Talk:Utopian socialism

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Old talk

Saint-Simon Fourier Are terrible to talk to please remove them .

Edit Fix

Someone I know has purposely corrupted this page. Please examine and edit immediately— Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.175.47.160 (talk • contribs) 14:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Possible Spelling Mistakes

There are a lot of spelling mistakes in the article.English is not my first language so i am not sure whether i can edit it or not.pls somebody clarify the errors

Ok. I've resolved the mistakes now Dared111 (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

History

Despite what this article says, utopian socialism is all socialist thought going back to the very first socialist text, Utopia by Thomas More. I'd like to ask if anyone has any challenges to this before I spend the time heavily editing this article. --MQDuck 11:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

As an Anarcho-Capitalist, my knowledge in this area is probably lacking in comparison, but it seems that most articles about Socialism as well as Socioeconomics etc are all to a large extent written in a way that is rather subjective (though I acknowledge that I consider all socialist political ideologies to be subjective) and very much in a specifically Marxist fashion and view. They don't seem representative at all of how, I would think, most socialist actually view these topics. 78.69.217.113 (talk) 21:58, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Possible revision of the entire article

After a brief read-through of the article, I noticed that it seems to be in need of serious revision. Not only does it appear to be poorly formatted, it also lacks a cohesive definition of what utopian socialism actually is. Most of what is provided in the article is merely a brief history of it and how it was reacted to by different socialist branches. --15 March 2008

Indeed. Zazaban (talk) 18:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. And the text only develops around Robert Owen and Charles Fourier while Saint-Simon is as important, while some other names mentioned as "Thinkers", don't seem to belong: Thomas More and Tommaso Campanella — while Christianity have inherent "socialist" traits, [Apg 4:32-37], [Luk 14:33], Anabaptism etc., it is a largely independent movement and doesn't share the antireligious sentiment that true socialism inherited from the Enlightenment. More and Campanella can at most be considered "inspirational sources", but so should then Shakers, Quakers and why not Hutterites? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 20:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I took a whack at it. I tried to include more influential thinkers, but I left the religiously-inspired ones, because they seem to be crossovers between religious and secular socialism, and influenced secular socialists with their ideas. I also mentioned the religious socialists in the lead-in and added a wikilink to that article. We're still weak on refernces, but I used lots of wikilinks to other articles. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:36, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

This article seems to me needs some serious revision and during a quick look at it I found some strange affirmations. For example how marxism and "scientific socialism" allegedly went "beyond" the affirmations of Utopian socialism and almost made it obsolete while the case is that marxism had to debate with other currents of socialism all the time (anarchism, fabian socialism, "third world" socialisms, etc) during its existence and in many cases these debates happened on issues already raised in utopian socialism . Marxism on itself is a diverse tradition and there are some marxists who dont adhere to the Engels conception of "scientific socialism".

A serious issue is the inclusion of anarchism as some sort of later form of "utopian socialism". Anarchism in no way can be said to be more utopian than marxism. Kropotkin was a theorist very close to scientficist positions and other anarchists actually criticized "utopianism". Anarchist affirmations in many cases were as rigorous as marxist ones and there are some issues in which anarchism might have actually an older and more profound discussion than marxism such as women and LGBT issues and environmentalism.--Eduen (talk) 09:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the reason some Marxists and some anarchists call it "utopian" socialism is that they feel it is an unrealistic method to achieve radical social change, which they feel requires class struggle and revolution. However, both Marxism and anarchism are utopian in the sense that they envision societies that are far superior to the current system - such societies would be almost perfect (i.e. with little conflict, crime, poverty, disease, etc.), and thus they are utopias. Anarchism is even more utopian than Marxism in the sense that Marxists advocate leaving government in place as a temporary measure during a transition period to a stateless society, while anarchists propose abolishing the state immediately. Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems as if editors feel these issues have been resolved, since they are no longer being discussed, so I'm going to remove the banners at the top of the article about fundamental issues that need to be resolved on the talk page. Ghostofnemo (talk) 23:37, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Proudhon and Utopian Socialism

"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)"

Except that Proudhon, in 1846, was attacking dick socialists of his time (Saint Simon, Fourier, etc.) for being utopians. Fair enough, he never used the term "utopian socialism" but Marx did AFTER reading "System of Economic Contradictions" in which Proudhon critiqued the socialists as utopians and argued that socialism needed to base itself on developments within capitalism rather than visions of perfect communities...

