MORE AND UTOPIAN SOCIAL THOUGHT
Shortly after the close of Middle Ages with its modicum of social
thinking, the idealism of Plato appeared in a new form, namely, in
descriptive utopias. Of these, the chief and subtlest was the work of
England’s sane, shrewd, tolerant student of society, Sir Thomas More
(1478–1535). More’s _Utopia_ deserves a degree of attention which is
not customarily accorded it.
More mediated Plato to modern social philosophy; he moved in the field
of Platonic ideas and ideals. He was also indebted to Plutarch’s
account of Spartan life. At the dawn of the Renaissance he presented
the concept of a perfect commonwealth.
If one would understand the social thought of More, a contemporary
of Columbus, he must put himself under the spell of fifteenth and
sixteenth century conditions in England. He must remind himself of
Henry VII and Henry VIII, two autocratic rulers whom it was difficult
for any individually-minded person to please. The living conditions
of the peasants were almost intolerable. Unemployment was common.
Punishments were severe and brutalizing. Even thieves were subject to
capital punishment. If an individual stole a loaf of bread, he might as
well kill the person who saw him steal the bread. In fact, by so doing,
he might be better off--the only witness to his theft would thus be
unable to testify against him.
Sir Thomas More could not have openly criticised the unjust social
conditions of his day, and long escaped death. It was necessary for
him to put his radical ideas into the mouth of a fictitious traveler,
Raphael Hythloday, and thereby disown them. At is was, More became a
martyr to his religious faith and to the cause of social freedom.
More wrote the _Utopia_ in two parts. Part one was written as an
explanation, or introduction, to part two. In part one a conversation
involving three persons is reported. A conservative Dutch citizen of
Antwerp converses with Raphael Hythloday, an experienced traveler, and
with More. Hythloday, however, is the chief speaker. He is well versed
in Latin and especially in Greek culture. Moreover, he has traveled
extensively, even with Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine navigator. In
this way he is given prestige in the mind of the reader. It is not
impossible in part one of _Utopia_ to recognize a distinct resemblance
to the dialogue form of Plato.
Part one describes certain factors in the political situation in
England. The untoward phases of poverty and the vicious forms of
punishment that prevailed are painted in gloomy colors. The reader is
glad to turn from this unpleasant social picture to the description in
part two of _Utopia_, where the people are living under well-ordered
conditions.
The ideal commonwealth is located on the mystical island of Amaurote,
where Raphael Hythloday lived for five years. On this island the
economic and social life is communistic, somewhat after the manner
of Plato’s _Republic_. It is a fundamental communism which More
postulates. Complete communism of goods exists on Amaurote.[X-1] All
possess equal portions of wealth. The Utopian communistic state implies
a radical change in human nature. More justifies communism on the
grounds that it roots out that serious social evil, covetousness.[X-2]
Likewise, the incentive for stealing and plundering is removed. If
there is a scarcity of economic commodities in any part of Utopia,
the surplus in any other part is immediately drawn upon to meet the
need. Thus the whole land conducts itself as if it were one family or
household.[X-3] The guiding principle in regard to economic goods is
that of human needs.
In Utopia everyone finds his greatest pleasure in giving to others. The
strongest league of peoples or of nations is not that which is united
chiefly by covenants or treaties, but one which is knit together by
love and a benevolent attitude.[X-4] The strongest league in the world
is that which is based on the fellowship of kindred natures--a genuine
Christian brotherhood of nations.
In Utopia, agriculture is the most highly respected occupation.
Agriculture is a science in which all Utopian men and women are expert.
In the harvest days the urban people, both men and women (farmerettes)
go out into the country and help gather in the crops.[X-5] Urban and
rural co-operation at harvest time solves the farmer’s employment
problems to the pleasure, good feeling, and advantage of all concerned.
The food question is considered of paramount national importance. The
agriculturist is equipped with the best tools and follows intensive
methods.[X-6]
In addition to agricultural science, every citizen of Utopia learns
at least one trade or craft.[X-7] Even every woman learns a skilled
trade. The advantages of learning a trade by every citizen are
obvious--they include a great increase in the potential industrial
resources of a people. The question may be raised here, if it would
not be a worth-while asset for every citizen in our modern days to
learn a trade. Such an accomplishment would give a sense of economic
independence to every individual; it would afford to everyone the point
of view of the skilled workman; it would add a gigantic potential force
to production.
