In the first two chapters of this book, I outlined utopias, future whole-society ones like communism and current, more micro within-society ones, economic and social. These utopias have socialist dimensions and involve collective ownership or control. In this chapter and the next two, I will concentrate on, and investigate in more detail, key themes from that discussion: utopianism, socialism, and economic democracy. In this chapter, I will focus on utopianism, especially on criticisms of it from Marxist and liberal points of view. Utopianism aims for somewhere better. Getting there, to the alternative society, requires change. This chapter focuses on limits to utopianism’s capacity for social change, according to its critics.

From one Marxist point of view, but not all as we shall see, utopianism is idealist and steps aside from material and conflictual dimensions of society and so undermines change. Utopia avoids or undermines engagement with material reality and conflicts that lead to change. But I think utopias can be material and conflictual and contribute to change. Materialist and conflict criticisms of utopianism can be answered from a materialist and conflict perspective.

I will also look at liberal and pluralist criticisms that utopianism is totalitarian, endist, and terminates diversity and change. Where utopia has been achieved, it seems totalitarian and against freedom and pluralism, because it implies that something different from the utopia is not possible or desirable. Furthermore, if the perfect society has been reached, then it is against change, because change is no longer required. But in my view, utopianism can be free, plural, and dynamic rather than static. Utopias do not have to be final ends. They can involve criticism and diversity, which lead to change and make utopias processes and not ends. So, utopianism can be defended against liberal and pluralist criticisms, with freedom and pluralist points of view rather than by rejecting such perspectives.

Utopias and change

Thomas More (1892) is credited with inventing the word ‘utopia’, the title of his 16th-century novel. It refers to components from ancient Greek that mean something good (eu) but not (ou) a place (topos).