Utopianism

[steve_bank]

My grandmother a devout Catholic would say people want heaven on Earth, but they are not going to get it.

Progressives seem to think they will achieve it witjh social engineering and enacting an ideology.


Russian and Chinese communism tried to do t by madatingan equality and eliminating capitalist competition.

Interesting how utopian groups have disputes over different versions. Kind of like Christians disputing over theolgy.

Utopia is an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens.

Utopian movements are attempts to create ideal societies through communal living, often driven by religious or philosophical ideals to escape social and economic problems, as seen in 19th-century American communities like the Shakers or the Oneida Community. These movements, which can be sectarian (religious) or secular, focused on cooperative living and challenged mainstream societal norms regarding property, gender relations, and economic activity. Though most communities eventually dissolved, they influenced later social movements and the cooperative movement.

List of American utopian communities - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A wide range of utopian intentional communities were founded across US since the 1800s. Several of them are active in the present day.

Harmonites dominated in the early 1800s.

Secular utopian socialism in the US during the 19th century included adherents of Owenism of the 1820s,[1] Fourierism (American Union of Associationists) (1843–1850), Icarianism (1848–1898), and Bellamyism of the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth (1889–1896).

As well, several anarchist communities were established in the U.S. These included Home, Washington (founded in 1898) and the Socialist Community of Modern Times, founded in New York in 1851.

Utopian socialism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen.[1] Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal and socialist societies that pursue ideals of positive inter-personal relationships separate from capitalist mechanisms. However, later socialists such as the Marxists and the critics of socialism both disparaged utopian socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of existing society. Utopian socialist visions of ideal societies compete with revolutionary and social democratic movements.[2]

Later socialists have applied the term utopian socialism to socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century. They used the term as a pejorative in order to dismiss the ideas of the earlier thinkers as fanciful and unrealistic.[3] Ethical socialism, a similar school of thought that emerged in the early 20th century, makes the case for socialism on moral grounds and is sometimes also disparaged.[4]

The anarchists and Marxists who dismissed utopian socialism did so because utopian socialists generally did not believe that class struggle or social revolution was necessary for socialism to emerge. Utopian socialists believed that people of all classes could voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it were presented convincingly.[2] Cooperative socialism could be established among like-minded people in small communities that would demonstrate the feasibility of their plan for the broader society.[2] Because of this tendency, utopian socialism was also related to classical radicalism, a left-wing liberal ideology.[5]