Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (German: Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft) is a book written in 1880 by co-founder of Marxism Friedrich Engels, primarily extracted from his earlier book Anti-Dühring, particularly from the introduction and Part 3, Chapter 2. It was first published in France in 1880. The title Socialism: Utopian and Scientific was adopted for the English publication in 1892.

The book explains the differences between utopian socialism and scientific socialism, which Marxism considers itself to embody. The book explains that whereas utopian socialism is idealist, reflects the personal opinions of the authors and claims that society can be adapted based on these opinions, scientific socialism derives itself from reality. It focuses on the materialist conception of history, which is based on an analysis over history, and concludes that communism naturally follows capitalism.

Main ideas

The main idea of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is that there is a distinction between scientific socialism and utopian socialism. Engels begins by chronicaling the thought of utopian socialists, starting with Saint-Simon. He then proceeds to Fourier and Robert Owen. In chapter two, he summarizes dialectics, and then chronicles the thought from the ancient Greeks to Hegel. Chapter three summarizes dialectics in relation to economic and social struggles, essentially echoing the words of Marx.

Resource

• Marx and Engels: Basic writings on Politics and Philosophy

External links

• Full text online at Marxists Internet Archive
• Socialism: Utopian and Scientific public domain audiobook at LibriVox