The Great Dream
Owen's odd combination of traditional values and modern sensibilities shaped the experiments he financed. His success with the New Lanark mills as models of socially responsible capitalism led him to believe that the poor and unemployed could be put to work on cooperative enterprises that would eventually support themselves.
His exhortations recalled the vision of the seventeenth century Levellers and Diggers. Other precedents were offered by religious orders whose members farmed in common and shared their bread. In the United States, the combination of religious freedom and inexpensive land encouraged the formation of so-called ‘‘backwoods utopias”. 16Many small enterprises in both Britain and the United States embraced Owenite principles for at least brief periods of time. The most famous experiment, however, began to unfold in the United States in 1825, where Owen purchased a farm village in Harmony, Indiana, that had been established by German Protestants known as Rappites. He renamed it New Harmony and invited all who sympathized with his ideas of cooperation to join him. ‘‘I am come to this country,” he announced, ‘‘to introduce an entire new state of society; to change it from an ignorant, selfish system to an enlightened social system which shall gradually unite all interests into one, and remove all causes for contest between individuals.”17
Most communitarian enterprises established by religious groups had clear lines of authority, as well as strict rules of conduct that filtered out those undedicated to a larger cause. New Harmony lacked such features. Its vague rules of governance led to contention, and ultimately to litigation. Factionalism was rife—small interest groups formed and jostled for position. The open invitation to participants (without probation of any length) attracted opportunists. Yet the community held fast to the principles that everyone should be remunerated equally, regardless of effort or productivity.
Three years later it fell apart, despite much enthusiasm for the quality of its schools.18Many attributed the failure to excessive idealism. John Humphrey Noyes, himself the founder of the cooperative Oneida Community, published a classic account of American socialisms in which he seemed to echo the views of English political economy: ‘‘Mere benevolence, mere sentiments of universal philanthropy, are far too weak to bind the self-seeking affections of men.''19 He went on to describe ‘‘self-love’’ as though it were a demon, a ‘‘spirit which would not be exorcised.’’20 Owen himself was less disappointed. Not surprisingly, given his views on the malleability of human character, he concluded that the attempt to persuade strangers to live together as a common family was simply premature.21 Others like William Thompson and Charles Fourier (discussed later) believed that more specific managerial guidelines would solve the problem.
Owen left New Harmony for Mexico, where he requested a large portion of the Texas territory for further experimentation, to no avail. He returned to England in 1829, surprised and delighted to discover a frothing dissidence of factory workers and trades people eager to form local exchanges and currencies based on labor hours, to establish consumer cooperatives, to organize cultural and political events. Owen lent his voice, as well as much of his remaining fortune, to the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union and even more grandly named successor, the Association of all Classes of all Nations.