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The Socialist ideals in Thomas More's Utopia. SYNOPSIS This essay argues that Thomas More's Utopia can be considered as a socialist work. It shows that the socialism in Utopia was based on More's attempt to solve the social problems of his time, but from a sense of justice, rather than by economics alone. Utopia's socialism combined modern socialist ideals, such as community property, pre-capitalist economic structures, and Mores own belief in Christian socialism. These are reflected in Utopia's advocacy of the abolition of private property, the complete destruction of the foundations of capitalism, the detailed creation of a planned economy reflective of state socialism, and the creation of a new social identity which merges the city and country. In writing Utopia, Thomas More was reflecting his concerns about the social structure of his society in the sixteenth century. At this time England was suffering from high unemployment, due in part from the enclosure of land, which led to poverty, hunger, laziness, and crime. Utopia was an attempt by More to find a solution to these problems, which he saw were very much tied in with the ideology and practice of capitalism, which was then in the process of developing. More's answer to these problems was to change the economic system from a capitalist based system, to one which can reasonably be described as socialist. In arguing that More's Utopia can be regarded as a socialist work, this essay will argue that its socialism derives from an attempt by More to primarily solve social problems, rather than as an economic solution to existing social problems. The essay aims firstly to attempt to define exactly what Utopia's socialism is made up of, and secondly to argue that it is constructed from a combination of an early form of modern socialism, a pre-capitalist economic perspective, and More's own attraction to Christian socialism. Thirdly, the essay will examine the socialist ideas in Utopia, such as the abolition of capitalism and money; the advocacy of a planned economy; the abolition of private property; and the integration of the city and country. Before discussing More's Utopia it is first neccessary to define the term socialist. For the purposes of this essay socialism is defined as a system for constructing the basic and fundamental beliefs of a society based on the ideas of: the needs of the community come before the needs of the individual; cooperation between all members of society, for the benefit of society, rather than competition between members; social inter-dependency of members rather than individualism; the universal control and ownership of property; and the equal distribution of resources based on need.1 This is combined with a commitment to democratic political processes, and where all citizens have equality of rights and duties.2 This is a modern definition of socialism, and is what is meant when the essay refers to the modern socialist aspects or ideas of More and Utopia. The socialism in Utopia is not entirely a modern one, in the sense that it is based on the mode of production, and simply changing this will solve all of society's problems, as is the case with Marx.3 It is an earlier socialism based more on ". . . absolute truth, reason and justice . . .".4 This is shown by Ames who argues that Utopia was a form of classical socialism, that tried to combine the ideas of a socially highly advanced urban civilization with a backward looking pre-capitalist society, where people "might live in, rather than against, society".5 This view is similar to Kautsky's who saw Utoipa's socialism as ". . . modern in most of its tendencies", but "un-modern in most of its expedients".6 These un-modern expedients, according to Kautsky, were maintaining the system of keeping people in specific handicrafts, compulsory bonded labour, frugality, and the limiting of human wants.7 Essentially, Kautsky is showing that the socialism in Utopia is one which is modern in its fundamental ideals, such as the abolition of money and private property, but is un-modern, as it has a reactionary view of returning to a pre-capitalist economic system. For More, the solutions to society's problems were more than simply changing the economic structure of society, so that Utopia's socialism was based on how the ideal society as a whole should be structured. Basically, by modern standards, it was a non-economic socialism.8 Utopia's socialism seeks a higher form of socialism, beyond the economic basis of modern socialism, where economic changes have a higher purpose than the purely economic.9 This higher form of socialism, as shown by Campbell, was a form of Christian socialism, believed by More, which was based on the voluntary practice of community of goods, and where the people voluntarily and willingly abolished private property, in order that all could share equally in the goods produced. Campbell uses the example of the Utopian's being attracted to the monastic life of Christianity, which they saw was very similar to their own, with its elements of, what he calls, religious communism.10 This was part of More's Christianity, in which he believed that existing institutions were partly responsible for the evils of the world, and that people were basically self-interested sinners.11 In Utopia, More attempted to solve this by creating a society that reduced this tendency to sin, by