Edward Bellamy's 1888 socialist utopian novel, Looking Backward, condemns the structures of capitalism. As the clergyman, Mr. Barton, argues above in the fictional year 2000, the citizens of the capitalist nineteenth century were not by nature more evil than their socialist descendants 112 years later. Rather it was the insecurity of the market economy, continually threatening financial ruin, that produced the selfish, anti-social behaviors that proponents of capitalism mistakenly believe are inevitable outcomes of human nature. Unlike Ayn Rand's novels, Bellamy's work has no great heroes, only reasonable people who argue that it is not human nature that makes capitalism so harsh but capitalism that presses men and women to be so harsh with each other.

Bellamy's novel describes a postcapitalist world that is not only egalitarian but also wealthier than the capitalism it supplanted. Economic well-being in any society depends on the production of goods and services that are ultimately useful to people.