Summer 2025 readings: pre-Marxian socialism

(• required readings / + supplemental readings)

Liberal and socialist reading on late liberalism and early socialism:

Louis Blanc, History of the Ten Years 1830-1840 (1842)

Benjamin Constant, Liberty of the Ancients and Moderns Compared (1819)

Émile Durkheim, Saint-Simon and Socialism (1895-96)

Friedrich Engels, Condition of the Working Class in England (Labour Movement) [1845]

Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Utopian Socialism) [1880]*

G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]

Georgi Plekhanov, “Utopian Socialism in the Nineteenth Century” (1913)*

Plekhanov, The Initial Phases of the Theory of the Class Struggle — An Introduction to the Second Edition of the Russian translation of the Communist Manifesto (1898)

Background (secondary) reading on late liberalism and early socialism: 

Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 (1962)

George Lichtheim, Origins of Socialism (1969)

Joseph Seymour (Spartacist), “Marxism and the Jacobin Socialist Tradition” (1976)

Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station (1940) 

Week 1 6/7/25: Babeuf and Jacobin socialism

• Sylvain Maréchal, (1796) "Manifesto of the Equals" 

• Philippe Buonarroti, History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality (1828/36) selections: "Biographical Sketch of Buonarroti", "To the Reader", "Author's Preface", Part I pp. 5-36, 88-232

Supplemental:

+ French Republic Constitution of 1793

+ Buonarroti, History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality (1828/1836), Part I pp. 1-87, Part II

+ Gracchus Babeuf, (1797) The Defense of Gracchus Babeuf before the High Court of Vendôme
+ Herbert Marcuse, "Thoughts on the defense of Babeuf" (1969)

+ Auguste Blanqui, (1832) “Speech before the Society of the Friends of the People”

+ Blanqui, (1849) "To the Mountain of 1793! To the Pure Socialists, its True Heirs!"

Week 2 6/14/25: Henri de Saint-Simon

• Henri Saint-Simon, Social Organisation, the Science of Man, and Other Writings (1803-25)

Week 3 6/21/25: Charles Fourier

• Charles Fourier, from The Utopian Vision of Fourier: Selected Texts selections: I. First Proclamations, II. Commerce, Industry and Work in Civilization, III. Philosophy, Morality and Sex in Civilization and V. The ideal Community
  + Fourier archive at marxists.org

Week 4 6/28/25: Robert Owen

• Robert Owen, from A New View of Society and Other Writings
  selections: ("A New View of Society," "Observations on the Manufacturing System," "A Further Development of the Plan for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Laboring Poor," "Address Delivered at the City of London Tavern on Thursday, August 14th, 1817," "Letter Published in the London Newspapers of August 19th, 1817," "Address Delivered at the City of London Tavern on Thursday, August 21, 1817," "Address Dated September 19th, 1817; on Measures for the Immediate Relief of the Poor")
• Declaration of Mental Independence

Secondary reading:

+ William Benbow, Grand National Holiday (1832)
+ Owens, "On the Employment of Children in Manufactures," "An Address to the Working Classes"

Week 5 7/5/25: Left Ricardian socialism and Chartism

• Thomas Hodgskin, Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital (1825)
•  David Black, “The elusive ‘threads of historical progress’: The early Chartists and the young Marx and Engels” 
• Chartist writings, Selection (1833-55)

Supplemental:

+ Charles Wentworth Dilke, The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties
+ Bronterre O’Brien, Progress of Human Slavery (1849-50) (Chapter I, VII, and XV to end)
+ Thomas Carlyle, Chartism (Chapters 1 & 9)
+ Theodor Rothstein, From Chartism to Labourism (“The Chartist Movement” and “Appendix: 1848 in England”)

Week 6 7/12/25: Young Hegelian communism and Chartism

• August von Cjezkowski, Arnold Ruge, and Edgar Bauer (1841-44)
• Moses Hess, “Socialism and Communism,” “A Communist Credo,” and “Consequences of a Revolution of the Proletariat” (1843-47)

Week 7 7/19/25: Democracy and socialism

• Victor Considerant, The Principles of Socialism: Manifesto of 19th Century Democracy (1847) selections: Part One. The State of Society (complete); Part Two. The State of Opinion I. Study of the Great Divisions of Modern Democracy

Supplemental:

+ Louis Blanc, Organization of Labor [Selection TBD]