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Such fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when

the proletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but

a fantastic conception of its own position correspond with the

first instinctive yearnings of that class for a general

reconstruction of society.

But these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a

critical element. They attack every principle of existing

society. Hence they are full of the most valuable materials for

the enlightenment of the working class. The practical measures

proposed in them-such as the abolition of the distinction between

town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries

for the account of private individuals, and of the wage system,

the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the

functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production,

all these proposals, point solely to the disappearance of class

antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and

which, in these publications, are recognised in their earliest,

indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore,

are of a purely Utopian character.