Abstract

This paper deals with unemployment - one of the most pressing contemporary issues today - and some related problems such as overwork, underemployment and working poor. It suggests that this issue is as old as capitalism and claims that some of the 19th century debates on this issue are more illuminating than mainstream contemporary debates. The paper aims to show that a proposal for an essential solution to unemployment and related issues may be advanced by looking at these 19th century debates and argues that an essential solution requires the questioning of the logic of capital, namely the production for profit rather than the satisfaction of human needs.

Key Words

Labour, wage labour, capital, unemployment, underemployment, working poor, wealth, poverty, production, productivity, globalisation, world market, passions, needs, social change, recognition.

Doğan Göçmen has studied social economy, politics and philosophy. Recently he completed his PhD dissertation on Adam Smith (forthcoming by I. B. Tauris, London/New York) at the University of Edinburgh. He is interested in the theories of democracy, violence, commodification, utopian thought, globalisation and global justice. He has published various papers in different languages on Marx, Marxism, the concept of labour, the theory of international relations, Rosa Luxemburg and Hegelian Dialectics, and on Adam Smith's epistemology. Currently he works on world poverty and commodity theory of knowledge.

The Utopian Socialists and the Critique of Capitalism:
Sense and Senselessness in the Organisation of Labour

Doğan Göçmen

For my father Memo Göçmen

‘… when everyone’s entitled to get as much for himself as he can, all available property, however much there is of it, is bound to fall into the hands of a small minority, which means that everyone else is poor. And wealth will tend to vary in inverse proportion to merit. The rich will be greedy, unscrupulous, and totally useless characters, while the poor will be simple, unassuming people…’

‘Stop the rich from cornering markets and establishing virtual monopolies. Reduce the number of people who are kept doing nothing. Revive agriculture and the wool industry, so that there’s plenty of honest, useful work for the great army of unemployed…’

Thomas More

I.	Introduction

In the last two decades we have read and heard a great deal of noise about the “third stage of the Industrial Revolution”, that is, the development of information and communication technology, computer-based new automata, robots and other mechanical, electrical and electronic means of production. This development is sometimes described in such a way that often we have the impression that we have entered an entirely new epoch in human history and that it would therefore be in vain to refer to past ages to understand and explain our present situation. This might be true of technological developments. But what about social relations? Have they changed, and if yes, how far and in what sense have they changed?

The means of production, as John Desmond Bernal asserts, are usually extensions of human limbs. They improve our productive forces and contribute thereby to the increase of our productivity. In other words, by using improved means of production we could ease manual and brain labour, produce the same goods in much less time and enlarge thereby our scope of freedom; or if you prefer more ordinary terms: by using improved means of production we could extend our leisure time because such means lessen the time that is necessary for production. By the introduction of new means of production we should usually be able to use our extended leisure time to develop our physical and mental capacities; we should be able to have more time for our children, family, and friends and so on. 

In the face of the improvement in productive forces, growing numbers of observers are suggesting that we should be able to reduce work hours to 30 or even 20 hours per week to bring labour requirements in line with the new productive capacity of capital. There are even people who can imagine a framework of society in which only 2 or 3 hours of work per week would be sufficient to meet the material wants of society throughout the world.

However, under the conditions of capitalist mode of production we are faced with entirely opposite experiences. In the USA for example, since 1948 productivity has more than doubled. This should have reduced work hours by 50 per cent. But it has increased work hours by 163 hours or one month a year. 25 per cent of American labourers work 49 and more hours per week. Their leisure time has decreased by more than one third. The same observations can be made in many other developed and developing countries. As a result of this development underemployment, unemployment and overwork is permanently increasing. If you open a newspaper or click on any internet address that relates to work you are immediately confronted with news about firms and companies which are cutting their labour forces by 20, 30 or even 40 or more percent. Expressed in figures this amounts in many cases to 100 and more thousands of people. If you look at statistics about the cutting of labour forces in the last 10, 15 years the figures are shocking. In the last two decades millions of people throughout the world have lost their jobs. In the USA for example annually 2 million people lose their jobs. The new jobs which are being created, particularly in the so-called ‘new economy’, are far from being able to absorb these people.

As if all these horrifying figures about overwork, underemployment and unemployment, as well as descriptions of living conditions among the “working poor” beyond the imaginable, were not sufficient, many associations of capitalists want very passionately to extend work hours and push down wages – of course, in the name of creating new jobs.

