In 1765 Watt improved the steam engine, and the Western world entered the "era of big machines", which was an era in which industrial technology developed rapidly and productivity reached heights unattainable in the era of handicrafts. The development of science and technology has triggered social changes, the urban population has increased rapidly, the working group has begun to appear, and the contradiction between the people at the bottom and the big bourgeoisie has become more and more acute. It's time to explore a new social model...
The Era of The Great Factories (The Age of Great Pollution/The Age of The Great Machines) from the 1760s to the mid-19th century
"Squire" became the owner of the textile workshop, before the introduction of the machine, there were only more than a dozen workers under him, the scale of the workshop is difficult to expand, and after the use of machine production, the "squire" turned into a factory director, managed hundreds of workers, they only need to operate the machine, the daily output is hundreds of times before, high profits drive the scale of production to expand, sometimes a factory can have thousands of workers working at the same time. Machines replaced craftsmen as the most important part of the production work, and factory owners began to pay attention to machine performance and ignore the labor of workers. From the "age of big machines", the treatment of workers deteriorated: low wages, long working hours, poor conditions, so that workers often launched strikes.
Inside a factory in England in the 19th century
In 1810 in Scotland, also from the bottom of the commoners, a textile factory manager made changes in his factory: he attached importance to improving the working conditions of workers, reducing working hours under the premise of unchanged salary, from 13 and 14 hours in the industry to 10.5 hours; paying attention to keeping the factory environment clean and tidy, creating a comfortable workplace; workers' dormitories were clean and hygienic, creating two-bedroom dormitories with families as units, creating "kindergartens" for the children of workers, and even building new schools in the factory. Provide quality education for workers; actively green outside the living area, so that workers can relax and relax after exertion............
The reform of the factory was very successful, and after a few years, the enthusiasm of the workers increased greatly, the production efficiency was high, and they were very satisfied with this working environment; there was no alcoholism or fighting, no theft in the workers' dormitories... The change caught the attention of his peers and the mayor, who came to his factory to observe.
Robert Owen (socialist before Marx)
The Manager of the British Textile Mill is the father of the famous "modern personnel management" - Robert Owen. He wanted to improve the treatment of his workers not only because he came from a toiling mass at the bottom, but also to achieve his ideal of a utopian community of "public property, equal rights and common labor." Owen wanted to carry out social transformation on the basis of new and powerful productive forces, and later in his career he went from a "benevolent factory manager" to a "communist", advocating the abolition of private property and the establishment of a state in which wealth belonged to all the people... The intensity of his claims displeased the other capitalists, and the factory owners and celebrities who had previously been friendly to him began to alienate him.
Irving's Factory (Oil Paint)
In 1824, Owen transferred the factory, and he came to the United States from England with his relatives and some like-minded friends, and they bought 180,000 acres (about 12 square kilometers) of land in Indiana, planning to create an ideal society called the "New Harmony Commune". The New Harmony Commune "is a completely independent society, free from external influences and completely self-sufficient.
There are houses, hospitals, schools, courts, rural crops, workshops to produce daily necessities, all people in the commune work together and enjoy the fruits of their labor, children go to school free of charge, and patients seek medical treatment free of charge; adolescents over 12 years of age study and live in the form of half-time work and half-study, young people have different divisions of labor according to different skills, slightly older adults are responsible for leadership and management, and older people over 60 years old form a "constitutional team" to ensure the implementation and implementation of the Constitution.
New Harmony Commune
After the "New Harmony Commune" was reported by the media, it attracted the attention of the world, and many famous people, dignitaries, and academic figures came here to observe, and some people also personally joined the commune to feel the wonderful experience of the utopian world.
Looking at Owen's social experiments at that time from the perspective of modern people two hundred years later, we can conclude that this commune ultimately failed, after all, even the modern productivity of such advanced times can not reach the "synchronous prosperity of everyone, the distribution of resources according to needs", let alone the steam engine era two hundred years ago. The food production in the "New Harmony Commune" is single in type and quantity, it is difficult to distribute equally, the commune has a single level of personnel, cannot be competent for the technical work of the factory, no one is willing to take the initiative to do manual labor, and competes for the position of "idle"... Sure enough, the Commune suffered a deficit in the first year, and a deficit in the second year... Each time, additional funds were used to subsidize the loss until the fourth year of the capital chain was broken.
Marx's Communist Manifesto marked the formation of "scientific socialism."
Owen's ideals were shattered, but his beliefs did not die. He returned to England, coinciding with the upsurge of the workers' movement, and he actively promoted his ideas among the workers, which received a wide response; he also joined the trade union movement and continued to fight for the welfare of the workers. Marx's Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, embodies an amendment to Owen's "utopian socialism." Owen's social experiment brought valuable experience to the study of scientific socialism.