Orwell’s caste system in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a grim echo of Plato’s ideas.
Utopian thought looks toward a social, political and economic organization for humanity that is self-evidently right to the people who live under it. Utopia is aspiration, planning and action directed toward attaining a more just society. But an honest contemporary utopian will recognize the impossibility of a final answer. To avoid the clear dangers of utopian ideals enabling oppressive regimes, she will aim for utopias that recognize human autonomy and liberty and the dynamic nature of human society. Sargent sums up this approach: “most utopias aim to improve the human lot not by repression but by enhancement, and as long as we do not aim for perfection or eliminate the possibility of change, such utopias can stand up to the all-too-prevalent dystopias of the present” (2006: 15).
Defining Utopian Political Thought
Sargent says, “dissatisfaction is the beginning of utopianism” (2010: 48). But utopian thought must do more than just point out problems. Political thought that merely critiques existing injustices provides no way forward. Utopian thinkers must provide a meaningful set of ideas that might be applied to contemporary society. We should always keep in mind that many things that once seemed impossible are now commonplace. Utopia does not arise naturally. Its creation represents an act of human will that creates a break in history. Consider More’s island of Utopia. The island was once a part of the mainland. It was severed from that connection by the order of King Utopus. What does this mean? Utopian thought and action require a separation from the mundane, from the existing world and its ways of life. Utopian thought seeks to open mental space for new and different understandings of how to organize our lives. In doing so it tries to expand the limits of what is possible and desirable by challenging political, social and economic structures that appear “natural.” So, in Agrarian Justice (1797), Thomas Paine tries to change the minds of his contemporaries about the meanings of property, merit and desert. Karl Marx makes a similar effort, working to fundamentally shift understandings about the relations of labor and capital.
Utopian political and social thought expresses itself in many forms. In some cases, an author will present a highly detailed picture of a non-existent but desirable society, as in Plato’s Republic or More’s Utopia. In other cases, the principles of a radically different and substantially improved society are presented within a critique of the present and an explicit plan for political action, as seen in the Communist Manifesto (1848) or Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom (1962). Situating utopian thought in this way, however, creates the danger of making pretty much every person who has ever advocated for political, economic and social change into a utopian theorist. Determining the difference between desire to reform or transform a society is a difficult task. Perhaps the best way to resolve this problem might be to consider various theorists in light of the questions and concerns that follow in this section. If a theorist addresses those questions and concerns with an eye toward what they understand as positive changes in the mindsets of individuals and in the ideas and institutions that support society, they might fit within the category of utopian thought. (Of course, since all such judgments are subjective, the final categorization of any particular thinker remains speculative.)
Utopian political thought might best be described as a series of questions. As Peter Stillman asks, “what conceptions of freedom, individual cultivation, and the moral or good life undergird a utopia?” (1990: 108). These basic questions naturally expand. We must ask, what is true human nature? What is true justice? What form of political and social organization will allow us to attain our shared goals? For example, how should property be distributed? How should the people be governed or govern themselves? What are the proper relations between men and women? How should children be raised and educated? How should a political community defend itself from internal and external threats? How should a society deal with social dysfunction and crime?
Utopian political and social thought embody efforts at creating or imagining a society that is substantially more just, more equal and more united (harmonious) than existing societies. The problem with such speculations is obvious. We must ask: justice and equality for whom? For example, Plato’s Republic has an equal ruling class and subordinate classes that are excluded from equality and unity (although Plato claims all classes receive justice).
Ancient utopianism, such as Plato’s, saw unity and equality as possible only among a small elite. Utopian thought in modern times, starting with Thomas More and moving forward to the present, has expanded the sphere of equality. However, this tendency has not ended disputes about just what equality should mean. The relationship between political, social and economic equality and the weight placed upon each make up key parts of modern utopian thought. The expansion of the sphere of equality is problematic because it works against unity. (It is manifestly harder to create unity in a large, diverse population.) Perhaps this explains why utopians from Plato to modern libertarians have seen utopian goals as obtainable only in small communities of shared beliefs.
If utopian thought seeks to establish freedom, we can also ask, freedom for whom? Freedom has been defined in many ways in utopian thought. For Plato and the ancient Greeks freedom meant the ability of the ruling elite to act as it saw fit. The concerns and desires of the great mass of people were immaterial. Thomas More and Gerrard Winstanley, among others, defined freedom as freedom from want and fear (expressed as having enough to eat and fulfilling work and security). Political freedom as we understand it – the ability to take part in communal decision making and actively consent to the actions of the state – was not of great importance to most classic utopian theorists. Even when they allow for elections and voting, as Edward Bellamy does in Looking Backward (1888), the self-evidently correct and successful principles of the existing society leave scant room for what we would consider political liberty. In light of this history, utopian thought now strives to establish what Erik Olin Wright calls “real freedom,” where “people have actual capacities to make choices that matter to them” and “they have access to the basic resources needed for acting on their actual life plans” (2010: 18–19). In doing so, contemporary utopian thought wrestles with one of the paradoxes inherent in freedom. Establishing equality, and therefore freedom from fear and want, requires limitations on political and economic freedom. Establishing greater political and economic freedom seems to create more inequality and more fear and want.
All utopian dreamers have a theory of human nature at the foundation of their work. They may not explicitly state a theory, but an explanation of human nature will be there. Why? Because you cannot describe, prescribe or critique human social and political relations without some idea of what people are really like, or what people really could be like. Understanding what human beings desire and why they do the things they do are key tasks of any utopian theorist. Perhaps the most obvious human desire is to be able to act freely to achieve self-defined goals. This does not equal advocating socially destructive individualism. But utopian politics must recognize the individual and accept the individual’s agency and value. Abstracting individuals into easily digestible and essentialized groups or symbols must be avoided. If “the citizens of utopia are grasped as a statistical population; there are no individuals any longer” (Jameson 2004: 39). It is all too easy to treat human beings as objects, as mere abstractions, to be moved about like pawns on a chessboard. Great reforms can be imagined more easily if we forget the human cost. It is much easier simply to express contempt and disdain for the “mob” or the “1 percent” than to face the claims of self-directing human beings on a fair and honest basis.
Utopian theory must also face the nature of political power and authority. Power must have purpose. Now, of course, the wielders of power might lie, both to themselves and the objects of their rule, about their real goals. But pure naked cynicism will fail. Those who wield or seek power must tell stories. They must provide a convincing narrative that supports their claims to authority. In the classic utopias this means a fully constructed story of community building, education and maintenance, as first seen in More’s Utopia.
Utopian thought addresses political legitimacy. Authority can be defined as the use of power by particular individuals that is accepted as legitimate by the objects of that power. Because of the general aversion toward politics