Utopias
Why have the social experiments
known as utopias and communes
consistently failed?
Why utopias fail: Lecture
objectives
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Discuss why utopias fail.
Describe the tension states in Twin Oaks and
discuss why it and the Hutterites are more
successful than most utopias.
Describe phantoms as a propaganda device.
Contrast liberal democracies with utopias to
illustrate why liberal democracies are
successful.
What is a utopia?
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Utopia literally means “no place;” homophone
Eutopia means “good place”
Utopias tend to possess these characteristics:
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Economic: socialist (goods held in common)
Political: no government or benign authoritarian
(who acts in the community’s best interest)
Culture/Religion: A few promote a particular
religion (Hutterites; cultic groups); some literary
utopias promote secularism and science
The fate of utopias
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Most remain imaginary
Those that are built most often end within 5
years or less
Successful ones survive until the founder dies
Success defined as:
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Persists over time
Economic self-sufficient & viable
Other measures: member satisfaction & turn-over
Why do the fail?
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Most utopias have no checks and
balances on power (power accumulates
in a leader by design or fiat)
Most utopias fail to develop adequate
conflict resolution mechanisms (tend to
be ad hoc or authoritarian)
Most utopias do not have a means for
securing adequate resources
Imaginary Utopias
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Plato: Atlantis & The Republic
Thomas More: Utopia (satire)
Francis Bacon: The New Atlantis
Tomasso Campanella: The City of the Sun
Edward Bellamy: Looking Backwards
Samuel Butler: Erewhon (satire)
H. G. Wells: A Modern Utopia
James Hilton: Lost Horizons
Dystopias
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George Orwell: 1984 & Animal Farm
Aldous Huxley Brave New World
Anthony Burgess Clockwork Orange
Small group examples of utopias and
their fates: Brook Farm (1841-1846)
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Socialist and transcendentalist farm (Nathaniel
Hawthorne a member)
Stock Company where all members share the profits;
promotion of both intellectual and physical
development; limited equality of sex roles; based on
Fourierism.
Bankrupt – commune could not make enough to
survive; people with skills didn’t like working while
others did little or nothing; skilled people would leave
Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance, a fictitious
description of Brook Farm describes the story of an
anti-capitalist commune nonetheless destroyed by
the self-interested behavior of some of its members.
Example: Fruitlands (June 1843January 1844)
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Established by Amos Bronson Alcott – believed in the spiritual
essence of all things; the material world corrupted the good
Goal was to create a socialist utopia with no dependence on the
outside world (live off the land)
Vegan diet and no animals used in farming
Failed in winter due to food shortages (no technology to
produce goods) and social discord (over course of community
and celibacy & family duties)
Louisa May Alcott (daughter) wrote Transcendental Wild Oats
about her experience as a 10 year old in the commune:
 a bitter satire portraying her father figure as a dreamer and
her mother as the one who did all the work to meet worldly
needs like food and shelter.
Examples: Oneida (1848-1881)
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Founded by John Humphrey Noyes (autocratic, charismatic leader)
Self-supporting enterprise through a diversity of industries (farming,
silk production, animal traps and silverware).
Complex bureaucracy of 27 standing committees and 48 administrative
sections,
Mutual self-criticism (really leader control of members)
Complex marriage (all married to all) and open sexuality (at least 3
times a week with different partners); young boys and girls trained by
older women and men; controlled ejaculation to prevent pregnancy;
bettered yourself by having sex with the spiritually superior.
Some gender equality (woman must wear pants below short skirt)
Community declined because (a) young members wanted marriage and
(b) power struggle between Noyes’s son and other members for
leadership after J. H. Noyes fled on statutory rape charges
Oneida disbanded and formed the Oneida Company Limited – makers
of tableware until 2005.
Examples: Amana Community
(1855-1932)
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Based on Pietism (traditional sex roles; intense personal
relationship with God)
Communal theocracy: Elders elected who had absolute
authority; Christian Metz & Barbara Heinemann served as
original charismatic leaders
Socialism in that all profits went to the community, but goods
distributed within the community via capitalism (each person
received a credit from elders)
After death of Heinemann/Metz in 1883 community experienced
problems:
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Introduction of Christian Scientists
Youth desired fruits of the world
In 1932 group voted to abandon communism and establish its
church and a capitalistic corporation: Amana Refrigeration, Inc.
