9 - Report to the County of Lanark, Robert Owen, 1821

Summary

Owen's Report is a pamphlet addressing the problem of the general depression that followed the Napoleonic wars. Demand had collapsed, the markets were glutted, there was high unemployment. The poor rates had risen alarmingly, and Owen, like many others, was searching for a better remedy than the old Poor Law. He insists that it is a case of poverty in the midst of plenty; the productive capacity of the nation has increased greatly over recent decades, and yet the masses are in want. His diagnosis and recommended cure fall under three headings: a change in the monetary system; the adoption of spade cultivation; the setting up of model communities.

The change in the monetary system – or as Owen calls it, the change in the standard of value – is designed ‘to let prosperity loose on the country’ (248). Gold and silver have ceased to be satisfactory as the standard of value, for wealth has increased so much that the stock of bullion can no longer represent it. He thinks this became clear in 1797, when Britain went off the gold standard; but now the government is seeking to return to gold, with disastrous consequences. Owen proposes, instead of the ‘artificial’ standard of gold and silver, a ‘natural’ standard – labour. Each item should be priced in accordance with the quantity of labour that went into its making. The raw material component can also be valued in these terms, because it cost so much labour to obtain the raw materials.