II (3)

Owen was prepared to put his experiments to the proof, and did so at Motherwell, in Scotland, with a capital of £50,000. But M. Dolléans devotes himself to the study of a more important one of which full information is available—this was “New Harmony” in Indiana, U.S.A.

The point was to substitute a new organisation for an existing communistic organisation, namely, that of the Rappists. The Rappists had succeeded, but each of them desired to have his share of the capital of the Society instead of leaving it undistributed. This ending might have enlightened Owen as to the ultimate consequences of his experiment in admitting that everything there was for the best. He proceeded to the United States in 1825, and made a great to-do over his foundation. He enlisted Maclure, a rich American (who contributed 150,000 dollars), a number of philosophers, and eight hundred visionaries and persons of unsettled temperament, dreamers of either sex, each one of whom believed communism to be the ideal, provided that his system was accepted, as well as some adventurers and knights of industry.

On May 1st, 1825, the experimental or preliminary society was constituted. Every one is under a general duty to place his capacity at the service of the community, for each member of which an account is opened, the value of his services being carried to his credit and his various expenses to his debit. In the result this beautiful arrangement merely ended in the most complete anarchy. At the end of six months the industries left by the Rappists disappeared and there was neither labour nor control. Those who might feel disposed to work were unwilling to do so for the benefit of the idle. A large amount of discussion and disputation ensued, and a convention was nominated, which, on June 5th, 1826, adopted a constitution which confuses juridical and moral questions. It is preceded by a declaration of general principles, in the front rank of which there figure community of goods, equality of rights and of duties, sincerity and honesty in all acts, freedom from responsibility and the abolition of punishments and rewards.

The assembly, which consists of all the members of the community of either sex of more than twenty-one years of age, is possessed of legislative power; the executive power is vested in a council consisting of three ministers, elected by the assembly, and of a secretary, a treasurer, a commissary and six superintendents, each placed at the head of one of the six departments of the community. Who appoints these superintendents? Their subordinates of more than sixteen years of age, subject to ratification by the general assembly. This restriction was not sufficient to invest these departmental chiefs with authority, they were dependent for it upon those whom they employed, while at the same time it was their duty to furnish the executive council daily with their opinion upon the persons under their authority. It would be difficult to find an organization better adapted to promote impotence and dissensions.

When Owen returned after the lapse of a year, he found “New Harmony” in dissolution, but with remarkable optimism he did not despair. He accepted the dictatorship, but on April 15th, 1828, he was obliged to admit the failure of an experiment which had cost him personally 200,000 dollars. I will not exaggerate this negative result; it is obvious that the elements of which the population which came to make the experiment was composed were not the most suitable for ensuring its success. One is none the less entitled to enter it on the debit side of the communistic account.

These experiments failed to discourage this practical man from his visionary dreams. From 1834 until his death he published a weekly newspaper, the “New Moral World,” in which he persisted in proclaiming his unsectarian millennium, a new moral world which was to abolish individualistic competition in the interests of communism.