Three Utopias in detail
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Black Bear Ranch (failure)
Twin Oaks (somewhat successful)
Hutterites (most successful communist
regime in human history)
Black Bear Ranch
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Hippie commune in Siskiyou, CA
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Land paid for by Doors, Frank Zappa & The Monkees
“Free Land for Free People”
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Provide an alternative to American capitalism and
to spur the revolution
Everyone free to do their own thing
All things held communally
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Clothes shared; free love; shared child-rearing; everyone
did the chores
Black Bear Ranch: Problems
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Failed to make a living (despite façade of plowing the land)
 Dependent on women for their welfare checks
 (Note: gender roles became more equal per resource
dependency theories)
 Received funds from wealthy benefactors and community aid
 Commune became dependent on the technology and surplus
income and the compassion of the society they were
suppose to replace
Interpersonal jealousy
 Community rule that you could not sleep with the same
person more than 2 nights in a row
 This rule resulted in intense jealousy when people feel in
love
Black Bear Ranch: Problems
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Conflict with no conflict resolution methods
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New rules, authorities, and power coalitions emerge
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Ex: Artist (a founder) would leave commune for short periods to
paint; commune took care of her child; commune resented the
extra work; artist complained about how the commune took care of
the child; resentments that persist 25 years later
Shiva Lila (cult looking for the perfect child-care) was “asked”
(forced) to leave because others didn’t like their methods
Can’t sleep with the same person for more than 2 nights
No artists because that is individualistic and capitalistic
Internal coalitions fight for their way
Social consensus used to remove disliked people
Laissez-faire becomes authoritarian with a veneer of freedom
(Iron Law of Oligopoly)
Land still available to serve as a commune
Walden II as inspiration for
Twin Oaks
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Walden II by B. F. Skinner portrayed a rural
utopian community of:
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Culture based on Skinner’s behavioral principles
(although not described in detail in the book;
some practices actual conflict with his principles)
Economics based on Bellamy’s labor-credit system
(variable system where points are awarded based
on free market system of bidding for jobs)
Political system: Benign planners (Frazier) set
policy which was carried out by technical
managers; planners and managers selected by
past planners
Twin Oaks
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Located outside Charlottesville, VA
Established by Kat Kincade
Began as a Walden II community following Walden II principles
(planners, variable labor credits, science as cultural guide)
Economy based on low-skill level jobs of hammock making and
some farming plus routine housekeeping chores
Success: 40 years in operation, although it has not survived its
founder (but probably will)
Weakness:
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High turn-over rate (25% leave each year; average stay is 4-8
years)
Members show high rates of dissatisfaction and boredom; realize it
is “not utopia after all”
Show DVD
What happened to Twin Oaks?
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Power struggles and fights within the
community
Solution: evolve towards a capitalistic,
free market democracy
Twin Oaks had been criticized by other
communes because Twin Oaks has
“structure” as opposed to laissez-faire,
do your own thing philosophy
Twin Oaks: Political system
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Planners must seek “input” on all major
decisions from members (an informal
poll to reach consensus)
Members vote on budget allocation via
Tradeoff Game (each member allocates
a fixed set of points to various budget
items set by planners)
Managers still selected by competency
Twin Oaks: Economics
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Replaced variable labor-credit system with a fixed one:
everyone works a set number of hours a week regardless of
task
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Currently 53 hours a week
Community found it impossible to implement variable system
because people would game the system and there was no
reward for developing skills (if you could be replaced by
someone bidding lower than you)
Fixed labor system is like a capitalist system where everyone is
at minimum wage:
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Creates a “get credits” mentality
Work is not fun and fulfilling (major source of turn-over)
Source of resentment as you see others not working hard, so you
too don’t work hard (which in turn means everyone has to work
longer hours)
Twin Oaks: Culture/Social Life
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Behaviorism replaced by “New Age” and left-wing
ideology
Minimum restrictions on life-style within left-wing
framework (no support of GOP/Bush in community)
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Conflict over left-wing lifestyles (e.g. violent videos)
Conflict resolution:
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Planners on economic matters
Vote on major issues (violent videos; rewards for left-wing
protesting)
Informal ad hoc methods for lifestyle (community members
will mediate fights such as those involving sexual jealousy
when it threats the community)
How well does Twin Oaks
resolve conflict?