making the well being of the individual reliant on the well-being of society, and which itself was reliant on the work, behaviour, and willingness to obey society's rules of the individual. Utopian society was based on the idea that its institutions could only serve the people, if the people served the institutions and therefore the society as a whole. It is very much an organic view of society, where every part of the society, individuals and institutions, function as part of, and in support of the greater whole. In this way the Utopian society, based on a Christian socialist ideal, would be the best type of society as the people would have no need to sin, and would be able to live a virtuous life, because the institutions themselves would create the pre-conditions for this to happen.12 In Utopia, capitalism is seen as one of the main institutions that is causing so many problems for both individuals and society. It argues that poverty is created due to the actions and greed of a few, in order to enrich themselves, at the expense of the many. This is a clear attack on capitalism, and is one of the most fundamental criticisms of capitalism made by socialists. In fact More, through Utopia, even goes so far as to suggest that there is a conspiracy of the rich, who have structured society specifically to serve their own interests.13 This has clear echoes of Marx, who argued that the Bourgeoisie of his time both controlled the state, and changed social relations to suit its own purposes.14 Utopia's answer for this is to abolish the use of money altogether. It argues that by abolishing money, and therefore the desire for it, then the social problems it creates will also be abolished. Problems such as theft and murder as well as fear and anxiety will instantly vanish. The same will happen with poverty, as this itself is perpetuated by the use of money.15 In place of money the Utopians have a system of community of goods, where all the goods produced, and all the food produced, is sent to warehouses and then to shops. These shops are not commercial concerns as they supply their goods absolutely free. All the Utopians need to do when they need something is to go and ask for it, and it will immediately be supplied, without any kind of payment in money. It is the work they do for their society that in effect becomes the payment for these goods.16 Yet this is not to say that the Utopians do not use money at all, as they do in fact have large reserves of money. But this money is not used in their domestic economy, it is kept for use with other states. The money is seen by Utopians as community property, as is everything else, and is used by the Utopians for the benefit of the entire community. Its main purpose is as a form of protection or insurance in times of crisis or emergency, especially wartime, when it is used to either hire mercenary armies or to bribe enemies or the enemies of their enemies. The money is never used for the Utopians themselves, only as a resource to benefit the whole community and society.17 Hexter believes that More went beyond simply advocating the abolition of money, and argues that Utopian society ". . . destroys not merely money itself, but the very utility of money", through ". . . the methodical and complete annihilation of the foundations of a money economy . . .".18 He argues that there is no place in Utopian society where money can benefit anyone in anyway whatsoever, as the incentive to accumulate personal wealth has been removed by the structure of Utopian society. What he calls the two prime uses of money, the ability "to purchase immunity from labour and to acquire the paraphernalia of invidious distinction", are unavailable to Utopians as they only receive the necessities of life by working, or as Hexter states ". . . those who did not work did not eat, [ as ] . . . immunity of toil could not be bought with money or otherwise".19 Nor can invidious distinctions be created due to free universal education, communal property, and the free and equal availability of all of society's goods.20 These ideas, such as the undesirability of money and the advocacy of its abolition, can be seen to be a part of Utopia's modern socialist ideals, but which go beyond the simply economic, where they foresee the benefit to human nature, as well as the benefit to people's lives. Yet Utopia goes beyond the basic idea that by simply abolishing money many of society's problems will be solved. It advocates the creation of a fully planned economy, in a way that could be seen as an early form of state socialism. In Utopian society all are expected to work, with every person, male and female, taught farming from childhood. Everyone is expected to spend at least one, two year period, working on a farm. In fact, this is compulsory. Along with this, everyone must learn a trade, but the number of trades are strictly limited to those that are essential to the functioning of society. People can learn a second trade but only with permission, but must then work in whichever trade is then most in demand whether they want to or not.21 In this way individuals cannot simply choose which trade to practice as this could lead to an over-supply of one trade, and unemployment, and a shortage of workers in another, and therefore a shortfall in the neccessary goods for the entire society. Working hours are also regulated, where all must work a minimum of six hours per day. In