Socialism before Marx

A couple of weeks ago a few of us stayed after class to discuss pre-Marxist socialism. Generally, socialism before Marx falls into two categories: socialism from above and socialism from below. The main proponents of socialism from above were Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte. Saint-Simon was a Frenchman who wanted to preserve the progress of revolution without the mass uprisings and disorder. He advocated common ownership of goods, but did not believe in democracy. He was an authoritarian, and wanted a society ruled by experts working for the state. Comte, his follower, also thought that society should be managed by experts. His motto was order and progress.
Socialism from below, on the other hand, was mainly a British phenomenon. The Luddites in Britain broke the machines that they thought were displacing the traditional role of the craftsman. The most organized socialist movement, Chartism, had a network of small groups scattered across England, and even published their own newspaper to disseminate socialist ideas. This group presented the Great Charter to parliament in 1848 calling for universal male suffrage, secret ballots, and salaries for members of parliament.
Marx was very influenced by the Chartists, and his idea of socialism is closely aligned with their agenda. However, he rejected socialism from above: he thought workers, not the state, should bring about the communist revolution. He also wanted the workers, not experts, to rule the state. Marx also rejected Luddism and moral economy: he believed capitalism was a necessary step toward liberation, and that capitalist production and technology make people more productive.