Robert Owen Cooperative Movement Analysis

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to examine the few practical examples of Robert Owen's cooperative movement, henceforth referred to as Owenism. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the reasons behind the success or failure of these forms of enterprise administration from a variety of different standpoints before drawing out a conclusion.

Abstract

Any student of the history of economic thought knows that Owen strongly believed in giving his workers a good working environment with access to education for themselves and their children, a reasonable number of working hours and decent living conditions. He put these measures into effect successfully in the New Lanark Mills; the birthplace of the idea of “villages of cooperation”,

It is in the midst of such hardship that one figure stands out — Robert Owen. Born over two hundred years ago (1771), it is hard to say whether Owen was burdened with a tragic childhood, or a rather fortunate one. Owen was born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales, and was the fourth surviving child of a saddlemaker and ironmongerJJJJ. There is a predominant scarcity of information regarding his early years with his family, as he left home to travel to London when he was only ten. From his own written testaments it is possible to ascertain that he began his career, at the early age of seven, as the assistant and usher of the man in charge of running his school: Mr ThicknessJJJJ. The relationship lasted two years and, by the age of nine, Owen left school and began his apprenticeship in a 'superior shop for the sale of haberdashery and drapery' JJJJ in Newtown. He remained there for a year before he felt ready to seek his own fortune. It was the year 1781 when Owen departed towards London with nothing more than his parent's goodwill and a present of forty shillings. It would be in London where he would begin to read extensively on several topics -such as theology and philosophy- in his pursuit of the “true religion”, but that will be analysed more thoroughly further

The reason for this was to seek out what he had termed the “one true religion”. Alas, the search would only bring him to the conclusion that all religions are ultimately false:

"My reason taught me that I could not have made one of my own qualities, — that they were forced upon me by nature; — that my language, religion and habits were forced upon me by society; and that I was entirely the child of Nature and Society; — that Nature gave the qualities, and Society directed them. Thus was I forced, through seeing the error of their foundation, to abandon all belief in every religion which had been taught to Man. But my religious feelings were immediately replaced by the spirit of universal