In short, contemporarily we are experiencing an odd contradiction. On the one hand, we observe that there is an increase of productivity and accordingly an increase of wealth, and on the other hand, we observe that there are so many people who suffer, as odd as it may sound, from ‘overwork’ as a result of the increase of productivity, as already Charles Fourier used to call it, and on the other hand, there are throughout the world millions and millions of people who suffer from underemployment or unemployment. Those people who work are lacking time and those who are unemployed have time but they are lacking the material conditions to enable them to use their time in a creative manner. There are, on the one hand, millions of people throughout the world who live, literally speaking, from collecting rubbish, and on the other hand, there is a small minority of some thousand families who own and administer the whole wealth throughout the world. Due to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small minority, which usually follows the introduction of new means of production, poverty and miserable living conditions throughout the world worsen permanently. In other words, as already Fourier put it: in civilisation (which is just another term for describing capitalist society) the progress of industry creates ‘the elements of happiness, but not happiness itself’.

This is the issue that we are discussing when we refer to these obvious generally-recognised contradictions experienced throughout the world. It arises above all from the form of the organisation of labour in capitalist society. In this paper I am going to suggest that unlike contemporary debates the 19th century debates on labour and the organisation of production were more fruitful and courageous, and I am going to develop some systematic arguments about alternative ways of organising labour and production by returning to the debates of the 19th century. Now, many people may think that since the 19th century philosophers were writing about these issues so many decades have passed that our contemporary issues are beyond the reach of their vision. It is indeed true that many of the terms and expressions we use were not known at that time. But despite the fact that our vocabulary has changed almost entirely the issues that confront us and which we are discussing now have remained in essence almost the same. What seem to have changed are only their forms. I would like to claim therefore that 19th century philosophers have many things to say about them. I have even the impression that the superficiality of contemporary debates derive above all from the fact that they hardly refer back to 19th century debates. Therefore, in these debates of the 19th century, there is a line of thought which may provide some theoretical perspectives on contemporary debates.

To begin with, in order to excite your interest I would like to show you briefly how relevant the teachings of 19th century philosophers are. I would like to give you just two examples.

Firstly, following the publication of Jeremy Rifkin’s book The End of Work in 1995 we heard a great deal of noise about the ‘end of work’, the ‘future of work’, and the ‘transformation of work’. The issue we are discussing when we refer to the contradiction described above was phrased by Karl Marx much better when he described it in his famous Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy as a contradiction between the forces of production and relations of production. For, unlike Rifkin’s popular phrase of the ‘end of work’, which causes merely fear and anxiety, the term contradiction preferred by Marx to describe the issue on the agenda implies or rather requires some essential solutions. I will be returning to this issue later. 

Secondly, contemporarily we hear a great deal about globalisation and its inescapable natural-law-like dictates. If we consider what this so-called globalisation means then we come very soon to the conclusion that it refers to the conception of a world-market. In this connection I would like to refer to a 19th century thinker whose assertion in that respect could have been made today. In William Morris’ utopian novel, News from Nowhere, in an imaginary dialogue, Hammond asserts that ‘in the last period of civilisation’ (which is just another expression for capitalism) with respect to the production of commodities human beings came into a ‘cercle vicieux’, a vicious circle from which there was hardly any way out. They produced everything under the ‘rigorous rule of the world-market’- not in order to satisfy real needs but satisfy the demands of the world-market. The people were overloaded with work in order to keep going this miserable system. After the people were forced to produce for the world-market labour was seen only from the viewpoint of costs. To this view everything was sacrificed – joy, health, nourishment, shelter, dress, leisure, pleasure, education, in short the whole life of labourers. I mean this could have also been written today where every political measure throughout the world is justified by referring to globalisation. To William Morris’ solution to this cercle vicieux I will be returning later.

II.	The radicalism we need

My references to some of the19th century’s philosophers above are by no means by chance. They may already show how apposite some of their observations and even some of their expressions are. Generally speaking the debate about unemployment, overwork and the working poor is not new. Even the expression of the ‘end of work’ is borrowed from these philosophers, though its meaning has been inverted. We can even trace back the critical assessment of unemployment to Thomas More. Perhaps to the surprise of many, in his Utopia for example he uses the expression ’the great army of unemployed’ as may be seen from my dedication. Therefore, I think, and this is the main thesis of this paper, that the 19th century discussions on these issues described above are more illuminating and fruitful than some contemporary contributions – particularly when they come from mainstream academics.

What is striking about the philosophers of the 19th century I am dealing with is that they are all radical critics of capitalist society. Of course, they do not use the term capitalism. As far as I know only Fourier uses a certain term, that of ‘civilisation’ when he describes capitalism. Others such as Saint Simon and Robert Owen use loose expressions such as ‘present state of society’, ‘present affairs of society’ and ‘present state of mankind’, though Owen uses often the expression ‘capital’. Quite often Saint Simon uses also the expression ‘contemporary state of enlightenment’. The term capitalism, though it is as old as Thomas More’s Utopia, was accepted in the second half of the 19th century to describe the contemporary society we live in, and as far as I know it was Marx who first used it in its general sense to describe the social formation we live in. But, with all their different terms, they are describing capitalist society and they formulate a total critique of it – an economic, political, social, educational, cultural and moral critique. In short, they were radicals and wanted to find an essential solution to the contradiction described above, rather than to suggest some half-hearted “reforms” which are almost of no use. According to these 19th century philosophers it is the time for revolutions not reforms. As Saint Simon asserts ‘[t]he time of half-hearted measures is obviously passed away.’ The establishment of the ‘dawn of a new epoch of humanity’, as generally recognised, requires a ‘great revolution in the organisation of society’.

