In the “utopian approach” it is suggested by anthropologist Daniel Gross that this so-called ‘social inequality’ is an “inevitable phase in human social evolution but that in a subsequent phase it will disappear.” Utopians consequently strive to “play a role in bringing about the next major historical phase” (Gross 478). This mindset toward human history is deeply entrenched in Western thought and has had a profound effect upon how society is to be organized. Utopian ideology has developed over the centuries as theory only, until conditions were such that they were refined as complex systems in the 19th century and implemented in various forms in the 20th century.

The success [or lack thereof] of the practical application of utopianism will be discussed in due time. But, in order to fully appreciate what was done and why events occurred as they did, it is first necessary to explore the origins of a system of socio-political theory that now has considerable influence upon most of the world’s population.

First we should ask, ‘what is utopianism?’ It is a system of socio-political theory in which a dissatisfaction with the status quo leads to a search for a better way of running things. Included is a deep skepticism over the capabilities of the vast majority of people to have the knowledge and wisdom to participate in devising or even maintaining a workable framework for society. Furthermore, utopians consider that the current conditions to have infected the so-called ‘masses’ to the point that the people themselves need to be changed in some way, so that the better way of organizing and running society will stand a chance of working.

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Central to Judaism is the belief that God acted personally in history through a Chosen People, the Jews (the people called Israel), and that God entered into a Covenant with them that if they obeyed God’s teachings He would, through them, save all mankind (Bickerton 5).

Furthermore, the Torah contains direction to "establish an independent society based on Divine precepts" (Bickerton 5). It is common knowledge that Christianity and Islam are rooted in Judaism and share the concept of being chosen by God. Added to this is the obligation to evangelize, i.e., to proselytize others to the true faith, for the good of all mankind. The principle of exclusivism wherein "a particular religion is in sole possession of the truth and means of salvation" is peculiar to Mid-Eastern theology. Their God is the only true God and, by implication, their conception of the divine is the only true one. All other gods are false gods or demons. Those who worship them are infidels, who are damned unless they can be converted (Larousse 437).

 The Mid-Eastern doctrine of theological exclusivism has been successfully inculcated and integrated into the secular and religious thought of most of the world, save for a few remaining pockets of the traditional animism in Africa, the Hindu in India and the Buddhism and Confucianism in Asia. As an illustration, consider the dictionary definition of the word pagan. According to Webster’s, any person "who is not a Christian, Jew or Muslim" is to be called a pagan who is further described as "an irreligious or hedonistic person" (Webster’s 1394).

This completely ignores the self-denial, asceticism and devotion required of Buddhist monks, African shamans, Native American initiates, etc. The Mid-Eastern theological perspective on every other religion has been so successfully inculcated into Western secular thought, it is stated as an unquestioned axiom in an ostensibly objective reference source. A critical aspect of the Judeo-Christian perspective is conviction that revelation is to be obtained from a written narrative, preferably from a qualified cleric, rather than the observation of natural phenomena. Nature is to be considered inherently base and evil [rather than an unadulterated Divine Product] -- something to overcome by embracing the Divinely inspired scripture.

Thus, from Judeo-Christian perspective utopianism derives the following concepts:
    - Paradise: Eden, heaven, the Kingdom of the Messiah; a place promised to those who learn and obey the word of God.

    - Exclusivism: there is only one path to salvation, and only one group who is on that path, all others are enemies and must be converted or eliminated as potential threats to the attainment of holiness.

    - Evangelism: because theirs is the ‘only way’ and that others must necessarily be nothing less than completely wrong, those who practice the True Faith must proselytize the heathens or do whatever else is necessary to eliminate the polluting influence of contrary ideas.
    - Anti-Nature: the key to the truth and the path to righteousness is found by studying a 'Divinely-inspired' written narrative. Natural phenomena, such as the behavior of animals are examples of what people are condemned to suffer if they do not ‘rise above’ their baser (i.e. natural) instincts.
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What is important here is not the details of this model, but the roles that people would play in it and by what standards are these people to be selected. In Platonic ethics, a hierarchy of personality types yields those standards. There are those whose loftiest ambitions lie in the satisfaction of bodily urges or the acquisition of things. People with such limitations would be of equally limited use in a model society. Above these are the ones with an “element of ‘spirit,’ chivalrous emotion” who take pride in postponing gratification; they “aim at ‘distinction’” and are best suited as “honourable soldiers and sportsmen,” but can also go awry as a “’careerist’” (Taylor 63).