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List the sources of conflict in the Twin
Oaks community.
What is the source of Kat’s resentment
about the Twin Oaks community?
Why does the Twin Oaks community
resent Kat?
How can the resentments be resolved?
Common Utopian conflicts
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Work load allocation
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Free rider/social loafing
Resource allocation
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Short-term: what to spend resource on (e.g., which movies
to purchase)
Long-term: how much to invest/save versus spend today
Stratification
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Socialism has high economic stratification
Compassion
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Limited resources prevent spending on the disabled, elderly,
children and others not immediately contributing to the utopia’s
financial bottom line.
Utopia conflict continued
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Sexual jealousy (regulated by leader-only sex,
open relationships, early marriage, assigned
marriage, regulated sex)
Childrearing (parents vs. commune in terms
of resource allocation; parents as free riders)
Lifestyle (TV violence, room decorations, etc.)
Symbolic conflict (granfalloons get created
and argue over trivial issues that hide
underlying power struggles)
Power struggle for who is in charge
General solutions for conflict
resolution at Twin Oaks
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Persuasion & Compromise (Kat vs.
community is a zero-sum conflict that is
hard to resolve)
Community decision (current approach)
General conflict resolution
(cont).
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Expand economic pie (to lessen zero-sum aspect of
conflict) – but how?
 Work harder/longer hours
 Change Fixed Interval schedule of reinforcement
to either FR, VI, or VR*
 Reward innovation to create innovations that were
assumed to happen by fiat in Walden II*
 Assign tasks on the basis of skills*
 Education to develop higher qualified worker*
 Develop more complex economy based on more
complex skills*
 *leads to inequality
General conflict resolution
(cont).
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Develop social structure that allows for
individual goals to be obtained
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Savings accounts/retirement plans
Take on more work to secure opportunities to
travel, coffee, etc.
Patents and other rewards for innovation
Develop a “Bill of Rights” that makes clear the
communities responsibility to each individual.
Hutterites as most effective
communism regime
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Anabaptist community that follows the Book
of Act in communistic living
Economic successful:
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High population growth rate (due to birth rate that
is higher than rate of turn-over)
Surplus wealth used to create new communes
High rate of productivity due to
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High work rate (no free riders)
Innovation (from inside and outside the community)
Hutterite conflict resolution
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Religion as motivator and authority
Leaders selected by God (lot) from set of qualified leaders
Well-established norms* and socialization processes to
encourage obedience to authority and reduce individuality
Well-established social roles (types of workers) and gender roles
Homogeneity of values
High turn-over (50%)*
Low income expectations*
Family values (marriage approved by leaders)
Coercive punishment (leather strap for children)
Strong in-group/out-group boundaries (but does allows
economic innovation to diffuse into the community)
 *Used by Twin Oaks
Examples of utopias and their
fates: Nation states
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Ancient civilizations of Aztec, Mayan,
Egyptian, Mesopotamia etc.
 Worship of ruler as god would bring
peace and prosperity
Nazi
Communism (Soviet Union, China, N.
Korea, Cuba plus others)
Bin Laden’s Muslim Caliphate
Nazi: National Socialism
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Social Utopia: If we can just get rid of the
Jews, all problems would be solved
Economic Utopia
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National socialism was originally communism but
national (Arayan) not international in scope
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Volkswagon
Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria was to obtain
land for superior but downtrodden Arayans
National socialism morphed into kleptocracy and
corporatism (corporate power approved as long it
was used in support of rulers)
Communism as an utopia
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Social Utopia: If we can just get rid of
capitalism and create the new Soviet,
all problems would be solved
Implementation of communism requires
an autocratic regime, which then leads
to the growth of absolute power
Divergence of institutional power from
resource based power
Utopias as a propaganda
device
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Phantom alternatives
Utopia as a solution to RD and self-threats:
 1908 Springfield, IL race riot (racial purity phantom)
 Nazi Germany (Arayan supremacy phantom)
 Communist voters in 1950 in France and Italy were likely to
feel frustrated that their aspirations and expectations were
unfulfilled.
