The Philosophers: The Plot Against Civilization 111-118

 Our chapter is about the growth of Socialism and instead of talking about the Jews, we are going to get some actual historical information…well, we shall see about how much true information we get—but it is a step up to read an entire page and not read that she’s blaming the Jews. This section is called “The Philosophers” and we begin with Robert Owen.

Owen was a textile factory owner and philanthropist who believed in “the proper housing of the workers, the better education of the children, and indeed of the whole population by the inculcation of ideas of thrift, sobriety, and cleanliness, brought about a complete regeneration of the town and excited universal admiration.”

Those words were from Webster, and from what I can discover, she’s right. Owen operated a factory where the wages and living conditions were improved from the average factory worker at the time. This factory at New Lanark in Scotland paid its workers with tokens that were only useful in the factory store (in the US coal mining towns these were called “Scrip”), Owen’s factory was different. The typical policy of the factory owners was to pay in truck tokens and then sell the tokens at an exorbitant markup. Owen’s company bought goods wholesale and then sold them slightly above at cost. He experimented with communal living in the US, was an atheist, and innovated the co-op system for trade.

That’s the broad strokes, Webster claims that he swept aside the fallacious theories of the French Revolution; but I don’t know what theories she speaks of. She’s mentioning this as though we will nod along and keep reading.

Webster’s goal is to poison every good idea that Owen may have had as being anti-socialist, anti-French revolution, and pro-Semitic. What’s going to be difficult for her, and a problem which still vexes modern conspiracy theorists, is to take ideas like free education for children and somehow spin them into being non-Socialist ideas or bad ideas. In the United States right wing politicians have chosen the latter—demonizing programs like free lunches for school children or healthcare as being communist plots. This is the effect of writings like this book.

The first thing Webster tries to do is take a weird direction, “Socialists are fond of declaring that ‘the upper classes’ are perfectly indifferent to the welfare of the workers, and that nothing but revolutionary agitation will rouse them. The history of Robert Owen provides a striking instance to the contrary, for it was amongst the so-called upper classes, dukes, bishops, statesmen, even crowned heads — for the Czar Nicholas I visited him in person — that he received his principal support.”

Ooh, the fallacy of tokenism. See, Socialists should shut up because rich person once supported a socialist. This is what her argument is, but let’s back up a bit. Owen’s business operation was unique and it attracted some attention. People who visited his factory had favorable opinions of the operation but unless that translated into action it’s similar to the CEO of The Gap looking at the operation of Patagonia and nodding that it was a good idea. This is American Eagle CEO Dov Charney asking for a universal garment workers minimum wage and the rest of the industry thinking it’s a good idea but then never doing anything different.

What Webster leaves out is that the wealthy supporters of Owen were investors. People, including Owen, profited off his program…and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Webster thinks that socialists should point out this conflict as though it means that the idea is bad. This is the same claim as American Senator Bernie Sanders has two houses; it’s a red herring and means nothing. She seems to think that Owen conducting his socialist reforms in capitalism shows that capitalism is supposed to be superior if that were the case then why do we need the reforms Nesta? He drew attention because he was treating his employees better than anyone else and educating their children in a system that viewed those actions as revolutionary. She’s leaving out every other of the owning class that was paying their workers in tokens that could only be used to purchase heavily marked up goods. As long as you ignore the system that created the conditions Owen was responding to, yes it looks like everything was fine.

What people like Webster can tolerate is someone like Owen doing his thing, but only as long as he’s the one doing it. If he begins to publicly advocate for helping other people, then he’s clearly in the occult grip of the Illuminati. She quotes from Owen’s biography to show how disdainful of the system he was. He was supposed to stay in his lane and shut up. He can do what he wants but he can’t impugn the system as being bad—that’s illuminati talk. You can feed the poor all you want, but if you start asking why the poor need to be fed, you’re automatically the enemy.

An interesting point we must understand is that Webster can make these attacks without resorting to conspiracy theorizing. If she wants to say that religion and aristocracy are the best forms of government, she can, and it would probably sound less loony than this. Owen and Weishaupt were arguing for the same thing (Paine as well, she throws him in there); that the rigid forms of social control are harming society; they are doing it independently of each other. They are able to because the problems that they see have the same cause. For those like Webster this is impossible that two people in different cultures would draw the same conclusion, there must be a hidden hand at work.

The section devolves into a strangely cruel attack on Owen’s attempt at communal living. I say this with no prior affection or knowledge of Owen. It just comes across as mean. They all seem to have failed because of mismanagement and the inability of the different members to get along. I do not know enough about it to hypothesize why these failed.

What I can say is that she’s pulling the old trick of attacking a socialist reform, and then later calling communism a failure. The two aren’t the same, and perhaps Owen’s system failed because there was no permission for private ownership.

An odder point that Webster makes is her attempt to attack Socialism for its opposition to profit sharing. The Co-op business which is something that Owen innovated in his company store at New Lanark, shares the profits among the workers. I have never seen an argument which opposed the Co-op on Socialist grounds. Even her footnote that claims Owen hated the idea doesn’t make the case that he ever did. Her definitions don’t make sense either, “whilst Communism aims at the concentration of Capital in the hands of the State or of communists…”

The state is the communists in this system because unlike the aristocratic system that Webster loves so much, the people make the state in democratic systems.

“…Co-operation aims at the extension of Capital by distributing it amongs a larger number of individuals.” The system she describes here is called “socialism” the thing she hates so much, “And all experience teaches us that through Co-operation, not through Communism, lies the path to industrial peace.”

Honestly, I think I’ve read more of this book than she has.