Friedrich Engles
Linked with Karl Marx as a founder of modern communism, Friedrich Engels owes credit to the utopian socialists. His article focuses on the history and purpose of these idealists. Engels also remarks on three well-known utopians of the time and the influence of each on the communism developed by Marx and himself.Class antagonisms and the anarchy existing in production are deemed the causes of modern socialism. A theory extended on the principles of the great French philosophers of the eighteenth century and rooted in material economic facts. With no recognition of external authority of any kind, the philosophy depends on reason as the sole basis for everything. This kingdom of reason was nothing more than an idealization of the bourgeoisie, a social order dominated by middle class citizens. The bourgeoisie stepped forward not as one special class, but as the whole of suffering humanity. With the independent outbursts of individualized classes amongst the different movements, demand for equality no longer pertained only to political rights, but to all social conditions. A rational government was then to be founded; however, the new order of things turned out to be by no means absolutely rational. With the Reign of Ter
Following Fourier and the advancement of technological society, came a man product of heredity and his time period, Robert Owen. Engels differs from these men and finds their downfall in the concept of an absolute truth. ror a realization and the citizens under Napoleonic repression, hope for eternal peace was lost in the midst of an endless war of conquest. His theory thus builds from a melting pot of socialism and is a collection of proven ideas from all aspects of utopian socialists. By first hand experience through this experimental colony Owen came to form his philosophy upon pure business foundations. Engels credits Saint-Simon for his vision on the war of classes and the absorption of politics by economics. With the four stages and their continuous cycle, he also introduces the concept of ultimate destruction of the human race. The society based upon reason had succumbed and fallen. As Owen advanced in the direction of his communism he faced three great obstacles. Engels though finds Saint-Simon's work as an "embryo", a foundation on which to expand. " Each kind of truth and reason though is subjective to ones conditions and his knowledge with all truths mutually exclusive of the other, so from this has formed a diverse and median socialism. He separates it to four stages: savagery, barbarism, the patriarchate, and civilization. He sees the strength in Saint-Simon for his insight on the French Revolution and its social outcries that were covered by politics and economics. Owen though did have many accomplishments on behalf of the workers to come later and was a step towards a much more radical societal revolution. The Utopian thought governed socialist ideas for the nineteenth century.
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