This radicalism of these 19th century philosophers may be seen best in their conception of history. Despite the fact that they differ in their assessments of how and by means of what this ‘great revolution in the organisation of society’ may be achieved and what social arrangements shall be substituted for civilisation, they divide human history into two great epochs: that of irrationality and rationality. According to these philosophers human history has been hitherto dominated by irrational social arrangements. They assess civilisation from the viewpoint of a higher social formation whose essential elements are already to be found in civilisation. In other words, they assess civilisation from the viewpoint of its revolutionary potentialities which may serve as the basis of an entirely new association. Charles Fourier makes this assertion particularly in relation to civilisation; Saint Simon and Robert Owen refer to the whole history of humanity. From the viewpoint of a higher social formation Fourier, for example, refers to civilisation as an ‘inverted world’. Saint Simon describes the history of humanity as a history of political domination by a minority of possessors and declares that the time has come to change it. According to Owen ‘the past ages of the world present the history of human irrationality only, and that we are but now advancing towards the dawn of reason, and to the period when the mind of man shall be born again.’ If we follow what he calls the ‘science of the influence of circumstances’ then we may see that human beings in history have always been controlled by their circumstances. But ‘a new crisis has arrived, new in the history of mankind’ such that these circumstances need to be arranged in a new way so that human beings may have control over their circumstances. He asserts that ‘the present state of society, governed by circumstances, is so different, in its several parts and entire combination, from that which will arise when society shall be taught to govern circumstances…’

Though Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were in many respects very critical of these ‘utopian socialists’, as they used to call these philosophers, they followed them in dividing the history of humanity into two great epochs. They defined for example the transition from capitalism to socialism as ‘humanity’s leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.’ as Engels puts it in Anti-Dühring. This is the aim of all the teachings and practical politics of these philosophers: to find out ways by means of which to ‘leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom’ or to ‘open a new era to the human race’ as Owen puts it. 

III.	The irrationality in the functioning of production in capitalist society

Now, one may pose the question: what is irrational in the functioning of capitalism? These philosophers, as I have already suggested above, formulated a total critique of capitalist society. When they formulate their comprehensive critique they develop it by starting from the analysis of the sphere of production. The main category in their critique is the category of labour. To find out whether or not and how and to what extent a society is rational we need according to these philosophers particularly to focus on social relations in the sphere of production. All other forms of evils in a given society arise directly or indirectly from the relations of production. In order to find out whether we live rationally or not we have to consider above all how we work. In other words, these philosophers make use of causality as a methodological device in its broad sense. I think that Robert Owen summarises the principle of their methodological approach accurately when he asserts that ‘[i]t is … an important step gained when the cause of evil is ascertained. The next is to devise a remedy for the evil, which shall create the least possible inconvenience. To discover that remedy, and try its efficacy in practice, have been the employments of my life’.

Now, how do we work in capitalist society or what does ‘civilised labour’ looks like, in order to use one of Fourier’s fundamental categories? The answer to this question may also answer the question why Fourier and others dealt with civilisation as an ‘inverted world’. When these philosophers criticise the way we labour in capitalist society they rely on a certain conception of human nature – a conception of human nature, as Owen puts it, ‘not indeed as it is explained in legendary tales of old, but as it now may be read in the living subject – in the words and actions of those among whom we exist.’ When Owen started publishing his four essays in 1813, which were collected in 1816 under the title of A New View of Society, he declared that his essays ‘have been dictated by a comprehensive view of human nature’ - a comprehensive view which attacks the very basis of traditional European philosophy at least since Descartes, which teaches that bodily and intellectual capacities were at variance and that bodily capacities can be ignored or even repressed. This comprehensive view is also very fundamental to Fourier’s and Saint Simon’s teaching. What does human nature mean? ‘Human nature’, Owen asserts, ‘is created, with its organs, faculties, and propensities, of body and mind, at birth’. According to Owen ‘all of which qualities and powers are necessary for the continuation of the species, and the growth, health, progress, excellence, and happiness, of the individual and of society.’ That is to suggest that all individuals are equipped potentially with all their intellectual and physical capacities which they unfold and enjoy throughout their life. In other words, in order to use another fundamental category of Fourier’s: human beings have bodily and intellectual passions. These passions are nothing but needs in its most comprehensive sense. According to Fourier to fulfil ourselves, that is, to enjoy recognition among our fellow citizens, the passions must be satisfied rather than repressed as Stoics since ancient times and rational philosophers in modern times suggest. Fourier however highlights that the passions cannot be repressed. According to him this is ‘an opinion doubly absurd inasmuch as we can only repress our passions by violence or absorbing replacement, which replacement is no repression.’ Therefore, Owen asserts that the ‘great object of society is, to obtain wealth, and to enjoy it’, or elsewhere: ‘[t]he object of all human exertions is to be happy’. This is the end of life and all our toils and labour serve to this end: to fulfil ourselves by satisfying our bodily and intellectual passions and enjoy thereby according to our life-project recognition among our fellow creatures.

