A Comparison Of Utopianisl Society In Thomas More's Utopia

In Thomas More’s Utopia, an ideal society is presented, and several of this society’s different institutions are detailed. I will compare More’s version of an ideal society with Marx’s vision of what a conflict free communist society would be. I will examine the societal system as a whole focusing on the hierarchy of Utopia, the process of production, distribution of resources, and money.

The hierarchy of society is a crucial in a discourse of utopianism and communism. Note that I am distinguishing utopianism from communism. From Marx’s point of view, communism is scientific, realistic, and probable. The decision-making apparatus of Utopia is very democratic in nature. This is something certainly to be applauded and in keeping in touch

The last important item when it comes to the Utopian system is money. There is no money in Utopia just as communism is a moneyless society. The Utopians also do not fetishize precious metals like gold and silver. In the current technological state, gold presents very little utility, and they treat it as such. What the Utopians exactly say is “But Nature granted to gold and silver no function with which we cannot easily dispense. Human folly has made them precious because they are rare.” Marx was critical of the fetishizing of metal monies and the role they overtake in the social relations of people. Utopia certainly takes the character of a communist society. It meets the criteria of a moneyless society where the means of production are held in common ownership. It is certainly not the communism of Karl Marx though. The grey areas present in whether Utopia is stateless and classless do not allow me to be comfortable in dubbing More’s Utopia a communist society. More importantly though Utopia was not conceived out of a class struggle between the bourgeoisie class and the proletariat class in capitalism. Capitalism itself was in just its early developments during the lifetime of Thomas