Bellamy's Looking Backward

1.What are the main characteristic of the utopia and dystopia ? Bellamy version of utopia comes out of two dominant traditions the first one being the eighteenth-century Enlightenment also ,known as the Age of Reason and Christianity. Bellamy envisions the new society as "the logical outcome of the operation of human nature under rational conditions."Looking Backward begins in a world setting of labor strike, low wages and unequal treatment to all citizens. Bellamy's had introduced the late-nineteenth century to the future that explored the ideals of social reform. The Nation which was organized as the greatest business corporation in which all other corporations were absorbed. It became the one capitalist. The economy in the utopia is based on publicly owned capital rather than private. Bellamy wanted his reader to understand the idea that an economy based on publicly-owned capital would enhance the characteristic that nineteenth century society admired most about their industrial system. The future utopia would be more efficient because labor would be idle, and supply would match demand. Shared labor helped create social order."The worker is not a citizen because he works, but because he is a citizen"(p.100). The presidents emerges as a general

Bellamy idea on future economic and technological developments were very realistic. He imagines goods being bought in centralized warehouses tied together in a complex, super-fast and efficient nation-spanning logistic system. This idea reminded me the idea of Wal-mart and Amazon and other big chain warehouses. He imagined the idea of telephones and purchases being made with something like a credit card. He has the idea of an "Access Cards" given to the needy to purchase food, medical care and other necessities and this reminded me of our warfare system and the idea of the EBT card for food to the low income