In Utopia, there is one leader, or syphogrant, to every thirty
families. Although there are other officers, including a prince for
each city and a king for the island, the syphogrants are in reality
the leading officials. It is noteworthy that no public matters are to
be decided until they have been considered and debated for at least
three days. By this scientific procedure the necessity of rescinding
hasty legislative action is reduced to a minimum.
An important duty of the syphogrants is to regulate employment. Not
only is everyone in Utopia to have a trade, but all are to work.
There are no idle poor or idle rich. All rich men, commonly called
“gentlemen,” all women, priests, monks, and friars (except a few)
engage in productive labor. Even the syphogrants, or officials, work
spontaneously. All useless occupations are prohibited. In countries
where the dollar rules, there are many vain occupations which serve
only to augment riotous superfluities.[X-8] Thus, since all persons
work and since only needed occupations are permitted in Utopia, the
working day is shortened to six hours.
In the case of a season of unemployment, the simple device is adopted
of shortening temporarily the labor day. By cutting down the hours of
labor to four a day during an unemployment period, work is provided for
all. When an individual, it may be added, visits his friends, he works
the same as if he were at home. He sets himself to the task in which
his friends are engaged. No one in Utopia is encumbered with visitors
who sit about doing nothing and at the same time hinder their hosts
from productive activities.
The syphogrants prevent idleness; they also prevent overwork. They
permit no one to work at a task like a laboring and toiling beast; they
allow no one to become a slave to his labor.
Laws in Utopia are few in number. Inasmuch as all the people are well
instructed and socially minded, many laws are needless.[X-9] Each
citizen is above the law in the same way that an honest person is above
the law against stealing. In the case of those disputes which must
necessarily arise, the plaintiff and defendant go before the judge and
plead for themselves. Utopia is noted for its scarcity of laws and the
absence of attorneys. No crafty and subtle interpretation of laws by
attorneys is permitted. Every man is his own attorney and simply states
the facts in the given dispute; the judge knows the law and decides the
case.
The organization of the cities is interesting. In the middle of each
quarter of each city there is a market place for the exchange of all
manner of goods. Public _abattoirs_ are in operation. Splendidly
appointed hospitals are located outside the cities in a quiet
environment. Contagious wards are provided. So excellent is the care
which is afforded the patients in the public hospitals that any person
who falls sick prefers to go to a hospital than to be cared for by the
kindly ministrations of relatives at home. It may be noted that every
city is provided with a hall of fame.
Every urban community is a garden city; every house has a garden plot.
Furthermore, the people take much pride in their gardens; they compete
with one another, endeavoring to excel in the fruitage and in the
beauty of the gardens.[X-10]
City planning rules in Utopia.[X-11] Overcrowding is not permitted;
whenever a city exceeds the norm, a new city is established. New urban
communities are established by public action.
Social centers are common on the island of Amaurote. In the winter when
the people cannot work in their gardens after the supper hour, they
gather in their community halls, where they engage in music, wholesome
conversation, and games. Dice-play and similar foolish and pernicious
games are unknown.[X-12] Wine taverns, alehouses, “stewes,” lurking
corners, and places of wicked counsels are prohibited.[X-13]
Good health is a virtue in Amaurote; great pleasure is derived from
possessing a well-ordered state of public health. Health is considered
a sovereign pleasure in itself.[X-14] Preventive measures are
substituted for remedial medicines.
Fashions are regulated rigidly. Fashion imitation is prevented. The
garments for men are all of one mode; and for women, of another
mode.[X-15] The married are distinguished from the unmarried by the
style of wearing apparel. Thus, there are simply four sets of styles in
Amaurote. Coats of uniform colors--the natural color of wool--are worn.
It is argued that coats of many colors are no warmer and hence no more
practical than coats of the one natural color; they are more expensive
and hence more wasteful.