Above all these are the people who “govern their lives by adherence to a consistent judgment of good and evil.” The personal objective, then, is to circumscribe urges and desires within a sense of honor, which itself is constrained by deliberate and sincere judgment. The State, therefore has a “supreme function” to educate the weaker ones to the path of the “noble personality.” The penal system in such a society would have as its goal, “neither retaliation nor prevention of social harm nor deterrence from repetition of offences, but ‘reformation’” (Taylor 64,65).

For such a society to function properly, the State should be in the hands of those “who really know what good and evil are…, [with the] highest wisdom” should be in power. If those who are unworthy are in power, “[t]he institutions and traditions of society thus become debased, a wrong public opinion is created, and characters are inevitably moulded on wrong lines.” Consequently, Plato held a dim view of representative government. With no wise ones to establish and direct a “fixed tradition of living,” social interaction would inevitably degenerate into a “mere anarchical struggle between inconsistent and competing ‘ideals,’ all defective” (Taylor 66,67).

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Utopia [a neologism meaning ‘nowhere’] (Manuel 1) is the name More gave to a fictitious, undiscovered island that had developed a mode of life completely independent of outside influence. More, being “enthralled by Hellenic culture,” deliberately set out to append the dialogs of Plato. Thus, the form of the narrative was a dialog between characters who had traveled to the island and/or who were merely interested in it. In Plato’s Timaeus, Socrates is quoted as remarking that upon observation of beautiful creatures, “a man should be moved with desire to behold them in motion and vigorously engaged in some such exercise as seemed suitable to their physique; well, that is the very feeling I have regarding the State we have described” [italics mine] (Manuel 120).

Thomas More thusly had set out to fulfill Socrates’ wish [and complete the Platonic dialog] by fleshing out “the active ideal republic." Although the Utopians knew nothing of Christianity, they were in many ways more pious than the contemporary English. The English had abandoned “His guiding rules,” while the Utopians availed themselves of the universal truths that await discovery by anyone who troubles himself to search, with or without the Gospel. Armed with these principles, they diligently put them into practice, thus producing a virtuous society (Manuel 122, 123).

More took pains to point out that Utopia was not heaven on earth, but instead an “optimum state of commonwealth.” A key element of this society is a system of meritocracy wherein “it is taken for granted that the optimates in goodness and learning will be chosen for public office, thus establishing a nonhereditary aristocracy that enjoys virtually no privileges beyond esteem.” More holds that “the root of all evil in society is the lust for possessions, a passion that leads men to behave like beasts toward one another” (Manuel 124, 125).

Thus, in Utopia there is an “abolition of class.” The Christian admonition against sinful pride is curbed by the prohibition of the “accumulation of useless and superfluous wealth” property and produce would be distributed equally and the commonwealth would “enforce a rule of labor for all.” Of course, for those who are imbued with the gifts that entitle them to hold public office such as “elected magistrates, priests and scholars” would be awarded “decent honors,” but not to the point that “permit the poor to starve while the granaries of the rich are bulging” (Manuel 125).

Those who do not “accept the elementary doctrines of [Utopian] religion” need not fear persecution, but they are “second-class citizens” and they are thus ineligible for offices reserved for the wise ones. More invested the Utopians with the wisdom of accepting Christianity once they were exposed to it, they were practicing the basic tenets thereof, beforehand with their previous worship of a “divine, omnipotent, eternal being, diffused throughout the universe in power, not mass, whom they call father.”

Utopians were also concerned about religious zealotry; it was a criminal offense. Those who engaged in overly-fervent proselytizing toward any particular religious perspective were to be “punished with exile or enslavement.” This was not because of an advocacy for religious pluralism by More; quite the opposite. More felt that a multiplicity of religious perspectives threatened the peace; he longed for a “’perfect uniformitie of religion’” and he noted that the places that had such uniformity were indeed at peace (Manuel 126).