But the way ‘civilised labour’ is organised counteracts this end of life. It can hardly serve to this end consciously. On the contrary, in many ways it distorts and inverts this end. In that connection in the writings of these philosophers we find analyses in at least two respects. Firstly, particularly in the writings of Fourier there is an analysis of the work of what we may call the middle class. In that connection Owen works out how enterprises work. Secondly, particularly in the writings of Fourier and Owen there is an analysis of the situation and labour of the working classes.

Firstly, Fourier refers to the work of the middle class as ‘subversion’ causing an ‘opposition of two kinds of interest, collective and individual.’ According to their situation every person belonging to this class is necessarily ‘at war with the mass, and malevolent toward it from personal interest.’ Let us for example take a physician. The purpose of the work of a physician is to provide medical care and health. But in civilised society as Fourier puts it ‘[a] physician wishes his fellow-citizens good, genuine cases of fever’ since this is the source of his income. Let us take another case – the case of an attorney. Instead of a good harmonious family life ‘an attorney’ wishes because of the same reasons ‘good lawsuits in every family’. The same principle can also be applied to the case of architects, glaziers, shoemakers and so on. Because of the same reasons ‘[a]n architect has need of a good conflagration which should reduce a quarter of the city to ashes, and a glazier desires a good hail-storm which should break all the panes of glass. A tailor, a shoemaker, wishes the public to use only poorly-dyed stuffs and shoes made of bad leather, so that a triple amount may be consumed, - for the benefit of trade; that is their refrain.’ These people wish always the opposite from what their work aims at.

Closely related to this is what Fourier called ‘anarchy’ in the organisation of production in civilisation. Robert Owen worked out this aspect very apply in his A Further Development of the Plan for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor in 1817. There he observes that every manufacturer produces as a closed entity apart from the others, that is, without any co-operation. ‘In the management of the workhouses, etc.,’ he continues, that ‘there is no unity of action; each part is so placed as to feel an interest at variance with the others; they are, in fact, a compound of the same errors that pervade common society, where all are so circumstanced as to counteract each other’s intentions, and thus render even extraordinary energies and talents of no avail’. This anarchy in production leads to a wasteful application of ‘labour and expenditure’. If however production were organised on the basis of the principle of co-operation or ‘combination’ it ‘would produce the most extensive and beneficial effects’.

Secondly, unlike the work of the ruling classes, the labour of the lower classes is the only source of wealth as Owen puts it. In other words, the labour of the labouring class is the only productive and useful labour since this form of labour is the only one which provides the material and intellectual wants of society. In relation to the improvement of the means of production the productivity of the labour of the working classes increases. The introduction of manufacture for example has multiplied wealth and industry. Thanks to the development of modern arts and sciences the invention of a ‘little steam’ can perform the labour of 1000 men. Owen observes for example in his Report to the County of Lanark that ‘[t]he increase of the steam-engine and the spinning-machine added in an extraordinary manner to the powers of human nature. In their consequence they have in half a century multiplied the productive power, or the means of creating wealth, among the population of these islands, more than twelvefold, besides giving a great increase to the means of creating wealth in other countries.’ And he continues further down: ‘[t]he discovery of the distance and movements of the heavenly bodies – of the timepiece – of a vessel to navigate the most distant parts of the ocean – of the steam-engine, which perform under the control of one man the labour of many thousands – and of the press, by which knowledge and improvement may be speedily given to the most ignorant in all parts of the earth – these have, indeed, been discoveries of high importance to mankind’.

However, to see the other side, these improvements and inventions inflicted also ‘evils on society’. ‘They have created an aggregate of wealth, and placed it in the hands of few, who, by its aid, continue to absorb the wealth produced by the industry. Thus the mass of the population are become mere slaves to the ignorance and caprice of these monopolists, and are far more truly helpless and wretched than they were before the names of Watt and Arkwright were known.’ Therefore, ‘[a]ll know, however, that these beneficial effects do not exist. On the contrary, it must be acknowledged that the working classes, which form so large a proportion of the population, cannot obtain even the comforts which their labour formerly procured for them…’ They are, as Fourier asserts, ‘far from sharing in the increase of wealth, gather(s) from it only added privation’; they see ‘a greater variety of commodities which’ they ‘cannot enjoy'; they are even not sure of obtaining ‘repugnant labour’ as Fourier calls wage-labour in capitalist society.