fact Utopian society is strictly broken up into three, eight hour periods of work, recreation and sleep. The six hour working day ensures that there is enough work for all, while also ensuring that no-one has to work like a beast. The regulation of the economy extends to the compulsory movement of people around the island, to make up for population shortfalls if they occur in any city.22 These ideas show how Utopia combined both modern socialist ideas and a pre-capitalist society. Modern socialist thought is reflected in Utopia's idea of minimizing labour and maximizing leisure, where all work and contribute equally, and therefore share the burden of maintaining the society.23 Modern socialism, and its planned economy ideals, is further reflected through the regimentation of both production and the workers themselves, where what is produced is tightly controled and restricted, and by the subsuming of the worker into a national army of production to be posted where necessary.24 In spite of this, Pre-capitalist ideas are also retained, as shown by the retention of specific handicrafts. To make this planned economy work Utopia advocates the abolition of private property. The basis of its argument is that private property was the main creator of many of society's problems such as poverty and hardship, which in turn led to crime and violence. Utopia states this clearly by arguing that there will never be '. . . a fair distribution of goods, or a satisfactory organisation of human life, until you abolish private property altogether".25 In this way, Utopia links the notion of a fair and just society, with the idea of a community of property. This can be seen by the statement that ". . . you can never get any real justice or prosperity, so long as there's private property, and everything is judged in terms of money ".26 This shows clearly More's socialism in Utopia, where economics is seen as only a part of the problems of society. Utopian socialism foresaw a society which, when its property has been made to serve society rather than the individual, is then able to create the organisations and institutions that will allow for true justice and fairness. These ideas were much later echoed by Marx in The Communist Manifesto. In fact the idea of abolishing private property was not simply one idea among many in Utopia, it was central to the entire society it envisaged. As Hexter shows, More in fact went to great lengths in the book to defend the idea of a community of property. In his discussion with Hythloday at the end of book II, More argues the case for private property, but uses what Hexter calls a ". . . palpably silly and insecure, argument".27 Again in book I, More argues against the idea of a community of property, but then has Hythloday answer and defeat each of More's arguments one at a time. This leads Hexter to suggest that More deliberately had Hathloday defeat his arguments as he was deliberately ". . . setting up a straw man just to have it knocked down".28 Yet Hexter takes the argument even further, by arguing that More created objections to the idea of community of property, which were designed to support and strengthen the arguments in favour of abolishing private property. As Hexter put it ". . . he actually set up a straw man that he had already not only knocked down but utterly and completely demolished".29 This shows the importance More placed on the ideal of the community of property. But as with every other aspect of Utopia, this was not seen in just economic terms. For More, Utopia's community of property was based on his belief in a society built on Christian socialism, that is, a society where the needs of people are met by the community as a whole, and where a sense of justice, rather than economics, is the determining factor in human relationships. Utopia also proposes the merging of the towns and country so that they are integrated into a single social structure. This is achieved, as previously stated, by all citizens taking turns to work on the farms for a two year period. In this way the differences and distinctions between the towns people and the country people are completely broken, as essentially each person is both one and the other at some time in their life. In fact the integration of the towns people with the country side is virtually complete, as each are trained in farming from childhood. This creates what Berneri describes as ". . . a complete . . . identity between city and country workers . . .".30 In other words, the Utopians do not see themselves as either city or country people, but as an amalgamation of the two. This has similarities with modern socialisms ideal of a society made up of but a single class, where all belong not to a class or a group, but to a social order where identity is created through membership of the mass. This idea is also take up by Ames who considers that one of the most important aspects of Utopia is the abolition of the land-owning nobility, which makes it possible to merge the peasants and citizens. This he sees as allowing for the resolution of the conflict of inequality between the city and country, and is made possible, he argues, because of what he sees as Utopia's urban socialism.31 This is because in Utopia, even though everyone is trained in farming, the majority of the population lives in cities, while still sharing an identity with the country. This clearly reflects the pre-modern