Utopias

About this Collection

The name given to an ideal political community, “Utopia,” comes from Thomas More’s 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.

United States Western Europe Freedom 16th Century 17th Century 18th Century 19th Century Socialism. Communism. Anarchism

Titles & Essays

Group by Category

The Best of Bastiat 3.3: The Utopian

Frédéric Bastiat (author)

The Best of Bastiat (BOB) is a collection of some of the best material in Liberty Fund’s edition of The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat (2011-). These extracts should be useful in the classroom, or discussion groups. This…

BOLL 54: James Harrington, “The Commonwealth of Oceana” (1656)

James Harrington (author)

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. A thematic list…

Harrington’s Life by John Toland

Related Links:

James Harrington John Toland

Source: John Toland's Introduction to The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, with an Account of His Life by John Toland (London: Becket and Cadell, 1771).

THE LIFE OF JAMES…

Ideal Empires and Republics

Sir Francis Bacon (author)

A collection of 4 of the best known works about utopias: Rousseau’s Social Contract, More’s Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis, and Campanella’s City of the Sun.

The Oceana and Other Works

James Harrington (author)

An edition of Harrington’s works by an 18th century Commonwealthman.

Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind

Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (author)

Condorcet wrote this while in prison awaiting execution by the Jacobins. It is an optimistic view of the progress the human race will undergo when political and economic liberty are gradually introduced.

Pictures of the Socialistic Future

Eugen Richter (author)

Pictures of the Socialistic Future is Richter’s satire of what would happen to Germany if the socialism espoused by the trade unionists, social democrats, and Marxists was actually put into practice. It is thus a late 19th century…

The Society of Tomorrow

Gustave de Molinari (author)

In this vision of a future society, the Belgian laissez-faire economist Molinari suggests how many, if not most, public goods could be provided by the free market or by radically decentralized local governments.

Quotes

Socialism & Interventionism

Molinari appeals to socialists to join him in marching down “the broad, well-trodden highway of liberty” (1848)

Full Quote

Notes About This Collection

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, Politics, 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.