Owenite Communitarianism in Britain and America

IT IS APPROPRIATE for the theme of the tenth annual conference of the NHCSA on world Utopian communities, past and present, that some mention should be made of Robert Owen (1771-1858).He was in many respects an international man, and he saw nationalism as just another division of mankind, which hindered the promotion of harmony and unity.Owenism flourished on both sides of the Atlantic; and here in Indiana, at New Harmony, was established the greatest of the Owenite community experiments.This paper will not be concerned with details of the Owenite communities (about which there is already a considerable literature) but rather with the present state of Owen studies.It offers a few reflections on "the state of the question."What, if any, have been the main developments since the 1971 bicentenary celebrations?What are the problems and questions which are of concern to scholars in the field, and in particular what bearing has Owenite scholarship on the study of historic communities in general?It will be convenient to begin with one particular set of community problems in their Owenite context. 1 When Owenites spoke of their "communional system" they had several things in mind: the concept or idea of community, the building of actual communities, and the theory of communitarianism.First, a sense of community was felt by Owenites to be essential for satisfactory human relationships in any society.The absence of such community was diagnosed by Owen as the chief ill of British society in the