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Each stage of Western social development is shown to be the actualization of a path toward a more refined reflection of the "true nature" of human destiny. Further, Hegel held that the "’State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth’ and that the individual achieves self-realization only as a member of it" (Carew-Hunt 41). Marx eschewed Hegel’s personification of the process of historical progression. Instead this progression is "’ nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into terms of thought’" (Carew-Hunt 54).

Marx certainly held that "social development was inevitably moving in the direction of the desired revolution", but didn’t want this process to be completely "mechanical" and fatalistic, lest it be sterile. No one would have to do anything to actualize the ideal; everyone could simply wait until it occurs by itself. Just as a cat pounces on a mouse when it is seen, the enlightened Marxist revolutionary is obligated to act toward bringing about the revolution by the very fact that he is among the few who are gifted with the ability to perceive the proper course of human history (Carew-Hunt 57,58).

For Marx, the "ultimate determinant of social change" was not to be found in "ideas of eternal truth and social justice, but in changes in the mode of production and exchange." In a simple society, people produce goods and exchange them with others. Conflict arises in the relationship that people have with what they produce and with each other in the process of production and exchange (Carew-Hunt 61).

When the situation arises wherein a minority are living off of the labor of the majority, this is the Marxist equivalent of the Judeo-Christian "Fall of Man". "[T]he private ownership of the means of production" precipitated this fall from grace that is characterized as a perversion of the 'proper progress' of history. The end result was the creation of two "antagonistic classes," the workers (proletariat) and the businessmen, investors and public officials who profit from this social system (the bourgeoisie) (Carew-Hunt 61).

The destruction of the objectionable status quo is to come about by the eventual "withering away" of the State, which is a "’machine for the oppression of one class by another." Upon study of the American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan’s 1877 book ancient society: Researches into the Lines of Human progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization, Marx saw a projection of the concept wherein people lived "under an order which was both communal and Stateless. He concluded that the progression of history would bring mankind full-circle to that idyllic state once again (Carew-Hunt 94, 95).

For this to be facilitated, the existing mechanism of the Bourgeois State had to be captured and destroyed with a new revolutionary State, the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ installed in its place. This would be a critical transitional stage before the classless, Stateless society could occur. This State would continue as an organ of coercion, but with the difference that the coercion will be exercised by the proletarian majority against the bourgeois minority." The powers of the Proletarian State would be then used to "eradicate all traces of the old order… [not to] ‘exploit the bourgeoisie but [to] eliminate it" (Carew-Hunt 103-105).

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The concept of Paradise is defined as the state of true communism. An active, interventionist and ‘creative’ government being run by the ‘vanguards of the proletariat’ will succeed, if permitted, in transforming members of society to live ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need.’ That being done, there will no longer be any need for a state and it will thus ‘wither away’ with the last vestiges of bourgeois influence are finally eradicated.

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A Nationalist movement developed in parallel with the Futurists wherein there was a drive toward the unification of Italy and hopes for a new era of Italian glory would be realized. Italians were emigrating to more prosperous parts of the Western world and were, as far as the Nationalists were concerned, being “exploited by world plutocracies”. Furthermore, their flight from the mother country was sapping her strength and condemning her to a future of becoming even more inconsequential in the international arena. Italy, must assert her place amongst the Western colonial powers of the day, “and the only means of doing so was to fight a war” (Hamilton 4,5).

Another movement that would become influential in Italian social theory was a Marxist derivation originating in France called Syndicalism. Adherents of this revolutionary sect believed that “the proletariat could only be forced to resort to violence and to summon up the heroism of which it was capable by the presence of an equally ruthless, violent and heroic class of capitalists.” Italian leftists embraced this idea and advocated that their “parliamentary democracy… be overthrown by means of a general strike, and a proletarian state was then to be formed and run by trade unions.” Benito Mussolini joined this wing of the Italian Socialist party and participated in the revitalization of the revolutionary left which occurred in the years prior to the outbreak to WWI (Hamilton 10,11).

The Great War acted as a catalyst for tumultuous political change throughout the Western world. In Italy, the Socialist Party opposed the war, as did Mussolini as a faithful adherent of the Communist International. With time however, his views changed. As he considered that “the revolutionary conjunction for which he had searched… would be provided by war – not by opposition to the war, as his fellow Socialists thought but by the ‘revolutionary war,’” wherein he would personally lead them to proletarian victory (Hamilton 12, 13).

