Other essays addressed Owenism, Chartism, the Chartist Land Plan, gender and autobiography, vegetarianism and popular journalism.
His thought was rooted in seventeenth century English "moral economy" ideals of “fair exchange, just price, and the right to charity.” "Utopian socialist” economic thought such as Owen’s was a reaction to the laissez-faire impetus of Malthusian Poor Law reform. Claeys notes that "Owen’s ‘Plan’ began as grandiose but otherwise not exceptionally unusual workhouse scheme to place the unemployed poor in newly built rural communities.
•
It was from this heady mix of working class trade unionism, co-operativism, and political radicalism in the disappointed wake of the 1832 Reform Bill and the 1834 New Poor Law, that a number of prominent Owenite leaders such as William Lovett, John Cleave and Henry Hetherington helped form the London Working Men's Association in 1836.
Owenism |
The late 1820s found her preaching from the pulpit of a little ‘Jacobinical’ chapel in Grub Street, and from there she moved to the platforms of Owenite co-operation, becoming, in her own words, a ‘good Co-operative woman’.