Modern European Intellectual History

Study Questions for Week Seven documents

Read Fourier, excerpt from Theory of Social Organization at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1820fourier.html

Read Own, A New View of Society, "Dedication" and "Essay One" at    http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/owen/

Read Proudhon, What is Property?, chapter one (and as much else as you wish to read), at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html

Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen are generally considered the three most important "utopian" socialist thinkers in the early nineteenth century; Proudhon, in contrast, is generally viewed as the father of anarchist-socialism (a revolutionary rather than evolutionary doctrine).

As you read these documents, I want you to think about the following questions:

What I want us to do in class is compare and contrast all of the documents in light of these issues/questions (instead of treating each document one at a time).  So read all of the documents and be ready to discuss what they have in common and where they are in discord!