Editing Utopian socialism (section)

=== Robert Owen ===
Like Fourier, '''Robert Owen (1771-1858)''' considered his ideas hardly less than a product of divine grace. But unlike Fourier, Owen was a practical man, full of that spirit which seeks truth in nothing but the Deed. He owned a large New England textile factory, where he lowered the workday to ten and a half hours, provided education, and refused to employ children below the age of ten. To the shock of his contemporaries, improving the conditions of workers actually ''increased'' productivity. Like Fourier, the scale at which Owen's '''New Harmony''' Utopia operated was unmistakably that of the factory. For both men, the factory was taken as the highest expression of industrial capitalism, and was therefore the model and the scaffolding of their socialist projects.