IV.	The major contradiction that needs to be solved

What I have just said about the accumulation of the wealth in the hands of the few brings us back to the contradiction which I, following Marx, defined in my introduction as the ‘contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production’. According to Marx this is a fundamental and immanent contradiction in the capitalist mode of production, which can hardly be solved essentially within the framework of capital, that is, as long as the logic of making profit is not questioned as such. It describes exactly what Owen and Fourier describe, namely that there is, on the one hand, an increase of productivity and accordingly an increase of wealth, which usually improve the conditions and quality of work and life, and on the other hand, there is an increase of unemployment and poverty. Therefore, as Fourier puts it: ‘[t]his vicious circle of industry has been so clearly recognised, that people on all sides are beginning to suspect it, and feel astonished that, in civilisation, poverty should be the offspring of abundance.’ The poverty Fourier talks about should not be understood merely in the sense of material poverty. Rather, he employs a comprehensive theory of poverty and includes intellectual and emotional poverty too.

Some of you may ask whether all that these 19th century philosophers say about capitalism and its defects and irrationality has something to say about capitalism and its functioning today. In my introduction I provided some figures about the USA. You may observe similar developments in Britain and other European countries, in Asia and Africa, in short everywhere in the world. Britain is for example the fourth richest country in the world. But Britain is at the same time the country in which people work more than 44 hours a week on average and the latest developments show that it is making big steps towards matching the USA.

Some figures may illustrate the situation in the world. According to the latest figures of the International Labour Office (ILO) in 2003 in the world there were 185.9 million people registered actually unemployed. In order to find out however how many people are really unemployed you have to add to these figures the figures of the so called ‘working poor’. The working poor are counted as unemployed because they look for a better job but as they cannot find any they are condemned to accept jobs for almost no wage in return. In 2004 for example in the world there were 1.39 billion people earning less than US$ 2 a day. Among them 550 million people got even less than US$ 1 a day. Expressed in percentage terms this means that 49.9 (in developing countries 58.7) percent of the world's workers were earning less than US$ 2 a day and 19.7 (in developing countries 23.3) percent less than US$ 1 a day. Following the ILO if these figures are added to the figures of registered unemployed people then you will have a figure of 1.5759. This means that more than 50 per cent of the world's workers are really unemployed. These people are excluded from any form of productive activity. Then there are millions and millions of people who are employed in the so called security sector, and administration, which are, as already Saint Simon rightly asserted and to which all the philosophers of the 19th century which I am dealing with would subscribe, absolutely unproductive and unnecessary forms of employment – an insight which we miss in contemporary mainstream academic debates. These forms of employments are however absolutely necessary as long as society is run on the base of the principle of making profit.

V.	The poverty of bourgeois social scientists and theorists

The poverty of bourgeois social scientists may be seen best in their suggestion as to how this contradiction may be solved. In the face of this contradiction one of the  most celebrated sociologists, Ulrich Beck, on continental Europe, for example, suggests that the unemployed should be called on to do those jobs which cannot be done by market forces and by the state. Cynically, Beck calls these kinds of jobs ‘citizen work’ (‘Bürgerarbeit’) and according to him the unemployed should do this for their unemployment benefit. Jeremy Rifkin even imagines that this is going to be a predominating reality in 40 years' time. He claims that in 2045 only 20 percent of the labour force will have full-time employment and most of the remaining 80 percent will receive their economic livelihood, in the form of voucher payments, from their local governing body in return for community service work in non-profit organizations. The suggestion of Beck and the vision of Rifkin exemplify accurately the limits and poverty of the logic of bourgeois sociologists and economists. For whether we take their description of the situation, or their suggestions as to how unemployment may be overcome, or their visions of a future society, they remain within the limits of capital or the logic of profit. Whether the unemployed do ‘citizen work’ or ‘community service’ their essential problems could hardly be solved. The fact that we are having unemployment, on the one hand, and exhausting overwork, on the other, has something to do with the very logic of profit making, which is the only lever of production in capitalist society. It has something to do with the very logic of ‘wage-labour’ as Marx used to call it. Among bourgeois social and political theorists Paul Kennedy is perhaps one of the few who admits that the enhancement of productivity is not only a drive to social change but requires also a new definition of labour. But he rejects to do so as if he would fear the possible outcome of such an undertaking that may require going back to Marx’s analysis of the relations of production in capitalism.

