[24] See also the work entitled: “An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth” (Chapters II and III), by W. Thompson, a disciple of Owen. On page 17 he says: “The unrestrained tendency of the distribution of wealth, being so much toward equality, excessive wealth and excessive poverty being removed, almost all the temptations, all the motives, which now urge to the commission of crime, would be also removed.” In general, the English socialists from the commencement of the nineteenth century (e.g. Charles Hall, Thomas Hodgskin, Charles Bray, and others) have had a notion, more or less clear, of the relation between the nascent industrial capitalism and criminality. Upon these authors cf. Quack, “De Socialisten” (Tome Supplémentaire), and Beer, “Geschichte des Sozialismus in England”, I. [↑]
[25] See his “Essays on the Formation of Character”; and “Reports of the Proceedings at the Several Public Meetings held in Dublin.” [↑]
[26] One of the laws which, according to Owen, should produce the change from modern society to the society of the future. [↑]
[27] Pp. 40–45. It is well known that Owen put his theories into practice when he founded the village of New Lanark. The disastrous consequences of industrial capitalism, such as excessive hours of labor, insufficient nourishment, unsanitary housing, the lack of education for children, etc., were diminished there or altogether avoided. Among the population of the colony, though originally alcoholized and demoralized by capitalism, little by little the favorable environment made itself felt, so that for nineteen years there was no judicial prosecution, and drunkenness and illegitimate births disappeared. (See Denis, “Le socialisme et les causes économiques et sociales du crime”, p. 283, and Quack, “De Socialisten”, II, pp. 279 ff.) [↑]