Centuries ago, in 1516, Sir Thomas More wrote a book called 'Of The Best State of a Republic, and of New Island Utopia' describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean , possessing a seemingly perfect environment.
He derived a term called 'Utopia' basically, which means 'an ideal community or society'. Here, there will be a perfect socio-politico-legal system as well as the existence of people in complete harmony with one another and an ideal society.
More did not consider the place idealistic and it would never exist and it could never exist.
Utopia comes from an English homophone 'Eutopia', derived from the Greek 'good' and 'place'.
Whilst sitting at the beach the other day, Presley decided to bring up the topic of Utopia. A word familiar, but still unknown, we asked him to describe to which he did a particularly good job.
Sonya, a theorist in her own way, started to argue about whether Utopia could actually exist, her believing it never could... at least not with humans anyway. But Presley said it easily could... mainly if money was not existent in the world. He believed that money was pretty much the root of all evil, but there were other things for disruption in society as well.
The non existence of money could easily make for a Utopian society.
His theory goes something like this:
In a Utopian society, there will be absolutely no money. The society runs on a barter system.
People do what they are passionate about, and what they love doing and therefore they make the best of their talent and the best goods. So a musician, makes music for a living and an artist paints and so on.
Because we all would rely on the barter system, we'd live on our talent for other people's talents. So for instance, a farmer will farm because he loves farming and he'll provide people with food. In turn, he can listen to music, buy clothes from a tailor etc. all for free because they would precisely be doing the same thing as him.
Because we will all be doing what we love, from the time of birth, there will be no greed, no competition, no NEED to be better than the other. There will be no best doctor, best musician... there will be a lot of musicians, lot of doctors, lots of people who do what they love doing and because we were raised in a Utopian society, free of class and hierarchal structure we will feel no need to compare or be little people for our own good will.
Because we are raised free of these problems, there will be no crime. There will be no emotionally hungry people or crazy people, because they would have no family problems growing up. The basic necessity of a Utopian society, will be love and it will be easy to love one another.
There will be no laws, just basic rules, which a different spokesperson will bring to the society's notice every day/week/month. There will always be discussion, no fights and no one man's need over the other.
Finally, in a Utopian Society, man and woman will be treated equally. Everyone will die doing what they love doing. Maybe people will feel like sinning, but we're not sure about that yet.
God will most definately exist in a Utopian society.
This is pretty much the same theory as More's, except altered here and there. Utopia can't exist here on earth of course, but if a new world was created where the founders of Utopia raised new children in the Utopian way, then I believe it could exist.
I wish it exists.
[Thanks to Presley and Sonya]
7 comments:
I love this idea of a society where everybody can do what he wants and is passionate about. And if barter everything you need then there would be no use of money anymore and money causes a lot of problems in our society. Sometimes it would be better without it. I personally barter because I really like the old way of trading. You don't have to buy everything new it's nice to get rid of the stuff you don't need anymore and get something you want. Have a look at: www.barterquest.com. It's a free bartering website, I use it for 2 years now and it's so much fun!
damn if it existed i would be dead broke by thinking about making money from anything.
@Paras: LOL I'm sure that's not true at all :P
@Lydi: I'll definitely check out the website and visit your blogger too!
Interesting post! Theres a reason its called Utopia. Eliminating money might seem like the perfect solution, but theres always the question of class. Even with the barter system there is going to be a gradual distinction in class systems in society til it finally materializes into a concept that is similar to money, where there will be a solid class distinction. Its a paradoxical concept because Utopia is a complete denial of human nature, which will have its repercussions in the long term. By nature, we are not peaceful beings, trying to condition ourselves otherwise is close to impossible. Another concept here is that how happiness is subjective. Your Utopia and My Utopia may differ greatly. Makes you wonder how the justice system is going to function then..
Have a good day! =)
Very true that our Utopia's will indeed be different, and if I forgot to mention before, it's true that Utopia goes completely against what human nature really is today.
That having being said, if we all did what we wanted, and bartered what we were passionate about .. I feel there would be no class system or hierarchal structure. And the fact that greed and envy would not exist, would encourage my 'class-less' society further ...
Also, I disagree that there will be repercussions to be faced in the long term, because in Utopia that will be the only kind of life they know, not what we know right now.
Oh come on, does anyone honestly think a reversion to the barter system will magically make everything better? Quit eating the lotuses and open your eyes. Money exists for a reason. If everyone just "did what they were passionate about" we'd have a billion people painting bad paintings, writing bad poetry/music and maybe two people providing actual valuable services like healthcare and education.
This is economics 101, but apparently no one seems to understand that money provides a real, quantifiable value system. For example, you can buy a loaf of bread for a dollar. How much is a loaf of bread worth in, say, paintings? Two good ones? Five shitty ones? Suppose you're not a painter and that you actually do something useful for a living, say, poultry farming. How much is a loaf of bread in eggs? You'd have to draw up standards for exchange rates and get everyone to stand by them. From the perspective of the baker, there's only so many paintings/bad poems/eggs/whathaveyou that you'd be willing to accpet before you RAN OUT OF A USE FOR THEM. The Barter system was inherently flawed, which is why is was replaced by money. Money provides a readily accepted, negotiable store of value.
Furthermore, what would motivate people to do ANYTHING? Money is THE driving force for the overwhelming majority of human activity. Why? Because the real end towards which absolutely EVERYONE on earth strives to is leisure. LEISURE. As in sit on your ass playing Nintendo all day.
Eliminate money, and you eliminate the one thing that people can use to buy themselves leisure time. Also, I find this elimination of competition to be at best stupid and stifling, and at worst dangerous. So you don't have one excellent physician, but a slew of mediocre ones? Jesus fucking Christ, that's a terrifying thought. Also, competition begets invention. If there was no drive to do something better than someone else we wouldn't have a good number of the conveniences we enjoy today.
I find it hard to believe that in this day and age there are still people who believe that the elimination of money will actually work on any real scale.
Of course utopia in today's world is pretty unbelievable- no money, people chasing their dreams and (here's the kicker) peace love and unity amongst all. And yes, for a lot of reasons you mentioned... to a lot of people it probably looks like it wouldn't work.
But that's exactly why it's idealistic (which I mentioned right in the beginning).
And if it isn't obvious already, I'm a believer.
Comments highly appreciated though, thanks! =)
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