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The eighty-seven years of Robert Owen's life can be divided into two phases, each as extraordinary as they are extraordinarily different. In his first four decades Owen rose from obscure origins and small fortune to become one of the classic success stories of his age, and a pioneer in a field, cotton spinning, that helped greatly to propel Britain toward industrial supremacy. By 1817 Owen could boast a substantial fortune. His name opened palace gates and ministerial doors throughout Europe. He enjoyed wide respect as a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. But during the second half of his life Owen's passion for benevolence led him to expend his fortune, to defy respectable public opinion, and to herald a "new moral world" of economic and social justice, security, and equality in which poverty would be abolished for all time. He became a prophet, socialist, cooperator, secularist, feminist, and trade union organizer. At his death Owen was widely regarded as among the most influential opponents of unrestricted laissez-faire in an age still reluctant to concede the limits of the doctrine.
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