This didn’t happen, of course and he was soon expelled from the Socialist party to become a part of the interventionist left. His Syndicalist fellows found themselves in good company with the Nationalists and Futurists. These three movements soon converged to form the fasces of the party that he would soon head, thus emerged the term Fascism. Fasces are a bundle of rods forming an ax handle that symbolized official power within the classical Roman Empire (Webster’s 700). [Mussolini and his later protégé, Adolf Hitler, would eventually appropriate this and many other Roman symbols as emblems of their own imperial resurrectionist movements.]

The war didn’t go well for the Italian military. A crushing defeat on Italian soil (in Caporetto) in October 1917 exacerbated resentment of the many who were exempt from military service by those who weren’t, who were mostly “the peasantry and the lower middle classes.” Furthermore, those “who were not entirely in favour of the war” such as the Socialists, pacifists and the Catholic Church were blamed for the defeat. The demoralized troops who eventually returned home from the battlefield knew that they were capable of victory but had incompetent, vacillating leadership. Mussolini saw in them a “vehicle for seizing power” and abandoned his interventionist allies (Hamilton 19,20).

In order to gain their support he would need to soften some of his revolutionary rhetoric. However, he did after all, have a socialist background and thus advocated that Italy be run by “thirty or forty competent young directors with no parliament, to be elected by the whole nation through the trade unions.” Policy would be characterized by nationalization [i.e., government takeover], punitive taxation, abolition of stock speculation, confiscation of Church property and land re-distribution (Hamilton 20,21).

It may seem to be a digression to discuss the origins of fascism in an exploration of utopianism. This is due to the academic domination of “the official Marxist interpretation of fascism, which conceives of it as the creature of monopoly or finance capitalism and its ideology - a crude rationalization of capitalist interests.” Similarly it is held that the ideological origins of fascism are “purely incidental and unimportant” and that Hitler and Mussolini were “nothing more than adventurers and opportunists with neither creed nor principle” (Sternhell 316, 317).

After Lenin died in the USSR and Mao in the PRC, these countries were communist in name only, and were run simply as one party states with absolute, arbitrary power. Nonetheless, Marxism/Leninism was and is “widely studied in order to gain insight” into the policies of these governments. The ideological roots of fascism have been neglected and are pertinent in the study of utopianism, because fascist ideology is derived from essentially utopian principles and is cousin to Marxism.

The difference lies in the rejection of materialism in favor of idealism. With materialism, people are fated to ride the course of history; even the decisions that people think that they are freely taking are actually determined by larger forces. The elite Marxists are those who are best able to read the tea leaves of history to predict the future, and thus able to formulate the policies which will propel society toward its inevitable destiny sooner rather than later. Fascists invest their elite with superior knowledge of how to deal with the moment. Citizens of a fascist society have their destiny invested in the power and vitality of the State, because “the supreme entity was the State, a State which embodied the citizen’s ethical personality, and the stronger the State, the freer the individual” (Hamilton 58). Whether under Marxism or fascism, the result is the same.

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Lindsey, Linda L. and Stephen Beach. Sociology: Social Life and Social Issues. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000. 

Gross, Daniel R. Discovering Anthropology. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 1992. 

Hamilton, Alastair. The Appeal of Fascism: A study of Intellectuals and Fascism. New York: MacMillan, 1971. 

Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1996.

Sternhell, Zeev. "Fascist Ideology" Fascism, A Reader's Guide. edited by Walter Laqueur Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. 

Manuel, Frank E. and Fritzie P. Manuel. Utopian Thought in the Western World. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1979. 

Wells, H.G. The Outline of History. Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1949. 

Bickerton, Ian J. and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 3^rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. 

Planinc, Zdravko. Plato’s Political Philosophy: Prudence in the Republic and the Laws.Columbia MO: University of Missouri Press, 1991. 

Taylor, Alfred Edward. Platonism and its Influence. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1963. 

 Larousse Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions, Edited by Rosemary Goring. New York: Larousse plc, 1994. 

Caute, David. Essential Writings of Karl Marx. New York: Macmillan, 1967. 

Carew-Hunt, R. N., The Theory and Practice of Communism. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1964. 

Berk, Stephen E., Calvinism versus Democracy. Hamden CT: Archon Books, 1974.

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