 In the 1980s, Yugoslavia suffered under mounting debt,
spiraling inflation, and high unemployment, leading to Serb
promotion of pure state
 Islamic terrorists tend to be underemployed for their level of
education and feel rejected and second-class before joining
their groups.[
 Timothy McVey and white supremacists
Scapegoat is invented to explain why phantom never comes
true
RD leads to revolution to bring
about a utopia
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Formula for revolution: Frustration (RD) plus
leadership and propaganda to channel
frustration into revolt
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Russian revolution: Attempts at modernization
failed, leaving workers and peasants increasingly
in debt
Chinese revolution: Massive population growth
increased poverty; little hope from treaty of
Versailles which transferred German colonies to
Japan
Why do Utopias fail when liberal
democracy and capitalism succeeds?
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Utopian laissez-faire turns into authoritarianism
Utopian authoritarianism is successful (in terms of gaining resources) to
the extent that a strong leader can direct an economy effectively and
still maintain power
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Utopian authoritarianism is not successful in terms of insuring
members’ liberty
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Such leaders are rare
When such leaders succeed, the commune typically collapses after the
death of the leader (in the subsequent power struggle)
No checks and balances on leadership
Absolute rules created to deal with human emotions (sexual jealousy, social
loafing & work load) are not flexible and thus limit liberty (e.g., perhaps not
everyone want to have sex all the time with everyone or no sex or take care
of others babies)
Utopias lack conflict resolution devices except for authority
Utopias fail to address the fundamental tension of human economic life
Fundamental tension in
human economic life
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Inequality (competition) and personal
responsibility are needed to motive
individuals to produce, achieve, and create
Inequality can create RD and perceived
injustices, which leads to dreams of utopia
and revolution and a failed social system
The fundamental issue for a society is to
create enough inequality/responsibility
to insure productivity but not so much
as to create revolutions
Liberal democracies with
capitalism succeed because:
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Constitution and rule of law place checks and
balances on power to insure liberty
Constitution and rule of law provides
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Means of determining rulers
Means of conflict resolution short of violence
Free markets of capitalism:
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Allow formation of resources (accumulation of power) to
insure productivity
Provides some checks and balances on the use of this
accumulated power – e.g., producers generally produce
what consumers want (if they can make a profit);
consumers can chose not to purchase some goods (i.e.
purchase healthy and ecologically sound products if they
desired these outcomes).
Liberal democracies through government
intervention can provide
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Additional checks and balances on capitalism
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Additional resources to spur economic development
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Teddy Roosevelt and trust-busting
Progressive era saw the development of FTC, consumer protection laws,
Interstate Commerce Commission, Food & Drug Administration, SEC, and
the rise of labor unions as a check on corporate power
Support for education and research
Support for entrepreneurship and small business
Setting social priorities (JFK to the moon)
Control of money supply
A means of addressing social traps such as the tragedy of the
commons (ignored by capitalism)
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Social traps occur when the behavior of an individual produces a small,
immediate positive outcome but results in a larger negative outcome after a
delay.
Enact laws on gas mileage, fat content of food, environmental protection
The controversy of
government intervention
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Democracies solve the economic tension by having enough
inequality to insure competition and personal responsibility but
not so much inequality to lessen creativity (no ability to develop
ideas from below) and to increase the need for revolution
But how to do this?
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Classical Liberals support capitalism and generally approve the
“can” do of government
Classical Conservatives also support capitalism but generally rely on
free market (save for control of money supply)
Extremists reject capitalism for kleptocracy with veneer of
capitalism (on the right) or socialism (on the left)
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Neo-cons of Bush administration reject free markets and replace it with
income transfer to supporters (e.g., Halliburton, Blackwater as private
army, export of jobs but not prescription drugs)
Communist rulers lived in luxury but the people had nothing
Liberal-conservative debate produces effective policy outcomes
What can we learn from failed
Utopias?
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“Human action can be modified to some
extent, but human nature cannot be
changed.” -- Abraham Lincoln
Man’s inclination to justice makes
democracy possible; but man’s capacity
for injustice makes it necessary. -Reinhold Niebuhr Christian Realism and
Political Problems
What’s next?
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Explore the Stanford prison experiment
as a:
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Replication of the autocratic treatment of
Lewin et al.
Understand the social processes that occur
in an authoritarian regime.