Social Values in Transition: 1789-1815, Alternate Visions :: American America History

Social Values in Transition 1789-1815, stick out VisionsSaint-Simon wanted to see scientists at the top of the political structure. He proposed the cerebration of a scientific priesthood of the Religion of Newton. Later he added industrialists and artists to the religion believe that emotions must be satisfied as well as reason. Francois Marie Charles Fourier wanted to liberate human nature. His theory was What makes work force happy? Their passions. What makes them miserable? The proscription of their passions. Therefore the legislator must create a society in which men and women can indulge their passions to the full yet safely and harmoniously. Even evil passions could be employed as butchers. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. In it he states, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are indue by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Tha t to warm these rights, establishment is instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government. That whenever any form of judicature becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . . . . Robert Owen built a model industrial community with decent hold for the workers, schools, sanitation, and non-profit making stores. In the factories he owned the working conditions were measured against the overabundant standards. They were almost humane. He was trying to improve the workers lot, while making a nice profit in the meantime. Owen may be regarded as the collapse of co-operative socialism. Thomas Malthus argued that any attempt to feed the starving masses but increased the masses and their misery. He believed that mathematical laws pre sided over human affairs. yet when he applied them to the procreative process, the results were glum. In his opinion the gap betwixt the supply of f eed and the number of people to be fed was fountain to increase, for population increased at a geometrical ratio and food at a arithmetical ratio. There was a bright side however there would be wars, famines, epidemics and so on. But that would not be enough.