In Utopia, gold and silver are held in reproach. They are not
considered to be as useful as iron. Consequently, the Utopians load
down their slaves with gold and silver ornaments and pearls.[X-16] In
this connection the description of the visit of a group of ambassadors
to Amaurote is amusing. The ambassadors from an adjoining country were
dressed in gorgeous apparel like the very gods. They came to Amaurote
wearing chains of gold and displaying peacock feathers. The citizens of
Amaurote, coming out to meet the guests, rushed past the ambassadors
and saluted the plainly dressed slaves of the ambassadors. They mistook
the ambassadors for fools and knaves. Even the little children of
Amaurote, when they saw the jewelry of the ambassadors, looked at
their mothers and said: “See, how great a lubber doth wear pearls and
precious stones, as if he were still a little child.”[X-17] After being
in Amaurote a short time, the ambassadors perceived how foolish it was
to set emphasis on the doubtful glistenings of trifling stones. They
recognized that it is foolish to consider oneself nobler than other
selves because one can wear clothes that are spun from finer wool than
the clothes of other persons. After all, whether the wool is coarse or
fine, it may have come from the self-same sheep.
An individual does not become a god by wearing precious stones. The
more the individual burdens himself with heavy stones and gorgeous
apparel, the more insignificant he is.
Although in Utopia no man is wealthy, yet in a sense, all men are
wealthy. All live joyfully, without worrying, and without fearing that
they or their children will fall into poverty. Amaurote is a gigantic
household, wherein the more able take a personal interest in the less
able and in the unfortunate. No one lives in idleness and no one lives
by virtue of any form of unnecessary economic enterprise. Rich men are
not permitted by either private fraud or common law to snatch away
from the poor man some portion, great or small, of his daily earnings.
There are no idle rich, conniving how they may keep their unearned
wealth or how they may grind down the poor in order to get more wealth.
Since the love of money is unknown in Amaurote, other passions are also
absent. Since the people do not love money, they have lost the desire
to perpetrate the money crimes, such as fraud, theft, murder, treason.
Likewise, pride which measures its satisfaction, not in terms of its
own merits, _per se_, but by comparison with the poverty of human
beings, is destroyed. The Utopians have conquered materialism. They
are not subject to the death grapples which are caused by the love of
money. Luxuries have been suppressed and the leisure class has been
eliminated. Social extremes are unknown.
People are honored, not for their wealth but for their serviceableness
to the community.[X-18] In the halls of fame, to which allusion has
already been made, benefactors of the commonwealth are rewarded by
having images of themselves set up in perpetual memory of their good
deeds to their fellows.
The family is the fundamental social unit, but it is of the patriarchal
type. Pure monogamic love is idealized. Especial care is taken that
neither of the parties of a marriage vow possesses any hidden vices.
Adultery is the chief justification for breaking the marriage bond. A
single standard of morals for both husband and wife is set. Love may
be won by beauty, but it can be kept and preserved only by virtue and
obedience.
Because of freedom from long hours of monotonous labor, nearly every
one in Utopia is able to maintain his intellectual interests and to
experience intellectual growth throughout life. It is the solemn
custom to have daily lectures early every morning and it is the habit
of multitudes of people of all types to attend.[X-19] All of the time
that it is possible to spare from the necessary occupations is devoted
to the development and garnishing of the mind.[X-20] Nearly all the
citizens devote their extra-occupational hours throughout their lives
to the arts and sciences. The chief felicity of life is said to be
found in learning. In training the mind, the Utopians never weary.
As a matter of course, a common school education is provided for
every individual. Classes for adults and adult education are made the
outstanding features of the public school system in Amaurote. One must
learn to live and must go on learning throughout life. Hence, the
provisions of public education should be adequate for the adult as well
as for the adolescent.
Religious education and practice are considered essential. More’s
tolerant attitude in an age of brutal intolerance is shown by the
fact that the Utopians are permitted whatever religion they prefer.
Superstitious beliefs are taboo. More makes a subtle thrust when he
observes that the priests of Amaurote are possessed of great holiness
and hence are few in number.[X-21] It is no esoteric or monastic
religion which More endorses. Future happiness may be secured best by
busy labors and social efforts in this life.[X-22] Public service,
including the care of the sick, is religiously emphasized.
War is beastly. Contrary to the attitudes of the people in all other
countries, the people of Amaurote count nothing so inglorious as the
glory that is obtained in fighting and killing.[X-23] No imagination is
necessary in order to understand the courage which More displayed in
making a vigorous attack in the sixteenth century upon war.
Under limited conditions, however, war is justifiable. More gives
three worthy reasons for declaring war: (1) the defense of one’s own
country; (2) the defense of the country of one’s friendly neighbors;
and (3) delivering oppressed peoples anywhere from the yoke and bondage
of tyranny.[X-24] From the twentieth century point of view, these
justifications of war are sound.
