UTOPIAN COMMUNES

The term Utopia comes from the greek therm ( "no, not" and (topos) "place", so literally would means nowhere) and indicates an ideal society that has to be reached to make a better world. In the early XIX century, the socialism born with his first school of though, The utopian Socialism with the ideas of Fournier, Saint-Simon and Robert Owen. This school of thought is different from the Marxian Socialism (Scientific Socialism) for the using the reforms to put the power in the Proletariat instead of doing a revolution. Robert Owen

Robert Owen, a welsh entrepreneur and philosophist, formed his philosophy with these theories: -No one is responsible for his will and his own actions and his whole character is formed Independently of himself. Owen was convinced that people were the product of their environment. Therefore supported the reforms of education and work and was a pioneer in promoting investment in human capital.

-all religions based on the examination absurd imaginatio, which makesa weak, imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic, or a miserable hypocrite (in despite his opposition to religion, towards the end of his life he embraced Spiritualism) -must object to the factory (factory system) and support craft (cottage system). NEW HARMONY He moved to USA after many contrasts with his partner in the management of the city of New Lanark, where he started to utilize his ideas to create a society. The city that he bought was also before an utopian society ruled by theosophical christian ideas. He wanted to create a perfect society wen believed that the community would serve as the model for the "New Moral World" communities that would follow New Harmony and eventually transform world society according to enlightenment principles Progressive experiments in education, communal living and science were attempted, and Owen brought to New Harmony some of the most progressive European educators and scientists. New Harmony provided equality for all its inhabitants, male and female. This manifestation of this equality was the responsibility of each citizen to contribute to the labor force of the community. In order to provide motivation for his workers in this system, Owen instituted a system of "time money" and "time stores". New Harmony currency was worth the amount of time that a worker had labored, and could be exchanged for commodities worth the equivalent amount of labor.

A time-dollar But this utopian project did not work because the people that had decided to move there are mismatched, and there were many quarrels between the factions; also their products were economically not profitable. ONEIDA The Oneida Commune was a religious commune founded in the omonimous place in New York and they were called Perfectionists His founder was John Humphrey Noyes (an american utopist) and he founded this community based basicallyon the bible and on the socialism with his ideas (and there

were many links between his ideas and the Plato's Republic, so I may suppose that he was influenced by the masterpiece of Plato) The doctrines were: 1) COMPLEX MARRIAGE - This is where every man and every woman is married to each other. They could engage in sexual intercourse, but could not be attached to each other as stated earlier. (2) MALE CONTINENCE - This was a form of birth control where during and after sexual intercourse the man could not ejaculate. (3) ASCENDING FELLOWSHIP - This is where the young virgins in the community were brought into the practice of Complex Marriage. The older godly members who were in a special group and were called Central Members would pick a virgin to be spiritually responsible for. This took place when the young people were about fourteen years old. (4) MUTUAL CRITICISM - In Mutual Criticism, each member of the community that was being reprimanded was taken in front of either a committee or sometimes the whole community to be criticized for their action. (5) CONFESSION - The members of the community, according to Noyes, were sinless after conversion, so no confession would be needed. (6) REGENERATION - That Christ's death was not for the sins of man, but was the first blow to Satan. But that by believing in the death of Christ, one was released from sin, because Christ destroyed the central cause of sin. By believing then, one is regenerated (Whitworth 101-102). (7) SEPARATION - The members did separate into a community, but their main separation was to be a sexual one. (8) REVELATION - Noyes never said that he received special revelation, though he did have some twisted interpretations. Noyes once wrote an article in "The Berean" and emphasized the credibility of scripture and denounced those who denied the validity and relevance of scripture. (9) EQUALITY OF THE SEXES - The Oneida Community believed in equality of the sexes as stated earlier. (10) MILLENNIAL KINGDOM - That the Millennial Kingdom had been introduced in A.D. 70 at which time Noyes thought Christ had made His Second Coming .

Life in the commune This project failed because when Noyes retired himself from the political life, he passed the leadership to his son (agnostic and not capable as his father) and for many constrasts this experiment failed.