Talk:Étienne Cabet

article
Note: Unaware of you writing the same article I wrote the following text about Cabet:

"Étienne Cabet, 1788-­1856, was a French philosopher and Utopian Socialist, who coined the word 'communism'. In 1831, he was elected into the chamber of deputies, but due to his bitter attacks on the French Government he was sentenced for treason and fled to England. Influenced by Robert Owen, he wrote the book Voyage et aventures de lord William Carisdall en Icarie (1840) which depicted an ideal society in which an elected government controlled all economic activity and supervised social affairs, the family remaining the only other independent unit. The book was very popular and some of his followers built an utopian society based on the ideas in the book in Red River, Texas. Soon the society's property became valuable and the community decided to split it between the inhabitants and the society collapsed. Cabet moved to Illinois, where he died shortly after."

I think: A) That the information that his followers created the society and that he moved there a few years afterwards is important and should not be ommitted,

B) That it is important to mention his (ideological) relationship with Owen and

C) That he coined the word "communism" in his book.


 * (D) it is bullshit about property

Are you sure? I've read it at several places.


 * (C) Did you see it there?

I haven't read the book, so I'm relying on other sources. Unfortunately it was more than a year ago that I learned it. Who did you think coined the word? What is the oldest reference to that word that you are aware of? Do you have any reason for not accepting that Cabet coined the word?


 * (B) Agreed.
 * (A) It was not so. Please read the link I provided.

I claim that the link is either mistaken or too simplified.


 * Thank yoiu for your cointribution. As you may have noticed, I merely copied part of what you wrote. But please be more diligent when writing into encyclopedia and try to confirm information from several sources. There is lots of bullshit floating over the net lately.
 * Good luck! By the way, why don't you get yourself a user name? It is convenient in many respects. Mikkalai 00:18, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure I will edit many articles here in the future. I just thought it was important to mention the man who coined the word communism. In my opinion too many people equal communism with marxism or even stalinism. I'm no communist, but I think communism should be criticized on its own merits and not because marxism is a pseudoscience (as I think it is). (I am a kind of anarchist socialist though).

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See also these links:

http://30.1911encyclopedia.org/C/CA/CABET_ETIENNE.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/C/Cabet-E1t.asp

http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/cabet.htm
 * I merged the two articles here unaware of this debate. I hope you can sort this out. Rmhermen 00:42, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

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I also found this link:

http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/communalism7.htm

It seems Mikkalai was right about (D) at least.

Communism
I didn't find any direct evidence that Cabet actually used the word "communism" in my long search. Unfortunately I haven't seen the book inself, only quotations. All references in this respect are secondary and mostly indirect. What is more, Cabet's idea of "communauté" is closer to what is now called communitarianism – a bit too overwhelming supremacy of majority, which was IMO the reason of demise of Icarians... Mikkalai 18:57, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that I've read that Cabet invented the word &laquo;communisme&raquo; in French, and that Marx got it from there. You'd have to ask a student of political science or history to find a good source for the little pamphlets that got passed around in the early 19th century, which is where such ideas and terminology would have been distributed. Avt tor 09:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, what made the Icarians assimilate into society generally was just technological change. They (we) weren't Amish, they believed in progress, which required education and modern skills, which weren't all encompassed in a small population descended from 1840s-era migrants. There were no barriers to marrying out, but the French language, communitarian living, and physical isolation were significant barriers to marrying into the community. Avt tor 09:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Influenced Karl Marx?
The text claimed (until I removed it just now) that Cabet's "communitarian ideals (based on the Golden Rule) later influenced Karl Marx and others." While Cabet was certainly an influential figure in his day, I can't think of any influence he had on Marx or Engels. According to Hal Draper, "Cabet is not discussed [by Marx and Engels] along with these great innovators [i.e. Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen], for, coming in the wake of the great three, he rigidified the utopian side without opening new critical vistas. Marx, Like Engels, paid little heed to Cabet as a thinker; he mentions Cabet's name more usually as an example of the ready-made system, the negative side of utopianism." (Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Vol. 4, 2011, p. 4) Leszek Kołakowski is explicit: "he had no influence whatever on Marx, but helped to acquaint French readers with the basic values of communism." (Main Currents of Marxism Vol. I, 1978, p. 214) --Ismail (talk) 10:13, 25 March 2020 (UTC)