side of Utopia's socialism, where the identity of the modern urban dweller, is moderated by the ideal of the peasant peacefully tilling the fields. These sort of ideas were later taken up by Marx in The Communist Manifesto, who called for the ". . . gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country".32 The difference here however, is that where Marx wanted to abolish the peasantry, More seems to want to create something akin to an ubanised, educated, and enlighted peasantry. In conclusion, it can be seen that Utopia has much in common with socialist thought. The socialism in Utopia, unlike contemporary modern socialism, is not based mainly on the destruction of capitalism and the rebuilding of the economy on more egalitarian lines, though these ideas are a part of it. Utopia's socialism is an amalgam of modern socialist ideals, pre-capitalist economic structures, and Mores own beliefs of Christian socialism. The modern socialist ideas in Utopia can be seen in More's advocacy of community of property, which is fundamental to the creation of the Utopian society. This, along with the abolition of money, creates the necessary pre-conditions for the setting up of the institutions, which will allow people to build the highest form of society then imaginable by More. By choosing a pre-capitalist economic structure, More was envisioning a society that would not be wracked by the de-humanising affects of capitalism. It was a society where people could work within and for the community, with job security, rather than live in constant fear, anxiety and worry, which More saw were the hallmarks of the emerging capitalism of his time. All this was tightly interwoven with More's Christianity. More admired the ideals of Christian socialism, which to him meant that people willingly shared all that they had from a sense of fairness and justice, and where they chose to live a simple life, with only the basic necessities. These then were the fundamental ideas of Utopian socialism. Utopia was an attempt to solve society's problems from the perspective of what was good for the society as a whole. It tried to combine the best of the past with a new direction, a new way of structuring social relations that would ensure that all shared equally in what the world and life had to offer. By concentrating on society, rather than the individual, Utopia can be considered to be an early attempt at social engineering. That is, the deliberate and purposeful reconstruction of a social system that would not only solve the problems of the old, but would allow humans to create, if not the perfect, then at least a far better world than they curently inhabited. Karl Marx, centuries later, attempted the same thing, only from a somewhat different perspective, yet with the echos of Thomas More, clearly in his writings. ----------------------------------------------- ENDNOTES 1. B. Crick, Socialism, (Stoney Stratford, England: Open University Press, 1987), p. 29. 2. Ibid., p. 86. 3. J.H. Hexter, More's Utopia, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1952), pp. 66-67. 4. R. Levitas, The Concept of Utopia, (Hertfordshire, England: Philip Allan, 1990), p. 54. 5. R. Ames, Citizen Thomas More and His Utopia, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1949), pp. 99-100. 6. K. Kautsky, Thomas More and His Utopia, (New York, 1927), cited by J.H. Hexter, op. cit., p. 66-67. 7. Ibid. 8. J.H. Hexter, op. cit., p. 70. 9. Ibid., p. 71. 10. W.E. Campbell, 1930. More's Utopia and His Social Teaching, (London: Eyre and spottiswoode Publishing, 1930), pp. 140-145. 11. J.H. Hexter, op. cit., pp. 71-72. 12. Ibid., pp. 59-60. 13. T. More, Utopia, (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 130. 14. K. Marx, & F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto, (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, Books, 1967), p. 82. 15. T. More, op. cit., p. 130. 16. Ibid., p. 80. 17. Ibid., pp. 85-86. 18. J.H. Hexter, op. cit., p. 60. 19. Ibid., pp. 60-61. 20. Ibid., p. 61. 21. T. More, op. cit., pp. 70-75. 22. Ibid., pp. 76-79. 23. J.H. Hexter, op. cit., p. 68. 24. K. Marx, & F. Engels, op. cit., p. 105. 25. T. More, op. cit., p. 66. 26. Ibid., p. 65. 27. J.H. Hexter, op. cit., p. 39. 28. Ibid., p. 42. 29. Ibid., p. 42. 30. M.L. Berneri, Journey Through Utopia, (London: Freedom Press, 1982), p.70. 31. R. Ames, op. cit., p. 99. 32. K. Marx, & F. Engels, op. cit., p. 105. --------------------------------------------- BIBLIOGRAPHY Ames, R. 1949. Citizen thomas More and His Utopia. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Berneri, M.L. 1982. Journey Through Utopia. London: Freedom Press. Campbell, W.E. 1930. More's Utopia and His Social Teaching. London: Eyre and spottiswoode Publishing. Crick, B. 1987. Socialism. Stoney Stratford, England: Open University Press. Forman, J.D. 1972. Socialism: Its Theoretical Roots and Present-Day Development. New York: Franklin Watts. Hexter, J.H. 1952. More's Utopia. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Levitas, R. 1990. The Concept of Utopia. Hertfordshire, England: Philip Allan. Marx, K. & Engels, F. 1967. The Communist Manifesto. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books. More, T. 1965. Utopia. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books. --------------------------------------------- Online Reference: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~johnthorpe64/Utopia.html |