Utopianism

American publishers released more than 150 utopian novels between 1885 and 1900. The outpouring of literary descriptions of the ideal perfect social order betrayed a society uncertain of its future. Part of that uncertainty reflected the fear of cataclysm that accompanies the ending of a century. But the greatest contributor to this doubt was the rift between values and reality caused by industrialization. Labor conflict, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the displacement of farmers, and the growing concentration of economic power—all of which apparently refuted the principles of republicanism—left Americans aghast and seeking answers.

Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) was one of the most widely read utopian solutions for the troubled society. Placed in the year 2000, Bellamy’s perfect social order enjoyed an equality of abundance made possible by a nationalized economy. Universal public service guaranteed the production of goods and services. Education, rather than revolution, secured this ideal world, as its unselfish citizens recognized that it made more sense to cooperate and share (rather than compete and amass) surpluses resulting from efficient large-scale production and demanded the abolition of all forms of private property.

The road to utopian bliss was not so peaceful in Ignatius Donnelly’s Caesar's Column, published in 1890. Donnelly depicted late 20th-century America (the novel is set in 1998) as sated in luxurious splendor. But he has the main character, Gabriel Weltstein, a visitor from Uganda, discover that the grandeur is only a facade disguising a tyranny ruled over by Prince Cabano and the Council of Oligarchy. Their greedy despotism has enslaved the productive classes, reducing them into submissive “automata.” The repressive exploitation generates a revolutionary movement, the Brotherhood of Destruction, headed by Caesar Lomellini, a dispossessed farmer. The Brotherhood’s victory ignites an orgy of killing and looting. Concerned over the health threat posed by so many exposed cadavers, Caesar orders them placed in a cement column ringed with explosives. But once unleashed, the violence cannot be contained, and Caesar is killed and his head placed on a stake. All, however, is not lost, for Weltstein escapes the bloody chaos and returns to Uganda, where he establishes a harmonious society based upon government ownership of the factors of production.

Utopianism’s identification of private property as the source of greed and inequality and the progenitor of evil echoed the views of Christian communes founded before the Civil War. Most of those experiments in utopian communism ultimately succumbed to capitalism. The Oneida Perfectionist Community, renowned for its production of silver flatware, ended its experiment in communal property in 1879 by becoming a joint stock company. The longest-lasting religious commune, the Amana Community, reorganized as a joint stock company in 1932.

Utopianism’s rejection of private property also mirrored socialism. It differed from that doctrine, however, in that it had a clear vision of what might be, but only vague notions on how to achieve utopia. Socialists, whether Lassalleans or Marxists, suggested more concrete strategies for abolishing individual property.

Further reading: Sylvia Bowman, Edward Bellamy (Boston: Twayne, 1986); Martin Ridge, Ignatius Donnelly: The Portrait of a Politician (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

—Harold W. Aurand