the original utopia that wasn’t so original

27 Apr, 2026

Lately, I’ve been reading classics that are either dystopias or utopias. I’ve reread George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm as well as The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin¹ as part of the Gazette’s book club. I already have Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World sitting on my digital bookshelf and will probably read its polar opposite Island by the same author. In one of my political theory classes, I was assigned sections from Thomas More’s Utopia, which prompted me to go for the full book because the sections I had read were interesting enough and it’s the book that gave the sci-fi utopia genre its name. So, what better distraction from my impending paper deadline on April 30th than another book added to my rotation (currently sitting at three, my own self-imposed limit)?

My first impressions were admiration as the author describes things that were unthinkable in late Medieval Europe and the Early Modern Era: Gender equality, material abundance, leisure for everyone, abolition of private property, equality before the law, constitutionalism and so much more. Then I remembered reading Plato’s description of an ideal state not even two weeks ago and had to pause. These were all Plato’s ideas repackaged for Europe’s Renaissance! Well, at least More had the decency to universalize these ideals unlike Plato who wanted them gatekept to the middle and upper classes. It’s not that I agree or would cheer on another slave state, but I’m still impressed by how the author, an English nobleman, hid behind a fictional traveler, who he allegedly conversed with about the topic, to speak a vision into his world of how things could be. Utopia is certainly a huge improvement over Medieval Europe, that’s for sure.

What the author’s hiding behind somewhat of a foreigner reminded me of is other Europeans’ at the time—or maybe later on, I don’t remember—doing something similar with the Native American critique of European institutions and society. A notable example is Kandiaronk, as he’s described in Davids Graeber and Wengrow’s seminal work The Dawn of Everything, tearing down European civilization in debates with early settlers. He was said to have traveled to Europe to judge it for himself, although that part is dubious. In any case, many Europeans would use the Indigenous Critique as a literary device to suggest changes in their own countries to protect them from the death sentence as they were just relaying what others had allegedly said.

There is no doubt that the Enlightenment movement was, at least in part, influenced by that critique,² and, in another, by early adventurers seeing the „New World“ with their own eyes and how a humane alternative looked like. This is not to say that Native American settlements were a monolith and a paradise, but there was diversity in options that must’ve definitely shocked the new colonists enough to spread the word about it back home. Who knows where Europe would be, had it not been for colonialism and its subjugation of the Other.

Anyway, what I find interesting in Utopia is that it doesn’t abolish hierarchy at all. In fact, there is still slavery to make that utopia a reality. People live in families of ten to 16 adults and every man and woman has to learn a trade aside from farming (which is mandatory for a two year service). The trade one picks is what the father picked, and if one wants to learn a different trade, one chooses a different family roof to live under which is a completely legitimate choice, so the traveler. The families themselves are companies of sorts because they work together to produce the same product. They work for six hours a day and the rest of their day is dedicated to leisure and the pursuit of knowledge. Those gifted enough in the sciences are freed from physical labor to pursue their studies. Everyone is productive; no one is without work.

Every city is identical to the other with about the same distance between every one on the island of Utopia. It is surrounded by farmland, whose farmers are city people that spend two years working there, assigned by lot, while the city is divided into four divisions overseen by an overseer who is popularly elected with the raise of a hand. The demos suggests other individuals for the mayorship and those are voted on by the overseers with a secret ballot. The mayorship is for life while the overseer role is time-capped. Their role seems to be mostly dedicated to population control. For instance, one cannot leave the premises of one’s district without a travel permit or else face slavery after the second offense of this type.

If a city’s population grows too much, its surplus is distributed to other cities. If it shrinks, it receives people from other cities. If this system fails at keeping the city population in check, they launch colonies ashore.³ If the population goes down again, the colonists are brought back. Naturally, there would likely be people living where the colonies are decided to be. If the indigenous population resists colonization of „unused land,“ that’s a legitimate reason for war in the eyes of the Utopians. Otherwise the natives are absorbed into the body politic of Utopia.

In my reading, I came to the realization that while these people would’ve had it better than Medieval Europeans, they were far from free in every sense. They can’t move around freely, are forced to work to receive basic amenities,⁴ and are married off as soon as they were of age. While women and children are treated somewhat like people, they are clearly subject to the eldest of the family who is a man. A woman moved in with her husband once she was married off, never the other way around. The pater familia system of Ancient Rome is alive and well in this utopia. Additionally, there is no freedom of association, assembly or expression in Utopia outside the approved channels for discussing matters of public interest in the popular assemblies. Breaking this rule would be punished by death, justified by the Utopians’ fear of a conspiracy overthrowing their beloved constitution.

All in all, I wouldn’t want to trade places with a Utopian. If both of our societies are corrupt and evil, I’d rather stick with what I know. Ironically, once you dig into Utopia, you’ll find that it’s pretty on the outside, shitty on the inside—like a dystopia.