Cabet, Etienne

(1788-1856)

   socialist

   Born in Dijon and educated as an attorney, Étienne Cabet was an active Carbonarist (la Charbonnerie) and in 1830 took part in the insurrection against the monarchy. After the july revolution of that year, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. A founder of the newspaper Le Populaire, in 1832 he published his first work, Histoire de la révolution de 1830. Being forced to emigrate in 1834 for his attacks on the government, Cabet went to England, where he soon was influenced by the theories of the British Socialist Robert Owen. On his return to France, he published L'Histoire populaire de la Révolution française de 1789 (18 3 9) and his philosophical novel, Le Voyage en Icarie (1840 and 1842), in which he put forth the concept of a utopian and pacifistic communism. A supporter of the idea of community property, he accorded to the state a primordial role, charged with setting up the system in which, thanks to technological developments, the principle of "to each according to his needs" could be applied. In 1848, Cabet, with a large number of his followers, known as "icarians," immigrated to the united states to found communities based on his theories.