Robert Owen
1771–1858 · Libertarian Socialism · Known
Owen was a Welsh manufacturer who ran New Lanark, a cotton mill in Scotland where he cut the working hours and put the children into school to prove that people are made by their conditions. He turned socialist, set the cooperative movement going, and wanted land and machinery held in common. He attacked the churches and sank his fortune into New Harmony, a village of common property that broke up in two years.
Signature
The position Owen is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- strongly leans Collectivism
- Agency
- Social Determinism
Positions on the 13 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- strongly leans Collectivism (9 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- mildly leans Inherent (69 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- strongly leans Horizontal (97 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (19 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- mildly between Subjective and Objective (56 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- strongly leans Mastery (0 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (11 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- mildly between Ends and Means (44 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly leans Pacifism (34 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Conviction
- strongly leans Uncertain (9 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (75 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
7 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Owen refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Deism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Communal Order
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience / Naturalism
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Utilitarian Calculation
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Social Determinism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Cooperative Commonwealth
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Collective Will
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Revolutionary
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Human Nature
- Tabula Rasa
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?