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The history of socialism finds its origins in the French Revolution of 1789 and the changes brought...

The history of socialism finds its origins in the French Revolution of 1789 and the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. Like the concept of capitalism, it embraces a wide range of views. The term 'socialism' is variously attributed to Pierre Leroux in 1834, who called socialism "the doctrine which would not give up any of the principles of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" of the French Revolution of 1789 or to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France, or else in England to Robert Owen, who is considered the father of the cooperative movement. Most socialists of that period opposed the dislocations brought by the Industrial Revolution. They criticized what they conceived to be the injustice, inequalities and suffering which the Industrial Revolution brought into being and the laissez faire free market on which it rested. Saint Simon, who is called the founder of French socialism, argued that a brotherhood of man that must accompany the scientific organization of industry and society. Proudhon pronounced that "Property is theft" and that socialism was "every aspiration towards the amelioration of society". Proudhon