Robert Owen in the context of "Draper"

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.

Socialism in the United Kingdom is thought to stretch back to the 19th century from roots arising in the English Civil War. It has taken many different forms from the utopian philanthropism of Robert Owen through to the reformist electoral project enshrined in the Labour Party that was founded in 1900 and nationalised a fifth of the British economy in the late 1940s.

The Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819 (59 Geo. 3. c. 66) or the Labour in Cotton Mills, etc. Act 1819 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which was its first attempt to regulate the hours and conditions of work of children in the cotton industry. It was introduced by the industrialist Sir Robert Peel, who had first introduced a bill on the matter in 1815. The 1815 bill had been instigated by Robert Owen, but the act as passed was much weaker than the 1815 bill; the act forbade the employment of children under 9; children aged 9–16 years were limited to 12 hours' work per day and could not work at night. There was no effective means of its enforcement, but it established the precedent for Parliamentary intervention on conditions of employment which was followed by subsequent Factory Acts.

New Harmony is a historic town on the Wabash River in Harmony Township, Posey County, Indiana. It lies 15 miles (24 km) north of Mount Vernon, the county seat, and is part of the Evansville metropolitan area. The town's population was 690 at the 2020 census.

Established by the Harmony Society in 1814 under the leadership of George Rapp, the town was originally named Harmony (also called Harmonie, or New Harmony). In its early years the 20,000-acre (8,100 ha) settlement was the home of Lutherans who had separated from their church in the Duchy of Württemberg and immigrated to the United States. The Harmonists built a town in the wilderness, but in 1824 they decided to sell their property and return to Pennsylvania. Robert Owen, a Welsh industrialist and social reformer, purchased the town in 1825 in order to create a utopian community, but it lasted only a few years.

The Cymru Fydd (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəmrɨ ˈvɨːð]; "The Wales to Come") movement was founded in 1886 by some of the London and Liverpool Welsh. Some of its main leaders included David Lloyd George (later Prime Minister), J. E. Lloyd, O. M. Edwards, T. E. Ellis (leader, MP for Merioneth, 1886–1899), Beriah Gwynfe Evans and Alfred Thomas. Initially it was a purely London-based society, later expanding to cities in England with a large Welsh population.

The founders of Cymru Fydd were influenced by William Ewart Gladstone, who himself lived in Hawarden, Wales, and the nationalist movement in Ireland, although the movement also drew upon other ideas, including a sense of imperial mission as preached by John Ruskin and a programme of social and political reform promoted by Robert Owen, Arnold Toynbee and the Fabian Society. This was therefore in stark contrast to Irish Nationalism, under Charles Stewart Parnell and others, which sought separation from British political structures. The movement resembled the cultural nationalism found in parts of continental Europe, and heavily influenced by members of the intelligentsia such as O. M. Edwards and J. E. Lloyd.

"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.

Josiah Warren (/ˈwɒrən/; June 26, 1798 – April 14, 1874) was an American social reformer, inventor, musician, businessman, and philosopher.

He is regarded as the first American philosophical anarchist; he took an active part in Robert Owen's experimental community at New Harmony, Indiana, in 1825–1826. Later, Warren rejected Owenism, giving birth to the Time Store Cooperative Movement (historically known as "Equity Movement"). His ideas were partly implemented through the establishment of the Cincinnati Time Store, followed by the founding of the Utopian Community of Modern Times. In his 1863 work titled True Civilization, Warren outlines his philosophy founded on the "sovereignty of every individual." In his subsequent development, Practical Applications of the Elementary Principles of True Civilization (1873), he proposes a decentralized hexagonal ideal city, drawing inspiration from J. Madison Allen of Ancora design. The city was supposed to be the antithesis of communism, being owned by cellular units while promoting equitable distribution and a system of time chits.