Online Library of Liberty - Utopias, or the Ideal Society of the Future

8/15/13 10:12 PM

Debate: Utopias, or the Ideal Society of the Future

The discussion about the ideal political community is not a normal debate which is located in particular date, place, and historical context. Rather it is a theoretical debate which has engaged thinkers across time and geography ever since the beginning of formal political philosophy with the ancient Greeks. The name given to an ideal political community, Utopia, comes from Thomas Mores work Utopia which was published in Latin in 1516. What is interesting about many conceptions of utopian communities is that the authors assumed that without free markets and private property there would be an absence of conflict and greater prosperity. There have been a few dissenters to this tradition, namely Voltaire and Molinari who envisioned utopian-like communities which were based upon these very two principles. Hayek in an essay The Intellectuals and Socialism published in 1949 calls for true liberals to dare to be Utopian as their 19th century socialist counterparts had been. For further reading on this topic see: J.C. Davis, Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing, 1516-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 1983). F.A. Hayek, The Intellectuals and Socialism, Studies in Philosophy, Poitics, and Economics (University of Chicago Press, 1967), pp. 178-194. Kingsley Widmer, Utopia and Liberty: Some Contemporary Issues within their Intellectual Traditions, Literature of Liberty, vol. IV, no. 4, Winter 1981.

5 Titles in this Group:

authors and editors title ! pub. date

author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, author: Sir Thomas More, author: Sir Francis Bacon, author: Tommaso Campanella, introduction: Charles M. Andrews author: James

Ideal Empires and Republics. Rousseaus Social Contract, Mores Utopia, Bacons New Atlantis, Campanellas City of the Sun

1901

The Oceana and Other Works

1656
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Online Library of Liberty - Utopias, or the Ideal Society of the Future

8/15/13 10:12 PM

Harrington, introduction: John Toland author: Marie-JeanAntoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet author: Eugen Richter, introduction: Thomas Mackay, translator: Henry Wright author: Gustave de Molinari, translator: P. H. Lee Warner, editor: Frdric Passy, editor: Hodgson Pratt Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind 1795

Pictures of the Socialistic Future

1893

The Society of Tomorrow: A Forecast of its Political and Economic Organization

1899

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