VI.	How the contradiction may be solved

Let us now turn to the solution offered by 19th century philosophers. As I have already suggested above when these philosophers look for some remedy they concentrate on spheres of production as they think that the major source of all evils in civilisation lie in this sphere. When I work out their solution I am turning thereby to the question as to how the cercle vicieux that I have described by referring to William Morris may be broken. 

The major question on which 19th century philosophers concentrate when they look for some ways which may lead out of the cercle vicieux is the question of how ‘wage-earners’ as Fourier puts it can be transformed ‘into co-interested or associated proprietors.’ This was the grand question in the 19th century and I think this is still the grand question today because it refers to the major source of the distortion of labour and to the historical basis of social classes in capitalist society. This is the separation of ‘the workman from his food, and making him and his existence depend upon the labour and uncertain supplies of others, as is the case under our present manufacturing system’. This is, in other words, what Marx described as the separation of the producers from their means of production. How this separation took place in Britain found its most accurate description in Marx’s Capital. It is a process which made him say that ‘this history, the history of their expropriation [of the producers,-DG], is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.’ Referring to the so-called Enclosures Thomas More was forced to ascertain that ‘[t]hese placid creatures [sheep, - DG], which used to require so little food, have now apparently developed a raging appetite, and turned into man-eaters. Fields, houses, towns, everything goes down their throats.’ It is interesting enough that, unlike the majority of contemporary bourgeois political economists, Adam Smith sees, like Marx, a direct reciprocal relationship between the emergence of ‘commercial society’, as he used to call capitalist society, and the separation of the producers from their means of production. In other words, the accumulation of the wealth and the means of production in the hands of the few and accordingly the separation of the producers from their means of production are indispensable prerequisites for the emergence of capitalist society.

From this historical moment of the expropriation of the product of the producers, labour as a productive human activity is turned into a commodity like any other commodity. From this historical moment on  labour becomes the object of making profit and the labourers are seen merely as ‘vital machines’ as opposed to ‘inanimate machines’ as Owen used to describe it. From this historical moment on, the whole attention of the owners of the means of production is turned to ‘estimate time by minutes, and the money expended for the chance of increased gain by fractions’. They devote all their capacities and faculties ‘to invent improved inanimate mechanisms’ by which they can increase their ‘pecuniary profit’ and regard ‘the employed as mere instruments of gain’. And elsewhere he summarises his observation: 

‘[s]ince the general introduction of inanimate mechanism into British manufactories, man, with few exceptions, has been treated as a secondary and inferior machine; and far more attention has been given to perfect the raw materials of wood and metals than those of body and mind.’

I think that technique- and commodity-fetishism, and accordingly alienation in human relations cannot be described much better, though we may improve it by making some modern terminological additions. Owen’s observation in relation to British manufactories can be applied to the whole world as capitalism is a world system now. If you want to understand the war in Iraq for example you may need to understand the workings of this process of fetishism and alienation. Therefore, the question for these philosophers was how this historical development might be undone.

In the 19th century with regard to this question there seem to have emerged at least two major positions. One of these two positions seems to have occurred merely as a reaction to the negative impacts of the improvements of the means of production. Though Louis Blanc is as radical as other 19th century philosophers in his critique of the principle of competition he seems to come to a different conclusion from Fourier and Owen. In his essay Organisation of Labour from 1839 for example he argues that the machines that have been invented should be demolished and science should be banned because their application increases unemployment and competition among labourers, between those who are employed and those who are unemployed – a fact which leads to wages being kept down. However, though the philosophers I am relying on agree with Blanc’s observation about the negative impacts of the improvement of the means of production upon society they do not follow him in his call for abolition. Owen raises for example the question whether the ‘accompanying evils’ of the improvement of the means of production ‘do not preponderate over the’ positive effects. Nonetheless, he comes, like Fourier and Saint Simon, to a different conclusion. They want to change social relations without destroying the means of production in particular and the achievements of civilisation in general. In other words, they look into the future rather than into the past. They pose therefore the question whether the means of production can be utilised in a different way by rearranging social relations. This may be seen already from what I have said above. I would like nonetheless to refer to a passage from Fourier’s writings to state their position as clearly as possible. He points out:

‘[i]n criticizing civilized industry, I am far from endorsing the views of the fool who would like to tear down the factories. I merely wish to prepare men’s minds for an examination of the societary mechanism, or the system of industrial attraction and guaranteed truth, which will bring a four-fold increase in economic productivity…’

In order to achieve this, these philosophers aim at unifying the interests of all human beings without suppressing their individuality. According to Owen the union or co-operation of interests would increase productivity such that it would even outdo all technological improvements. Their starting-point thereby is a comprehensive critique of almost all the fundamental assumptions of political economy because the system of political economy serves as the justificatory basis for capitalist society. I have presented some of their critiques already above. Here I would like to point out three further aspects.

