Utopian Socialism, Women’s Emancipation, and the Origins of Middlemarch

This chapter demonstrates that George Eliot’s investigation of the early, “utopian” socialists catalyzed the writing of perhaps the most iconic of all Victorian novels, Middlemarch (1871–2). The utopian socialists (as Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon, and their followers were increasingly known) frequently suggested that the transition to a new, nongovernmental social order hinged upon the emancipation of women. Their untimely calls for female liberation became newly salient with the coalescence, in the 1860s, of Britain’s first national campaign for women’s suffrage. This chapter’s reading of Middlemarch shows that socialist discourse provides Eliot a rich symbolic vocabulary with which to conduct her own novelistic investigation of the “Woman Question”—and to engage in a clandestine meditation on the claims of the suffragists. By incorporating socialist elements into her novel, Eliot could unobtrusively position herself in relation to the ideals and activities of this burgeoning movement—a movement in which a number of her closest friends were involved. Attending to Middlemarch’s socialist motif demystifies the novel’s shrouded origins and decodes a hitherto illegible record of Eliot’s proto-feminist aspirations which, like the early socialists’ own, were inextricably intertwined with skepticism about institutional politics. This chapter also provides a genealogy of “utopian socialism,” a category that has exerted a distorting influence on scholarship since Marx and Engels tarred their rivals with it in The Communist Manifesto.

Utopian Dreams in the New World and for the New Woman: the influence of Utopian Socialism in First Wave Feminism. The case of Marie Howland and Topolobambo’s Community = Sueños Utópicos en el Nuevo Mundo y para la Nueva Mujer: La Influencia del Socialismo Utópico en el Feminismo de la Primera Ola. El caso de Marie Howland y la Comunidad de Topolobampo

Resumen: El continente americano fue originalmente concebido como el lugar ideal para desarrollar proyectos utópicos. Este espíritu utópico renovó su impulso en el siglo XIX. El socialismo utópico y, en especial, el pensamiento de Charles Fourier inspiraron la creación de comunidades ideales en Estados Unidos y Latinoamérica. Marie Howland gracias a su novela Papa´s own girl, será la ideóloga y una de las creadoras y directoras del proyecto de ciudad ideal desarrollado durante el último cuarto del siglo diecinueve en Topolobampo, Sinaloa. Howland tratará de poner en práctica las ideas desarrolladas en su libro sobre el amor libre y la liberación de la mujer a través de un modelo comunitario de trabajo doméstico e independencia económica. Sus esfuerzos enfrentaron la resistencia de hombres que no estaban a la altura de la mujer nueva.Palabras claves: Nuevo Mundo, Comunidades Ideales, Socialismo Utópico, Amor libre, Independencia económica de la mujer, Marie Stevens Howland.Abstract: The Americas were originally conceived as the ideal place to develop utopian projects.. This utopian spirit renewed its energy in the 19th century. Utopian Socialism and, particularly, Charles Fourier's thought inspired the creation of ideal communities in the United States and Latin America. Marie Howland was the ideologue, and one of the creators and leaders of the ideal city project developed during the last quarter of the nineteenth century in Topolobampo, Sinaloa – following the publication of her novel Papa's own girl,. Howland tried to put into practice the ideas on free love and liberation of women through a community model of domestic work and economic independence that she developed in her book. Her endeavours faced the resistance of men who were not up to the new woman.Keywords: New World, Ideal Communities, Utopian Socialism, Free Love, Women Economic Independence, Marie Stevens Howland.

Czym była Marksowska krytyka ekonomii politycznej?

The present paper reconstructs the peculiarities of Marx’s critique of classical political economy. The first section recalls three main intellectual sources of Marxism: Classical German Philosophy, French Utopian Socialism, and English Classical Political Economy. The second section focuses on reasons why the Marxian thought has often been considered as passé. The third part shows that many examples of downgrading or even rejecting Marx’s propositions resulted from misunderstanding of the peculiarities of his method of investigation. Finally, the paper analyses possibilities of bringing back the Marx’s critique of political economy into scientific interests, for instance, in the form of modern crisis theory.