These reasons are all “defense” factors,--which is remarkable in view
of the fact that they were enunciated in an age when “offensive” wars
were common. The only reason for assuming the offensive in matters of
war is the social one of taking land away from people who deliberately
withhold land from cultivation and fail to produce food for the
nourishment of mankind.[X-25] By this plan, More severely indicts the
holders of large landed estates which are held chiefly for the selfish
gratification of the owners.
Hired or mercenary soldiers are employed in war. The people of Amaurote
employ hideous, savage fighters from the wild woods and the high
mountains to do their fighting for them. The larger the number of these
impetuous barbarians who are killed in battle, the better off is the
world.
More opposed conscription. Ordinarily, no one is forced to fight,
because under such circumstances he will not fight well. In the case,
however, of defending Amaurote, the cowards are distributed among the
bold-hearted. In warfare, the people of Amaurote do not allow their
warriors to lay waste or destroy the land of their enemies. Neither
foraging nor the burning of food supplies is permitted. No one who is
unarmed is to be hurt.
More’s penological ideas are modern. He points out the folly of making
theft a capital offense the same as murder. The temptation will be to
steal, or rob, and to kill also, whereas under a more reasonable law
the temptation in many cases would be to steal only. A law which makes
theft a capital offense is harsher than even the harsh Mosaic law of
an eye for an eye, a life for a life, because the former justifies
the government in taking the life of an individual who is guilty of
stealing money. In Utopia the thief is compelled to restore the stolen
goods to the person from whom he stole, and not to the king, as in many
lands in More’s time. The thief is put at common labor, not thrown into
a city or county jail and left in idleness. Compulsory labor is the
common method of punishment.[X-26]
The fundamental penological principle which More developed was that
crime should be prevented by taking away the occasion of offense.[X-27]
He condemned the prevailing method in England of allowing wickedness
to increase, and then of punishing the sinners after they had been
permitted to grow up in an environment of sin. He objected to taking
men from the trades for war service and then later irresponsibly
discharging them, leaving many of them industrially stranded,
unemployed, and subject to the temptation of stealing. More’s dictum
was: Show people how to live; do not let them steal and then take their
lives away. Life in Utopia is more or less equally divided between
five factors: industry, study, music, travel, and domesticity.
In the _Utopia_, Sir Thomas More made a direct criticism of conditions
in England; he showed himself an able student of social problems; and
his ideas are noted for their “modernness.” Altogether, the _Utopia_
has made a remarkable impression, not simply upon social idealists but
also upon practical thinkers. As a literary invention for shrewdly
suggesting criticisms of vicious but entrenched social wrongs it has
been followed by imitations, but remains unparalleled in quality.
In the _New Atlantis_, Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1628), wrote an
unfinished description of a utopian island where there is a high degree
of social welfare and where “social salvation by scientific education”
obtains. An Order or Society of “Solomon’s House” is established
which sends out every twelve years merchants of light (intellectual)
who travel for the following period of twelve years, gathering facts
in all branches of science and art.[X-28] Upon being relieved by the
next group of traveler scholars, they return home and contribute their
knowledge to the acquired store, which in the meantime has been added
unto by many trained experimenters and research scholars. Airplanes,
horseless wagons, and submarines are not unknown in the _New Atlantis_.
Superstition is banished. Social knowledge will lead to a nation of
socialized persons,--this is the Baconian implication.
Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639), a monk, a philosopher, and an Italian
contemporary of Francis Bacon, urged that human nature should be
studied rather than books. Because of so-called heretical ideas, he was
imprisoned for twenty-seven years. Shortly after his release he fled
to Paris, where he died. In prison he wrote _The City of the Sun_, a
crude but significant psychological analysis of society. It is a social
order based on the balanced relations of the three principles of Power,
Intelligence, and Love. These forces are equally expressed in the
social process and produce a perfect society.
_Oceana_, “a Midsummer Night’s Dream of politics,” is the title of a
romance which was written by James Harrington (1611–1677). His social
order rests on economic factors, chiefly landed estates. However, the
author advocates the election of rulers by ballot every three years and
the choosing of the rulers from the intellectually élite.
In this chapter it is impossible to note all the “utopias” that have
been written. The utopian and communistic systems of socialists, such
as Fourier, Saint Simon, and Owen will be referred to in Chapter XIV.
