When I first began reading Thomas More's Utopia I thought it naive to think any society of more than fifty people continually be hard-working, but taking only what they "need" for consumption, without having to document who took what or having to ration goods. However, I was proven wrong by the 1875 book American Utopias by Charles Nordhoff, who showed that when people self-select into a community for strong religious feelings, such utopias can exist.
Whether such communities can be forced upon people is much less likely, and if history has been documented properly, has never been done.
I wonder why these religious communes all were somewhat heretical in their religious beliefs. For example, the Shakers believed Christ had come a second time in the form of a woman. Did any communes follow a conventional Christian creed? I don't know. I can't recall reading of one.
Monday, December 19, 2011
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December
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- Economic Harmonies by Bastiat
- If Paul Krugman is wrong...
- Why Mercantilism bothered Adam Smith
- If I was a military historian...
- In case my appraisal matters...
- Nations run like businesses
- No one is really religious anymore
- My collection of quotes is better than yours
- Take that, Department of Applied Economics
- Economic Models and Inequality
- Quote on Rent-Seeking and Corporate Tax Rates
- Should Student Loans Be Forgiven?
- Debt-Bondage, Ancient Rome, and the Incentives of ...
- Catherine the Great Convenes Her Empire
- Context-Dependent Preferences in Birds
- I was wrong about posting copyrighted videos
- If only we were still hunters and gatherers...
- Religion First, Then The Plow
- A World Without Conspicuous Consumption
- Two Quotes
- Copyrights Be Damned
- Utopia Documented
- Middle Ground Between Science and Religion
- Inside the mind of a saint
- Jonathan Haidt
- Conversation with my daughter
- Lit agents are ridiculous
- Origin of word "placebo" and placebo quotes
- Straight-A Students Need Not Apply
- The lies of children
- The "tinkering" metaphor
- The Art of Self-Deception
- College Subsidies
- Ayn Rand's Opposite
- Quotes about cities
- Maybe I do understand the EU
- Reasons why most people would call me insane
- I wonder how long...?
- How to be a political pundit
- Vitamins should be banned
- The most devoted medical researcher ever
- A Story of Creativity: how the stethoscope was inv...
- To train an economist...
- The Political Purpose of Debasing Profits
- The Final Destination of OWS
- A Forty Year Plan
- The Truth About Communal Living
- Is Utopia a vegan paradise?
- Thomas More's Utopia
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