NationStates Jolt Archive


Seeking Utopia

Ienotheisa
03-08-2004, 20:51
The vision of utopia is different for each and every person. For that reason, uniformity can never be other than a curse. That said, utopia is always a projection of current society into the future.

Extrapolating from modern consumer-capitalism, let’s build a utopia. Our view of happiness is generally in possessions; therefor, each person much be able to acquire whatever she/he wants, whenever she/he wants it. In order for this possibility to exist, something called a ‘post-scarcity’ society is necessary.

Post-scarcity simply means that the available resource-base is so vast that each person can claim an infinite amount of those resources without causing unbalance in society. The most plausible scenario where this could come to pass is a Star Trek “replicator;” a device which can turn energy into matter.

Unfortunately, there is still a limit, but a Dyson’s(or Stellar) sphere could solve this problem by harnessing all the energy produced by a star. This is an engineering work on the scale of generations. To put it in perspective, a typical Stellar sphere might house two trillion people, compared to the project maximum of Earth, at ten billion. (A Stellar Sphere is a shell built around a star, often at around the orbit of the Earth, or ninety-three million miles.)

This would lead to the end of society. Why? Because when a struggle is never needed, a struggle is never made. Such necessary and pleasure-inducing activities as eating and sex would become redundant. No new children would be born, and society would die off through overabundance. It’s an endgame that leaves our world intact, coated only with the death of our civilization.

Is that preferable to radioactive ash? Not from my perspective.

Now I’d like to extrapolate utopia from a communist society. It’s a much more difficult prospect, for functioning communism can’t be a consumerist society--and the definition of happiness is changed.

I’ll start with three assumptions for the original society; everyone is equal both socially and economically, there are limited resources, and happiness is not defined by possessions.

What is happiness in this society? It’s entirely personally, generally a mix between enjoyment of work and a balanced social life. If we add post-scarcity to the mixture, things don’t change that much; people still work, because it is part of their definition of happiness.

Under these conditions, post-scarcity doesn’t define utopia. How about immortality? It can never be more than a curse for any society, for resources are always limited in some way, and such a situation will lead to domination of resources by an elite, or the spreading of resources so thin that a mass die-off happens. No utopia here.

Perhaps the capitalist definition of utopia is communism. And as Karl Marx did with capitalism, there will always be those who see a better society. However, that doesn’t achieve my goal.

Communism is by definition international, so perhaps the first stage of communist utopia is to bring equality to the entire world. This is not a struggle that will last to eternity, however.

I propose that the second stage of communist utopia is personal happiness. It’s not very grand, by the standard of capitalist utopias, but grandness was never a valid factor. Happiness, and by personal fiat I’ll include sustainability, are perhaps the only valid measurements at all.

Let me refine my proposal then. To have a communist utopia, individuality must be promoted to the point where everyone can find their own way to happiness.
Free Anarcho-Communes
03-08-2004, 22:02
What you are describing is very much in line with the anarchist principles of socio-economic organisation. The fulfillment of material need is recognised as the foundation for a free society, and a free society is a happy, just and content society.

Furthermore, it is recognised that common ownership of the material wealth lays the foundations for the fulfillment of material needs. Happiness is not sought per se through the act of possession (as in capitalist ideology), or belonging (as in Marxist orthodoxy) but is largely achieved by putting into practice the axiom 'From each according to their ability to each according to their need'.

Anarchists recognise the manipulation and warping of desire in capitalist and state-communist regimes, either through the promotion/enforcement of mass consumerism (with its attendant advertising) or zealous/brainwashed obedience to the party mass (with its attendant advertising). In the process, the possibility of unfettered human interaction and negotiation, of love, equality and respect, is denied. We become willing participants in authoritarian subjugation.

The anarchist therefore simultaneously integrates and rejects both capitalist and communist positions in line with the Hegelian process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, instead positing that the autonomy of the individual is paramount to a free and content society, and that the interests of the majority of autonomous individuals are best served by collective and co-operative activity.

For a free humanity. For Anarchy.

Treena Greendale
Political Information Unit, Committee for Socio-Economic Development, FFAC