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Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical perfect society. It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create such a society. The adjective utopian is often used to refer to good but (physically, socially, economically, or politically) impossible proposals, or at least ones that are very difficult to implement.
An utopia can be either idealistic or practical , but the term has acquired a strong connotation of optimistic, idealistic, impossible perfection . The utopia may be usefully contrasted with the undesirable dystopia (anti-utopia) and the satirical utopia.
The term Utopia was coined by Thomas More as the title of his Latin book De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia (circa 1516), known more commonly as Utopia . He created the word "utopia" to suggest two Greek neologisms simultaneously: outopia (no place) and eutopia (good place). In this original context, the word carried none of the modern connotations associated with it.
More depicts a rationally organised society, through the narration of an explorer who discovers it - Raphael Hythlodaeus. Utopia is a republic where all property is held in common. In addition, it has few laws and no lawyers, and rarely sends its citizens to war, but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbours.
It is likely that More, a religious layman who once considered joining the Church as a priest, was inspired by monachal life when he described the workings of his society. More lived during the age when the Renaissance was beginning to assert itself in England, and the old medieval ideals, including the monastic ideal, were declining. Some of More's ideas reflect a nostalgia for that medieval past. It was an inspiration for the Reducciones established by the Jesuits to Christianize and " civilize" the GuaraniThere are places that have the name Guarani in Brazil, see Guarani, Brazil The Guarani are primarily a tribal people indigenous to Paraguay and some regions of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. The Guarani are part of a large cultural-linguistic (the tupi-gus.
Particularly in the early nineteenth century, several utopian ideas arose, often in response to the social disruption created by the development of commercialism and capitalismCapitalism generally refers to a combination of economic practices that became institutionalized in Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries. Exactly which historic and current practices are considered part of "capitalism" varies among users of the term. These are often grouped in a greater " utopian socialistUtopian Socialism is the term for the first currents of modern Socialist thought. Utopian socialists never actually used this name to describe themselves; the term "utopian socialism" was introduced by Karl Marx and used by later socialist thinkers, to de" movement, due to their shared characteristics: an egalitarian distribution of goods, frequently with the total abolition of moneyGeneral definition of money Money is an agreement, between a community, to use something as a medium of exchange, which acts as an intermediary market good. It can be traded and exchanged for other goods. The agreement can either be explicit or implicit,, and citizens only doing workIn classical economics and all micro-economics labour is one of three factors of production, the others being land and capital. It is a measure of the work done by human beings. There are macro-economic system theories which have created a concept called which they enjoy and which is for the common good, leaving them with ample time for the cultivation of the arts and sciences. One classic example of such an utopia was Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. Another socialist utopia is William Morris' News from Nowhere, written partially in response to the top-down ( bureaucratic) nature of Bellamy's utopia, which Morris criticized. However, as time passed and the socialist movement matured, utopianism was discarded. Socialists grounded their ideas firmly in the realities of the age; among the different emerging socialist currents, Marxism became by far the harshest critic of utopian socialism. (for more information see the History of Socialism article)
Utopias have also been imagined by the opposite side of the political spectrum. For example, Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is an individualistic and libertarian utopia. Capitalist utopias of this sort are generally based on perfect market economies, in which there is no market failure—or the issue is never addressed. Some cynics see most economics textbooks as being nothing but stories of capitalist utopias.