

Published works

- A new vision of society: O, Essays on the formation of human character and the application of the principle to practice (1813).

- It was renamed for the second edition, in 1816: A New Vision of Society: O, Essays on the Formation of Human Character in Preparation for the Development of a Plan to Gradually Improve the Condition of Humanity.

- Observations on the effect of the manufacturing system (1815).

- Report to the Committee of the Association for the Relief of Manufacturing and the Poor Workers (1817).

- Two memorials on behalf of the working classes (1818).

- A speech to the leading manufacturers of Great Britain: On the evils present in the manufacturing system (1819).

- Report to the County of Lanark on a plan to alleviate public distress (1821).

- An explanation of the cause of the anguish that permeates the civilized parts of the world (1823).

- A speech to all classes in the State (1832).

- The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race (1849).

Collected works

- A new vision of society and other writings, G. Claeys, ed. (London and New York, 1991).

- Selected works of Robert Owen, G. Claeys, ed., 4 vols. (London, 1993).

Archive Collections

- Robert Owen Collection, National Cooperative Archives, UK.

- New Harmony, Indiana, Collection, 1814-1884, 1920, 1964, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States.

- New Harmony Series III Collection, Workers Institute, New Harmony, Indiana, United States.

References

1. Biography Online (2019). Robert Owen Biography. Taken from: biographyonline.net.
2. Douglas F. Dowd (2019). Robert Owen. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Taken from: britannica.com.
3. The Famous People (2019). Robert Owen Biography. Taken from: thefamouspeople.com.
4. Erica Cummings (2019). Robert Owen: Biography & Beliefs. Study. Taken from: study.com.
5. Age of the Sage (2019). Robert Owen - biography. Taken from: age-of-the-sage.org.
6. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2019). Robert Owen. Taken from: en.wikipedia.org.