Socialism in Utopia

Thomas More’s Utopia is summarized in the following sentence: “Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them, that no person, either man or woman is ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice; they being led out often into the fields, about the town, where they not only see others at work, but are likewise exercised in it themselves” (77).

All the people are involved in “some peculiar trade” and “they wear the same clothes without any other distinction” (More 78). The government is called the Syphogrants and the only concern of these “lower officials is to take care that no man many live idle” (More 78). The inhabitants of Utopia “must employ” their leisure time in “some proper exercise according to their various inclinations”, mostly in “reading”, and attending “public lectures” (More 78).  According to Kumar “More’s Utopians are all housekeepers and husbandmen”, and “their communism is dedicated to a life of common labour and the homely pleasures of family life (50). It is the chosen “way of life” by the whole of the society (Kumar 50).

Society, in More’s Utopia, is a community that doesn’t make wealth important, but shares for the good of the society. Every job is seen as shared labor to see the society function, a system that every individual mutually willingly accepts.

More, Thomas. “Utopia.” The Utopia Reader. Ed. Andrew Claeys and Lyman Sargent, New York: New York University Press 1999. 77-93. Print.

Kumar, Krishan. Utopianism: Concepts in Social Thought. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. Print.