Socjalizm "Utopii" Tomasza More'a

• Authors: Ostrowski, Witold

Title variants

PL

Socialism in Thomat More's "Utopia"

Abstracts

EN

1. The tvord utopia is used to denotes 1) projects of perfect sobial systems ensuring happy life, but impracticable because of suggested limitations in a given period or at all timesj 2 ) a philosophical-political work, usually a treatise which presents a project of this kind; 3 ) a work of fiction whioh presents a model of utopia in an artistic form evoking an impression of reality whioh helps to make the model popular. Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" is a work of utopian fiction whioh presents a socialist model of a rational, happy, developing society. 2. F. Engels, who classified varieties of Socialism as Utopian and Scientific (or Marxist), oonsidered Utopian Sooialism as a progressive approximation towards Marxism. K. Kautsky called Socialism as presented in "Utopia" "modem in majority of its trends, but old in many of its means". 3. The purpose of this paper is to define exactly the m o d e m and the obsolete aspects of the model of Sooialism in Utopia and its author's attitude towards it. 4. Sooialism in Utopia is based on common property and consumption, but also on common duty to work, common production and education of the whole nation for labour and oo-operation. These are principles of modern Socialism. 5. The system eduoates highly humane, open, and responsible people and is actively and willingly acoepted and supported by the people. 6 . The historically necessary absenoe of meohanized industry the treatment of the family-household as the basic productive and political unit, and the intolerance of atheists oertainly belong to the medieval and partly Renaissance heritage. 7. Another important differenoe between Sooialism in "Utopia" and Marxism lies in the Utopian attitude towards religion oonsidered a cornerstone of suooessful socialization in Utopia. 8. While Raphael Hythloday was an enthusiastic exponent of Sooialism, what was Sir Thomas More's own attitude towards Sooialism? R. W. Chambers's epoch-making book "Thomas More" (1935) has oleared away many prejudices and we know from it that More as a young man defended Plato's communism; that he lived for four years as a lay inmate of London Charterhouse in a model religious community - a cosnmune; that A. Vespucoi and Peter Martyr's writings confirmed the existence of communism in large West Indian sooieties. Besides, More was critical of rising Capitalism and this criticism wae based on the experience of a judge and a diplomat. Did he want Sooialism or not? If he did not, why did he write "Utopia"? If he did, why did he introduce - in his own person - objections and doubts in the book? The answer lies in the faot that "Utopia" is a discussion between Raphael and More on the chances of the practicability of building Sooialism in Europe in his own times. 9 . Being a realist, More did not expect any government or class of the 16th century to be either willing or able to introduce the system. His doubts, found both in the text of "Utopia" and in other texts, allegedly anti-communist, collected by Paul Turner in a reoent edition of More's principal work turn round the problems of economic, politioal, and moral unpreparedness of the contemporaneous world in building a Socialist society. In those times Socialism oould not be established either by foroe or by general will. One had to look forward to the future. 10. More was not a Utopist, therefore, though he was the author of utopia. His Socialism was utopian, but built on many basic principles of modern scientific Sooialism. But to define its author, a paradoxical' formula is necessary. In his oase to be a utopian socialist is not the same as to be a Utopist. His evolutionary Socialism was a result of a realistic assessment of possibilities and if Thomas More had been a revolutionary Sooialist, that would have made him a Utopist.

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria
• Year: 1981
• Volume: 3

Dates

published

1981

Contributors

author

Ostrowski, Witold

other

Uniwersytet Łódzki, Instytut Filologii Angielskiej

Identifiers

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/11089/11569