To begin with, one of the fundamental assumptions of political economy was and still is that the functioning of society does not need any social control. This is usually expressed in the popular expression of laissez faire, laissez aller. According to this assumption the ‘law of supply and demand’ would regulate almost everything in society without any aid from without. Arguing against T. R. Malthus’ theory of population, namely that it was the increase of population that pressed upon subsistence rather than the existence of ruling social classes, Owen asserts that ‘[t]here can be no doubt that it is the artificial law of supply and demand, arising from the individual gain in opposition to the general well-being of society, which has hitherto compelled population to press upon subsistence.’ By closer examination, according to Owen, these kinds of theories ‘prove a mere phantom of the imagination, calculated solely to keep the world in unnecessary ignorance, vice, and crime, and to prevent society from becoming what it ought to be, well trained and instructed, and, under an intelligent system of mutual goodwill and kindness, active, virtuous, and happy; a system which might easily be created as to pervade the whole of society, and extend through all its ramifications.’

Owen turns then to the critique of individualism. He observes that this theory is regarded ‘by the most celebrated political economists, to be the cornerstone to the social system, and without which, society could not subsist.’ ‘It has been’, he asserts further, ‘and still is, a received opinion among theorists in political economy, that man can provide better for himself, and more advantageously for the public, when left to his own individual exertions, opposed to and in competition with his fellows, than when aided by any social arrangements which shall unite his interests individually and generally with society.’ However, this is a ‘closet doctrine’ and ignores the fact that human beings are socially embedded individuals. It is, in other words, an ‘antisocial, impolitic, and irrational’ theory because: ‘under its influence all the superior and valuable qualities of human nature are repressed from infancy, and that the most unnatural means are used to bring out the most injurious propensities; in short, that the utmost pains are taken to make that which by nature is the most delightful compound for producing excellence and happiness, absurd, imbecile, and wretched.’ It is claimed that this is the only principle that can improve the wealth of individuals and nations. However, Owen argues, ‘[t]he principle on which these economists proceed, instead of adding to the wealth of nations or of individuals, is itself the sole cause of poverty.’

Lastly, in the writings of these philosophers there is a devastating assessment of the logic of barter, bargaining, trade and commercial exchange relations. In short, there is a critique of the principle of ‘free trade’. According to Owen bargaining between individuals for example is a ‘demoralizing system’ because it rests upon commodified social relations ‘and no practice perhaps tends more than this to deteriorate and degrade the character.’ Similarly, the system of bartering and commerce ‘has made man ignorantly, individually selfish; placed him in opposition to his fellows; engendered fraud and deceit; blindly urged him forward to create, but deprived him of the wisdom to enjoy. In striving to take advantage of others he has overreached himself.’ Barter and commerce as systems of exchange relations may have been ‘situated to a certain stage of society.’ When they were introduced first they have ‘stimulated invention; it has given industry and talent to the human character; and’ have ‘secured the future exertion of those energies which otherwise might have remained dormant and unknown.’ But besides these advantages they have also created those ‘great evils’ just described above and they become, due to the progress of human society, from a historical point of view, useless. To make further progress it must overcome them because they hinder further progress. We find similar critical assessments in Fourier’s writings. I would like to refer to a passage which seems to me to be of great importance in the face of contemporary ecological and food crises. Fourier observes that adulteration, knavery, fraud and so on arising from commerce penetrated into all spheres of human life and now ‘prevail everywhere’. As a result of this even the ‘cultivator has become as great a defrauder as the merchant used to be. Dairy products, oils, wines, brandy, sugar, coffee, flour, everything is shamelessly debased. The masses can no longer procure natural foods; only slow poisons are sold them, such progress has the spirit of commerce made even in the smallest villages.’ In short, political economy is a legal system of fraud and ‘a complete science of enrichment’ as Engels puts it. ‘With a word’, he continues, ‘the trade is legal fraud.’ If we follow these critical assessments and think them to their utmost logical consequences then we may pose the question whether the conception of ‘fair trade’ is possible at all because according to these philosophers there is no trade that can be qualified as ‘fair’.

According to these philosophers all these evils are caused by competition, individualism and the division of society into social classes, all of which originate from the division of labour. They see the solution to all these evils therefore in the replacement of these principles by ‘the principle of union and mutual co-operation’ as Owen puts it. If it is true, Owen asks, that military armies hold to the principle of union and co-operation to wage wars, that is, in their acts of destruction, why should this principle not work in other affairs of society? They may be utilised much better in creation than in destruction. Even all nations throughout the world could, instead of competing and waging wars against one another, combine their strength and act in union. Similar assertions may be found in Fourier’s as well as Saint-Simon’s writings.

