Britannica
Sources used in this answer
How did John Goodwyn Barmby use the term communitarian?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
communitarianism
Chartist demonstration, Kennington Common, 1848; illustration from The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (1900) by Robert Wilson.
John Goodwyn Barmby, a leader of the British Chartist movement, coined the term communitarian in 1841. He used the word to describe utopian socialists and other individuals who engaged in experiments with unconventional communal lifestyles. Following its introduction, the term saw little usage for several generations before being revived in the 1980s to describe a distinct school of political philosophy focused on the common good.1