Utopian Socialists - Development

Development

Utopian socialists never actually used this name to describe themselves; the term "Utopian socialism" was introduced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto in 1848, although Marx shortly before the publication of this pamphlet already attacked the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in Das Elend der Philosophie (originally written in French, 1847) and used by later socialist thinkers to describe early socialist or quasi-socialist intellectuals who created hypothetical visions of egalitarian, communalist, meritocratic, or other notions of "perfect" societies without actually concerning themselves with the manner in which these societies could be created or sustained.

In Das Elend der Philosophie, English title The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx criticized the economic and philosophical arguments of Proudhon set forth in The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty. Marx accused Proudhon of wanting to rise above the bourgeoisie. In the history of Marx' thought and marxism, this work is pivotal in the distinction between the concepts of utopian socialism and what Marx and the marxists claimed as scientific socialism.

Although the utopian socialists did not share many common political, social, or economic perspectives, Marx and Engels argued that certain intellectual characteristics of the Utopian socialists unified the disparate thinkers. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote, "The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel."

Marx and Engels used the term "scientific socialism" to describe the type of socialism they saw themselves developing. According to Engels, socialism was not "an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes – the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Its task was no longer to manufacture a system of society as perfect as possible, but to examine the historical-economic succession of events from which these classes and their antagonism had of necessity sprung, and to discover in the economic conditions thus created the means of ending the conflict."

Critics have argued that Utopian socialists who established experimental communities were in fact trying to apply the scientific method to human social organization, and were therefore not Utopian. For instance, Joshua Muravchik, on the basis of Karl Popper's definition of science as "the practice of experimentation, of hypothesis and test," argued that "Owen and Fourier and their followers were the real ‘scientific socialists.’ They hit upon the idea of socialism, and they tested it by attempting to form socialist communities." Muravchik further argued that, in contrast, Marx made untestable predictions about the future, and that Marx's view that socialism would be created by impersonal historical forces may lead one to conclude that it is unnecessary to strive for socialism, because it will happen anyway.

From the mid-19th century onwards, Marxism and Marxism-Leninism overtook utopian socialism in terms of intellectual development and number of adherents. At one time, almost half of the world's population was governed by self-proclaimed Marxists.