I've Heard They Don't Have Colors in Norway

The rise of Utopian thought in the 19th century appropriately preceded and in many ways appears to have led to the start of communist thought. We, the supporters of the free market and democracy still to this day face the ramifications of the liberal and socialistic ideas that were so offensively suggested by those liberal 19th century philosophers. Little did those men know that their papers would be the tinder for a destructive fire that would burn for the next 200 years. If those utopian socialists had just kept their mouths shut we could be so fortunate today to live in the perfect free market society that Adam Smith had envisioned. A world where the rich get richer and the poor get unimaginable poor. A world where old people are left die and fend for themselves once they inevitably run out of money. A world where economists find it efficient for citizens to die from disease because it is an efficient mechanism for population control. Imagine living in a world where everyone is just fending for themselves. Wait, this doesn't that good. I thought the free market was so supposed to be so great but the only people that would enjoy this world would be those rich people. It sounds pretty miserable for everybody else actually and therein lies my point. Our world would be one marvelously huge disaster without Utopian and socialist influences. However, our society wants you to think otherwise.

When I was in elementary school my classmates and I were read the book “The Giver” about once every year. My school was either suffering from a lack of communication or they really wanted us to remember this book. It was likely a combination of both. The main character of “The Giver” is Jonas, a 12 year old boy who is living in a Utopian society where “sameness” is developed so that everyone can be the same and everyone can be equal. Everyone wears the same tunic, lives in the same house, and all of them are perfectly happy and ignorantly content. The book takes a turn though on Jonas' 12th birthday when it is customary in the community to receive a job. The job he is assigned is a special job that they like to call, “the keeper of memories”. The job description is to learn about the way society was before the community was created and before “sameness” was instituted. He learns of colors, smells, music, and all of those wonderful “capitalist perks”. I always thought that this book was great but now this just seems like another example of how our society negatively portrays utopia, socialism, and communism. We are made to think from a young age and apparently once every year that utopia is impossible and communism is the devil. For so many people it is an all or nothing opinion but it doesn't need to be that way. Utopia, though unrealistic, is not an evil idea and the utopian socialists certainly wouldn't have ever created anything like the community seen in “The Giver”. When looking at the works of the utopian socialist and even those of the communists we need to realize that just like “The Wealth of Nations”, these writings need to be taken with a grain of salt. Now think again about what the world would look like if we followed the “The Wealth of Nations” word for word. Then, on top of that put an extremely negative spin on it. This is basically how we are shown socialism and communism in our society and especially in our schools. However if we read the works of the utopian socialists and the communists the same way we are taught to read other economists then we could realize that they were in fact incredibly important in the development of economics as a science and even more importantly as an applied science.

Economics is a social science that is very difficult to test and can only rarely be observed in the way it is actually written. Ceteris Paribus changes in the United States economy don't exactly happen very often and so economists theorize and analyze sometimes imperfect data. Socialistic economic ideas don't require ceteris paribus changes in variables. They don't really even require much economic analysis at all. This is because socialists see a world outside of economics and outside of maximizing surpluses and minimizing costs. They don't care about least cost producers or competitive markets. They care about people and in a subject that I often times find inhuman it is refreshing to hear about something that is a little more humanistic. Economics is in fact a science but too often economists get lost in all their equations and graphs and forget that they are dealing with human beings. The utopian socialists never lost site of the human side of economics.

Did the utopian socialists come up with more efficient models or groundbreaking new economic principles? Probably not, but they still played a vital role in humanizing a science that was getting a little too robotic. Our society bashes communism and socialism, yet we have hundreds of government programs and many that actually distribute wealth. Everyone doesn't agree with all of these programs but most people whether conservative or liberal seem to like social security. Most people seem to also think that “The New Deal” was helpful in getting us out of the Great Depression. Most importantly though, most people should realize that so many of the wonderful aspects of our country and government exist today because of the ideas of the utopian socialists and the dialogue that they started back in the early 19th century.

“I would rather live in New Harmony than in a society that was governed straight out of “The Wealth of Nations”.

Economics is a science and that is very important to realize when analyzing economic ideas and the thinkers behind them. It seems that often times economists get lost in their equations and their graphs and they lose sight of the human element. The utopian socialists never lost site of the human side of economics. I am not attempting to disvalue the contributions of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill or any of the early economists but, their writings are best thought of as economic literature and the ideas that they write about need to be taken with a grain of salt as well. I would rather live in New Harmony than in a society that was governed straight out of “The Wealth of Nations”.