Since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ derogatory description of Robert Owen and his followers as ‘utopian socialists’ in the Communist Manifesto, they have traditionally been classed among those who denied that proletarian revolution was the chief means of achieving socialism, and whimsically imagined instead that mere spinning ‘duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem’ would suffice to persuade the bourgeoisie to abolish capitalism. The Owenites were certainly ‘utopians’ in the sense of aiming at an ideal or model society where behaviour has substantially improved and ‘enhanced sociability’ exists.