Why utopian socialism failed

Like most young people in the s and s, Ali completed high school and went on to further education, all of which had been made free as one of the earliest measures of the socialist government elected in A society without coffee shops would be a pretty poor excuse for utopia. Ali works at a community-run credit union.

The resurgence of credit unions followed the downfall of the global banking sector that dominated lateth century financial capitalism.

After the Second Global Financial Crisis of , and the long depression that followed it, no government anywhere was willing to risk giving financiers another chance to destroy the economy. Investment banks and hedge funds were shut down. Financial transactions taxes, of a kind first proposed by 20th century economist James Tobin , made short-term financial trading of all kinds unprofitable.

Commercial banking is once again dull and safe, as it was in the s, a refuge for unadventurous souls with a knack for figures. Tight regulation and the dominant role of publicly owned institutions have seen to that. Meanwhile, community banks and credit unions like the one where Ali works handle the finance of most families and small businesses.

The shift to a four-and-a-half day week beginning in was, amazingly in retrospect, the first reduction in standard working hours in 50 years, resuming a trend that had cut annual working hours in half between the mid 19th and late 20th centuries.

The trend was reversed by the massive work intensification of the s, referred to at the time by John Howard as a barbecue stopper. Despite predictions of ruin from the business sector, the reduction in output was quite small, and after a few years, was entirely offset by productivity growth.

Output per hour worked doubled over 30 years as a result of technological progress. Moreover, many of the wasteful and unproductive activities of the market economy have disappeared, so that the social value of production has increased even more. As the shorter working week was phased in, wage growth slowed down, but workers were still much better off than they had been during the early 21st century, when the benefits of productivity growth were less evenly distributed.

The change was so successful and popular that the next reduction to a four-day week met little resistance. The use of technological progress to improve work-life balance has been taken in other directions. When Sam and Ali had their first baby, they were entitled to three full years of paid leave, to be shared between them.

Cynics observed that Australia had only just caught up with conditions available in Sweden decades ago, but most new parents were just happy to have the chance to spend time with their children. Questions Badges Categories Users. Administrator Premier Asked on February 8, in History. Add comment. Votes Oldest. Administrator Premier Answered on February 8, Your Answer. Post answer. Edward Bellamy tells of a Rip van Winkle who wakes in the year to discover that Socialism has been established.

Bellamy's description of socialist society is probably the most developed expression of the social-democratic vision of social progress. By means of the futuristic device Bellamy does not present an isolated republic to the imagination, but a modern industrial world which has been transformed by socialist cooperation.

Looking Backward, , Edward Bellamy In the 20th century, H. Wells extended the Utopian idea through the new medium of Science Fiction. A Modern Utopia not only presents the virtues of socialism, but is a reflection on the tradition of Utopian socialism.

Full text of A Modern Utopia , H. Wells Utopian writing has also been used to promote other emancipatory visions, such as feminism.

Robert Owen set about putting Utopian ideas into practice by building a model township called New Lanark based on his own mills. Owen persuaded a group on the way to America to abandon their journey and come to work in his mill instead. The environs, the wages and conditions and the education provided for the children was more than a century ahead of his time. New Lanark is preserved as a tourist site.

Engels described Harmony Hall in the Chartist papers in Description of Recently Founded Communist Colonies. Between and , about 28 colonies were established in the United States by followers of Charles Fourier Le nouveau monde industriel , After the American Civil War the enthusiasm for secular utopian experiments waned.

Utopian religious communities continue to this day, usually short-lived, invariably centred around one powerful personality and his disciples, declining after his death. The Great Depression put millions of workers on to the scrap heap. Many became itinerant bums, others turned to petty crime, but many took the opportunity to build an alternative. In Australia and other countries where land was available, hundreds of Communes were set up, based on Communist ideals and a subsistence economy.