'Marx and Engels used the term "scientific socialism" to describe the type of socialism they saw themselves developing.'

And Proudhon proclaimed the need for in "What is Property?" (1840).

I would suggest the article gets re-written to better reflect the actual development of the notion of utopian socialism, particularly the contribution of Proudhon's critique which pre-dated Marx's — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.27.109.238 (talk) 21:15, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I did a quick read through Proudhon's "System of Economic Contradictions" here: http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProMise.html but didn't see a concerted attack on utopian socialism (other than to mention that socialism is itself a utopian idea). He does seem to favor a "scientific" approach though. Can you cite the section that you are referring to? Ghostofnemo (talk) 00:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

PLUS

in 'For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing", where Marx *actually* mentions utopian socialism for the first, he is talking about Cabet, Dezamy and Weitling, not Proudhon! Actually he mentions how Proudhon has criticized this idea as well! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Platypuss38 (talk • contribs) 02:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Syndicalism banner at bottom of article

Why is there a Syndicalism banner at the bottom of this article? What is the connection? Ghostofnemo (talk) 21:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Since utopian socialism and syndicalism are different variants of socialism, I'm going to remove the Syndicalism banner at the bottom of the article, unless someone can give a convincing reason there is a special relationship between utopian socialism and syndicalism. Ghostofnemo (talk) 23:27, 9 August 2014 (UTC) I've added Syndicalism to the "See Also" section. Ghostofnemo (talk) 23:32, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Development section dominated by Marxism

The "Development" section of the article, which is supposed to be about the development of utopian socialism, is actually about utopian socialism as viewed or defined by Marxists. Maybe this could be improved? Ghostofnemo (talk) 01:20, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Proudhon and Utopian Socialism

"The term was 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 considering how these societies could be created or sustained."

Actually, this was Proudhon's criticism of those socialists he himself called "utopians" in System of Economic Contradictions. As its stands, the discussion of "utopian socialism" is basically repeating Marxist notions and failing to mention that he is often just repeating Proudhon -- while distorting Proudhon's actual ideas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:630:301:4621:7040:BE01:294B:825C (talk) 10:56, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Marx was critiquing those he later labeled utopian years before Proudhon's book was published, not to mention bourgeois authors were using "utopian" even earlier to describe Owen, the Fourierists, and Saint-Simonians. At the end of the day the concept of "utopian socialism" as understood by Marx and Engels ended up becoming influential. Proudhon's understanding didn't, and in fact Marx and Engels accused Proudhon of utopianism. --Ismail (talk) 11:37, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Where is the reference for this affirmation? 38.25.27.14 (talk) 17:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"Communitarian socialism" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Communitarian socialism. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 3#Communitarian socialism until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:48, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Anonymous edit permission

Use this talksection as a permission to do an edit as non-user and anonymous, IP user. Signed up users can edit with permission Shalomie ☮️ (she/her/hers) •~Talk~• •Contribs• 06:02, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Why's that? As far as I can see, this article is not semi-protected or extended confirmed protected. They have as much right to be WP:BOLD and edit as you or I. Apparition^{11 Complaints}/Mistakes 13:15, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. It must be protected from vandalism and this page needs 1 year or 6 month semi protection. Thanks @Apparition11 for this correction. Shalomie ☮️ (she/her/hers) •~Talk~• •Contribs• 13:47, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

We must wait before anonymous users edit and vandalise it. I did do reverted edits from @2604:3D09:AE7D:93D0:7918:EEC8:52AA:D8B9 from the article "She (pronoun)" and I copy his edit. Shalomie ☮️ (she/her/hers) •~Talk~• •Contribs• 13:51, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I only see 1 instance of vandalism in the past 2 years. We don't want articles to be protected unless there is a need to. Apparition^{11 Complaints}/Mistakes 13:55, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

And I do not revert the latest edit. If the vandalism continues or many, then the page will be protected or semi-protected Shalomie ☮️ (she/her/hers) •~Talk~• •Contribs• 14:04, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I will keep the latest revison of this page. Shalomie ☮️ (she/her/hers) •~Talk~• •Contribs• 14:05, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Apparition11 Shalomie ☮️ (she/her/hers) •~Talk~• •Contribs• 14:26, 3 February 2024 (UTC)