There are other important utopian contributions, such as those by
William Morris and Edward Bellamy. In _News from Nowhere_, William
Morris (1834–1896), an English artist and socialist, describes his
native England as a perfected society under a régime of socialism.
Because of its American setting, Bellamy’s _Looking Backward_ will be
presented in some detail in the following paragraphs.
In recent decades the utopian postulates of Edward Bellamy (1850–1898),
in _Looking Backward_ and _Equality_ have had a wide reading. The
author was the first American to command attention in the field of
utopian thought. Bellamy presents a plan of industrial organization on
a national scale with individuals sharing equally in the products of
labor, or in public income, in the same way that “men share equally in
the free gifts of nature.” Bellamy protests against an economic order
whose chief evil is summed up in the following question: How can men be
free who must ask the right to labor and to live from their fellows,
and seek their bread from the hand of others?
Society is likened to a gigantic coach to which the masses of humanity
are harnessed, toiling along a very hilly and sandy road. The best
seats are on top of the coach. The occupants of the elegant seats are
constantly in fear of falling from their cushions of ease, splendor,
and power,--and hence their interest in the toilers.
In _Looking Backward_ the entire social process is made an expression
of service. Service is a matter of course, not of compulsion. No
business is so fundamentally the public’s business as the industry and
trade on which the livelihood of the public depends.[X-29] Therefore,
to intrust industry and commerce to private persons to be managed
for private profit is a folly “similar to that of surrendering the
functions of political government to kings and nobles for their
personal glorification.”
Buying and selling are pronounced anti-social. They are an
education in self-seeking at the expense of others.[X-30] Citizens
who are so trained are unable to rise above a very low grade of
civilization.[X-31] They are sensible chiefly to such motives as fear
of want and love of luxury. For buying and selling, credit books are
substituted which are good at any public warehouse. In place of higher
wages, the chief motives to activity are honor, men’s gratitude, the
inspiration of duty, patriotism, the satisfaction of doing one’s work
well--in other words, the same motives that now influence, for example,
the members of the teaching profession.
The arduousness of the trades are equalized, so that all shall
be equally attractive, by making the hours of labor in different
trades to differ inversely according to arduousness.[X-32] Everyone
works as a common laborer for three years and then chooses an
occupation--agriculture, mechanics, the professions, art. The working
life is twenty-four years long, from the ages of twenty-one to
forty-five, after which all may devote themselves to self-improvement
and enjoyment, but subject to emergency calls along industrial and
other social service lines.
Bellamy challenges an individualism which incapacitates people for
co-operation. He builds his society upon solidarity of race and
brotherhood of man. He does not fear corruption in a society “where
there is neither poverty to be bribed nor wealth to bribe.”[X-33]
All cases of criminal atavism are treated in hospitals. There are no
jails. Under capitalism nineteen-twentieths of misdemeanors are due to
economic inequality. The remainder are the outcropping of ancestral
traits. In Bellamy’s ideal society there are no private property
disputes and no lawyers.
The educational system in _Looking Backward_ does not educate some
individuals highly and leave others untrained.[X-34] It gives everyone
“the completest education that the nation can give,” in order that
individuals may enjoy themselves, in order that they may enjoy one
another, and in order that the unborn may be guaranteed an intelligent
and refined parentage.
Bellamy holds that human nature in its essential quality is good, not
bad, and that men are naturally generous, not selfish; pitiful, not
cruel; godlike in aspirations, moved by divine impulses of goodness,
images of God and not the travesties upon Him which they have
seemed.[X-35] It is our economic order which has fostered shameless
self-assertion, mutual depreciation, a stunning clamor of conflicting
boasts, and a stupendous system of brazen beggary.
In three utopias, H. G. Wells portrays societary conditions that
are kinetic rather than static and world-wide rather than local in
scope.[X-36] While the author provides a changed economic system,
socialistic in nature, he urges that changed social attitudes are also
needed.
In the utopian social thought that has been presented in this chapter
and in similar works which are not mentioned here there is generally
displayed (1) a common weakness of impracticability under current
circumstances, (2) an over-emphasis upon simply changing the economic
order, and (3) static rather than dynamic principles. The strength of
utopian social thought is found (1) in its drastic criticism of current
social evils, (2) in its relative harmlessness at the given time, (3)
in the force of its indirect suggestion, (4) in the widespread hearing
which it secures, and (5) in its social idealism.