Lesson Five: The Origins of Socialism

7. Conclusion

In this unit, you explored how socialism developed as a reaction to classical liberalism.  Robert Owen, who established the first modern socialist community, believed that business owners benefitted from their workers' labour and should treat those workers well and pay them fairly.  Owen was seen as a utopian socialist who believed that the world would become a better place if socialist principles were put into practice.  Karl Marx proposed a revolutionary response to the economic, political and social practices of classical liberalism and influenced many forms of socialism.  Support for democratic socialism grew during the turn of the 20th century, and democratic socialists proposed that a democratic welfare state should evolve from the existing capitalist system, combining elements of democratic and socialist political and economic systems.  Equally important, during the Great Depression, more people began to look to socialism for solutions to the dire economic and social circumstances of their lives.