Utopian Socialists - Definition

Definition

The utopian socialist thinkers did not use the term utopian to refer to their ideas. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels referred to all socialist ideas that were simply a vision and distant goal for society as utopian. Utopian socialists were likened to scientists who drew up elaborate designs and concepts for creating what socialists considered a more equal society. They were contrasted by scientific socialists, likened to engineers, who were defined as an integrated conception of the goal, the means to producing it, and the way that those means will inevitably be produced through examining social and economic phenomena.

This distinction was made clear in Engels' work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1892, part of an earlier publication, the Anti-Dühring from 1878). Utopian socialists were seen as wanting to expand the principles of the French revolution in order to create a more "rational" society and economic system, and despite being labeled as utopian by later socialists, their aims were not always utopian with their values often included rigid support for the scientific method and creating a society based upon such.

A key difference between "utopian socialists" and other socialists (including most anarchists) is that utopian socialists generally don't feel class struggle or political revolutions are necessary to implement their ideas; that people of all classes might voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it were presented convincingly. They often feel their form of cooperative socialism can be established among like-minded people within the existing society and establish small enterprises designed to demonstrate their plan for society.