Communism

Socialist ideas in the modern sense came to be articulated by the Physiocrats or the economists who were making enquiries into production and distribution of food and goods. Étienne-Gabriel Morally, the Utopian thinker, in his Code de la Nature ( ), denounced the institution of private property and proposed a communistic organisation of society. He was the precursor of various schools of collectivist thinkers in the nineteenth century who are categorised as Socialists. Francois Babeuf, a political agitator of the French Revolutionary period, felt that the Revolution in France did not address the needs of the peasants and workers, and argued in favour of abolition of private property and for common ownership of land.

Utopian Socialism The earliest socialists in Europe were not revolutionaries. They proposed idealistic schemes for cooperative societies, in which all would work at their assigned tasks and share the outcome of their common efforts. The term “Utopian Socialism” was first used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to describe the ideas articulated by the socialists before them. Utopian Socialists recommended the establishment of model communities, where the means of production would be collectively owned.

They promoted a visionary idea of a socialistic society, devoid of poverty or unemployment. Their influence led to the establishment of several hundred model communes (communities) in Europe and