Charles Fourier in the context of Guise

Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and economic theory that advocates for workers' control of the means of production, a free market made up of individual artisans, sole proprietorships and workers' cooperatives, and occupation and use property rights. As proponents of the labour theory of value and labour theory of property, mutualists oppose all forms of economic rent, profit and non-nominal interest, which they see as relying on the exploitation of labour. Mutualists seek to construct an economy without capital accumulation or concentration of land ownership. They also encourage the establishment of workers' self-management, which they propose could be supported through the issuance of mutual credit by mutual banks, with the aim of creating a federal society.

Mutualism has its roots in the utopian socialism of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. It first developed a practical expression in Josiah Warren's community experiments in the United States, which he established according to the principles of equitable commerce based on a system of labor notes. Mutualism was first formulated into a comprehensive economic theory by the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who proposed the abolition of unequal exchange and the establishment of a new economic system based on reciprocity. In order to establish such a system, he proposed the creation of a "People's Bank" that could issue mutual credit to workers and eventually replace the state; although his own attempts to establish such a system were foiled by the 1851 French coup d'état.

The Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals in St. Petersburg in the 1840s. It was organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky, a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. Among the members were writers, teachers, students, minor government officials and army officers. While differing in political views, most of them were opponents of the tsarist autocracy and Russian serfdom. Like that of the Lyubomudry group founded earlier in the century, the purpose of the circle was to discuss Western philosophy and literature that was officially banned by the Imperial government of Tsar Nicholas I.Among those connected to the circle were the writers Dostoevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin, and the poets Aleksey Pleshcheyev, Apollon Maikov, and Taras Shevchenko.

Nicholas I, alarmed at the prospect of the revolutions of 1848 spreading to Russia, saw great danger in organisations like the Petrashevsky Circle. In 1849, members of the Circle were arrested and imprisoned. A large group of prisoners, Dostoevsky among them, were sent to Semyonov Place for execution. As they stood in the square waiting to be shot, a messenger interrupted the proceedings with notice of a reprieve. As part of a pre-planned intentional deception, the Tsar had prepared a letter to general-adjutant Sumarokov, commuting the death sentences to incarceration. Some of the prisoners were sent to Siberia, others to prisons. Dostoevsky's eight-year sentence was later reduced to four years by Nicholas I.

"Utopian socialism" is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal and socialist societies that pursue ideals of positive inter-personal relationships separate from capitalist mechanisms. However, later socialists such as the Marxists and the critics of socialism both disparaged utopian socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of existing society. Utopian socialist visions of ideal societies compete with revolutionary and social democratic movements.

Later socialists have applied the term utopian socialism to socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century. They used the term as a pejorative in order to dismiss the ideas of the earlier thinkers as fanciful and unrealistic. Ethical socialism, a similar school of thought that emerged in the early 20th century, makes the case for socialism on moral grounds and is sometimes also disparaged.

George Ripley (October 3, 1802 – July 4, 1880) was an American social reformer, Unitarian minister, and journalist associated with Transcendentalism. He was the founder of Brook Farm, a short-lived Utopian intentional community in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, Ripley was pushed to attend Harvard College by his father and completed his studies in 1823. He went on graduate from the Harvard Divinity School and the next year married Sophia Dana. Shortly after, he became ordained as the minister of the Purchase Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, where he began to question traditional Unitarian beliefs. He became one of the founding members of the Transcendental Club and hosted its first official meeting in his home. Shortly after, he resigned from the church to put Transcendental beliefs in practice by founding an experimental commune called Brook Farm. The community later converted to a model based on the work of Charles Fourier, although the community was never financially stable in either format.

Socialism in the United States has encompassed various types of tendencies, including utopian socialists, anarchists, democratic socialists, social democrats, Marxist–Leninists, and Trotskyists. These movements trace their origins back to utopian communities that took root in the early 19th century, such as the Shakers, the activist visionary Josiah Warren, and intentional communities inspired by Charles Fourier. In the 1860s, immigration from Europe of radical labor activists, particularly of German, Jewish, and Scandinavian backgrounds, led to the establishment of the International Workingmen's Association in 1864 and the Socialist Labor Party of America in 1877.

During the 1870s, socialists of various tendencies actively participated in early American labor organizations and workers' demands to improve working conditions, as well as to officially recognize and practically implement the basic labor rights. These grievances culminated in the 1886 Haymarket massacre in Chicago, which resulted in the death of eleven people. One of the consequences of this tragic event was the establishment of International Workers' Day, which was proclaimed as a fundamental labor holiday. Apart from that, workers' organizations and socialist parties worldwide made the establishment of an eight-hour workday their primary objective.