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Add to these all rich men, chiefly those who have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made up of idle persons that are kept more for show than for use. Add to these all those strong and lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease, in excuse for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that the number of those by whose labors mankind is supplied is much less than you perhaps imagined.

Then consider how few of those that work are employed in 1 fool- labors that are of real service; for we by measuring all things by money give rise to many trades that are both vain and superfluous and serve only to support riot and luxury. For if those who work were employed only in such things as the conveniences of life required, there would be such an abundance of them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could not be maintained by their gains. If all those who labor about useless things were set to more profitable employments, and if all they that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness, every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that are at work, were forced to labor, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of the time would serve for doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds. . .

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In Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity. And though no man has anything, yet they are all rich, for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties, neither apprehending want himself nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife. ... I would gladly hear any man compare the justice that is among them with that of all other nations, among whom, may I perish, if I see anything that looks either like justice or equity. For what justice is there in this, that a nobleman, a goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or at best is employed in things that are of no use

to the public, should live in great luxury and splendor upon what is so ill acquired; and a mean man, a carter, a smith, or a plowman, that works harder than even the beasts themselves and is employed in labors so necessary that no commonwealth could hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor a livelihood, and must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of beasts is so much better than his? . . .

Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful that is so prodigal of its favors to those that are called gentlemen, or goldsmiths, or such others who are idle, or live by flattery or by contriving the arts of vain pleasure; and, on the other hand, take no care of those of a meaner sort, such as plowmen, colliers, and smiths, without whom it could not subsist?

Robert Owen (1771-1858), a successful English cotton manufacturer, devoted a great part of his life to plans for bettering the lot of the working classes. He believed that the world had so far improved that a millennium of prosperity and happiness was at hand,— that England and America could become Utopias. His reasons for thinking that at last "the wise, the good, and the happy existence of man was not far away, are the following:

Owen's

reasons for

The almost miraculous decline of reverence for the priest- 390. Robert hood over the world; — their insane dissensions in opposition to each other, and, at this stage of society, their equally insane expecting presumption over their more enlightened fellow-men ; the the speedy progress of the temperance societies in Great Britain and millennium

arrival of the

America; the daily advance of scientific discoveries; the new (1841)
passion for educating the masses; the extraordinary disincli-
nation to war among the British and other warlike nations;
the easy and rapid communication between the most distant
countries; the general adoption by civilized countries of scien-
tific power to supersede the necessity for severe or injurious
manual service; and the friendly union of governments which
until latterly have been in a great savage hostility to each

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other; all, with many other strange and extraordinary occur-
ring events, indicate with unerring certainty that a great change
is coming over the nations of the earth; and that the wise,
the good, the happy existence of man approaches with gigantic
strides; in fact, that the millennium is not far distant.

And shall irrational man, in any of his present puerile divipress sions of class, or sect, or party, or country, or color, set himself to oppose this great, magnificent, and glorious change for the benefit of the human race now and through the coming ages? Vain and useless will such attempts prove. The decree has gone forth from the almighty energies of the universe, that man shall be put in the right path now, to become good and wise and happy; and every obstacle in the way of his progress to this advent of his existence shall prove unavailing and powerless..

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But to effect this great and glorious change, it must be ist be made known to the world:

Fore

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ience

...

. . That the necessary character of the profession of the law is to maintain the ignorant and most injurious laws of man in direct opposition to the wise and most beneficent laws of wyers man's nature, evidently formed by the Supreme Creating Power of the universe, to insure man, when he shall understand and act upon them, health and enjoyment beyond the imaginings of poets; but that as long as the profession of the law, based on the principles on which all human laws have been founded, shall be maintained, it will prevent the period arriving when man shall be just to man, when he shall love his neighbor as himself, or when he shall understand his own interest or become a rational being.

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That the necessary character of the military profession is to generate a warlike spirit and a desire for war; . . . to order perpetuate feelings of hostility among individuals and nations,

that must immortalize immorality, continue to foster all the
bad passions, create confusion and disorder throughout the
world. . .

That the necessary character of the individual buying-and-
selling system is to train the human race to acquire the inferior
mind of a peddler and dealer whose business of life is to endeavor

world

to procure everything from others at the lowest price and to Profit seeking dispose of everything to others at the highest price, or in makes the such a manner that he shall secure the greatest amount of wretched money, profit, worldly honors, or individual considerations to himself. And in this sense, all, from the highest to the lowest, are now trained to become, by the individual competition system, mere peddlers, tradesmen, or dealers, who are constantly endeavoring to obtain the services and productions of others at the easiest rate, the lowest value, and to sell their own services at the highest, or to obtain all they can in exchange for them. The sovereigns, statesmen, legislators, professional men, military, merchants, bankers, manufacturers, tradesmen, workmen, and beggars are now all, under the individual competitive system which has hitherto prevailed over the world, engaged in this low, unjust, degrading traffic. . . . By these means the successful in this inferior and immoral course of conduct do not obtain a tithe, no, nor a fiftieth part of the permanent, substantial, healthy, enlightened, superior advantages, pleasures, and enjoyments that, under the united system, all may attain and securely possess without obstruction, competition, or contest.

A French contemporary of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier (1772-1837), proposed to realize a Utopia by establishing coöperative colonies called "phalanxes.' The general plan for one of these colonies he describes as follows:

for commu

It is necessary for a company of 1500 to 1600 persons to 391. Fouhave a stretch of land comprising a good square league, not rier's scheme forgetting, however, that a third of that would suffice for the nistic sosimpler system. The land should be provided with a fine cieties stream of water; it should be intersected by hills and adapted (condensed) to a varied cultivation; it should be near a forest and not far removed from a large city, but sufficiently so to escape intruders. A company should be collected consisting of from 1500 to 1600 persons of graduated degrees of fortune, age, and character, of theoretical and practical knowledge. Care

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should be taken to secure the greatest amount of variety
possible, for the greater the number of variations either in the
passions or the faculties of the members, the easier it will be
to harmonize them all in a short space of time.

The edifice occupied by a Phalanx does not in any way re-
semble our buildings whether of the city or country, and none
of our buildings could be used to establish a large Harmony
of 1600 persons,
not even a great palace like Versailles.
The lodgings, plantations, and stables of a society conducted
on my plan must differ vastly from our villages and country
towns, which are intended for families having no social rela-
tions and which act in a perverse manner.

Instead of that class of little houses which rival one another
in filth and ugliness in our little towns, a Phalanx constructs
an edifice for itself which is as regular as the ground permits.
The central part of the main building, or Phalanstery, ought to
be appropriated to peaceful uses, and contain the dining halls,
business offices, libraries, study, etc. In this central portion
are located the places of worship, the telegraph, the post-office
boxes, the chimes for ceremonials, the observatory, the winter
court adorned with evergreen trees and situated in the rear of
the parade court.

One of the wings ought to combine all the noisy workshops, such as the carpenter shop, the forge, and all hammer work; it ought to contain, also, all the industrial gatherings of the children, who are generally very noisy in industry, and even music. This combination would obviate a great annoyance of our civilized cities, where we find some man working with a hammer in every street, some dealer in iron, or tyro on the clarinet, who torture the ears of fifty families in the vicinity. The other wing ought to contain the hotel with its ballrooms and its halls appropriated to intercourse with outsiders, that these may not encumber the central portion of the building and embarrass the domestic relations of the Phalanx.

An examination of the savings to be effected by coöperative associations shows them to amount always to three fourths, or nine tenths, or frequently to ninety-nine one-hundredths. We have found it so in case of markets, the sale and purchase