When Marx and Engels developed their more mature critique of capitalism they could hardly do justice to the author of these insights. Therefore, many contributions of these philosophers remained implicit in Marx’s and Engels’ work and need to be researched. To put forward the principle of union and co-operation, these philosophers, like Marx and Engels, focus above all on the organisation of labour and they want to replace thereby what Fourier calls ‘repugnant labour’ or ‘civilised labour’ by ‘attractive labour’ so that people can enjoy their labour and its fruits. Let us refer again to Owen. He puts the idea of these philosophers very nicely in a passage in his Essay A Further Development of the Plan for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor. He asserts:

‘It is found that when men work together for a common interest, each performs his part more advantageously for himself and for society, than when employed for others at daily wages, or than when working by the piece. When employed by the day, they feel no interest in their occupation, beyond the receipt of their wages; when they work by the piece, they feel too much interest, and frequently overwork themselves, and occasion disease, premature old age, and death. When employed with others in a community of interests, both these extremes are avoided; the labour becomes temperate, but effective, and may be easily regulated and superintended.’

Under these circumstances, that is, if labour were organised based on the principle of co-operation ‘the occupation will be experienced to be little more than a recreation, sufficient to keep them in best health and spirit for rational enjoyment of life.’ After having studied the writings of these philosophers William Morris, unlike Proudhon but like Marx before him, has come to the conclusion that to put this into practice labour must cease to be wage-labour. In that case people may not receive wages for their labour but then they have to regain their lives in return. According to Morris this is the best reward that they receive for their labour.

In order to put this into practice, that is, to replace  ‘repugnant labour’ or ‘civilised labour’ with ‘attractive labour’, the philosophers I am dealing with offer three different projects. Fourier and Saint Simon offer a project which I call the reconciliation theory of classes; Fourier wants to reconcile what he calls the productive classes (among them manufacturers and labourers) within the framework of his ‘PLAN X’, in which he wants to improve the participation of the poor classes in wealth; similarly Saint Simon; his conception of ‘productive classes’ is much more broadly conceptualised than that of Fourier; he wants to reconcile the productive classes within the framework of what he calls ‘New Christianity’. The projects of Fourier and Saint Simon were partly put into practice in what we call now the welfare state. Unlike Fourier and Saint Simon, Robert Owen sees the solution in a communist society, that is, in a society with common ownership and without social classes. According to Owen this is the only way to unite the interests of all human beings. But unlike William Morris and Karl Marx, Owen wants to achieve his aim not by revolution. He wants to establish it by means of education and by establishing villages of 2000 people gradually on the basis of common ownership. But like Morris and Marx on the basis of the principle of what he calls the ‘system without punishment and reward’ he wants to remove the institution of wage-labour as such. William Morris’ assertion, namely that under the regime of wage labour the labourers have lost their life and that the abolition of wage-labour would amount to regaining this life for labourers and accordingly for humanity, summarises their idea in that respect very accurately. Marx differs from Saint Simon and Fourier with regard to the question whether the contradictory interests of social classes can be reconciled. Like Owen he suggests that it goes without saying that the contradictory interests of social classes cannot be reconciled unless the institution of social classes is questioned as such. However, he differs from Owen with regard to the question whether this can be achieved merely by means of education and establishing small communist villages. In other words, Marx employs a theory of class struggle that should lead to a social revolution opening a new epoch in the history of humanity.

His assertion from the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy may be seen as an answer to these ‘utopian socialists’. He asserts namely that 

‘[t]he mode of production in material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or – what is but a legal expression for the same thing – with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the forces of production these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.’

This assertion of Marx is usually read against the background of his German philosophy. In one sense it is certainly true that this is so. However, I think this is too narrow a grasp of his background. With this assertion he answers the question of many European philosophers who sought to find out how the transition from one social formation to another takes place in general and how capitalist society in particular can be overcome.

Marx’ aim of socialism is accurately formulated by Friedrich Engels in his Anti-Dühring. There he defines ‘the seizing of the means of production by society’ at the same time as the abolition of the ‘production of commodities’. If the commodified world ceases to exist, ‘simultaneously’ there ceases to exist ‘the mastery of the product over the producer.’ 

‘Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which surround man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature because he has now become master of his own social organisation. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass into the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is humanity's leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.’

In this ‘kingdom of freedom’ individuals would be rational in their feelings, thought and actions. They would have always a clear conscience and they would be true to themselves and to others as they would have nothing to fear and enjoy the greatest freedom in thought and action. They would accordingly recognise one another in one another without any distortion. They would cease to exist as ‘localised animals’ because they are now not only members of this or that nation but at the same time also members of the ‘great society of mankind’. In this great society of mankind they could finally work and travel at pleasure. Surely, this is a utopia. But this is a utopia in its positive sense, in the sense that it is possible, and therefore deserves to be striven for.

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