Utopian Socialism: A Play in Three Acts

The ongoing drama of Utopian Socialism can be broken down into three Acts. The First Act took place in the 19th century, under the direction of people like Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet and others. Despite the elaborate plans they articulated on paper, in practice the communities they inspired were, for the most part, poorly planned and underfunded. Plus the great enthusiasm exhibited by their followers for these projects typically exceeded their practical experience in carrying them out. As a result, most quickly failed. But not all. Some thrived for a number of years. But as they lacked any institutional support, they were fragile. Crises, like fire or ideological schism, could send them into terminal decline. The result of this period of experimentation was that eventually all of the Utopian Socialist communities of the 19th century failed. On the positive side, many lessons were learned. Mostly on what NOT to do, but valuable lessons nonetheless.

The fruits of that labor were dismissively cast aside by Marx, however, as he took over direction of the play and began writing an entirely new script. I will not belabor the colossal failures of Marxism-Leninism here, other than to say that, ultimately, that historical dead end accomplished little more than to set aside the Utopian Socialist experiment for many decades. The Left, despite being beguiled by Marxism for far too long, eventually woke up to its moral bankruptcy and belatedly ushered in the Second Act of our play. This was a resumption of the Utopian Socialist experiment during the great “dropping out” period of the 1960s’ counter-culture. A second wave of community building commenced that, unfortunately, was neither better planned nor better funded than its 19th century counterpart. The result, again, is that most of these experiments quickly failed. But not all. This time some of them managed to survive. Twin Oaks Community, in Virginia, has been around for 51 years now. Beyond merely surviving, some communities have even demonstrated the ability to overcome the types of crises that typically did in the communities from Act One. The Farm, in Tennessee, is an example of a community that managed to survive a severe financial and ideological crisis. Clearly the play is getting better as the experiment makes progress.

Being able to merely survive at the outer fringes of society, though, does not exactly earn our actors a standing ovation. Far from it. If Marx were still in the critics’ box, he would no doubt continue to dismiss the play as being little more than a farce. But we would encourage Marx to stick around for the Third Act, which is now in the process of being written. There are now a number of organizations that have done a lot of rehearsal for the Third Act. They are patiently laying the groundwork that will enable communities in the 21st century to not only survive, but to expand. The question the audience no doubt wants answered is whether they can expand beyond the outer fringes of society into the mainstream. It is a valid question. The answer, I suspect, is that as long as Capitalism continues to function, even poorly, then nothing will come close to challenging its dominance. The thing that distinguishes the Third Act from the previous two, however, is that the status quo cannot continue indefinitely. In Acts One and Two, Capitalism still had room to expand. Its internal contradictions, exhaustively catalogued by Marx, were not enough to halt its progress. But now Capitalism is running up hard against the limits of a finite planet. Capitalism’s growth imperative has caused us to exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth by a substantial margin. The results are ecological destruction, climate change, vast inequalities, and an increasing number of failing states across the globe. The last of these presents the greatest opportunity for a rapid expansion of the Utopian Socialist experiment. The Rojavan revolution, in Syria, will come to be seen as a classic example of that process in action. Climate change played a large role in pushing to Syrian state to collapse. The vacuum that ensued allowed the Rojavan communitarian experiment, inspired by Murray Bookchin and especially Abdullah Öcalan, to rapidly fill that void. The proper role for Utopian Socialists as we move deeper into Act Three is to prepare themselves, as much as they can, to take advantage of opportunities similar to the one in Syria. As Capitalism reaches its climate-induced end game, such opportunities will only increase in number and present our actors the chance of bringing our play to a successful conclusion.