Modernity And Utopia

On utopia, there is a misunderstanding:"utopia=whimsical notion=socialism=communism=despotism=holocaust", which makes utopia the antonym of "capitalism" and both utopia and socialism are stigmatized. As a result, research of utopia is marginalized. Utopia is purely a combination of various whimsical thoughts throughout the history, but why shall we still do research on it? It has already become a philosophical word, being abstracted as "utopian spirit".This dissertation intends to correct the prejudice to utopia. I will argue that utopia contains far more beyond socialism (communism).Moreover, they have nothing to do with despotism and holocaust. In its origin, utopia actually stands for the thoughts and the design of "good society" which shows different kinds of possibilities of life. Upon this understanding, I assert that utopia contains not only socialism (communism) but also capitalism, and the two aspects of utopia should be studied and compared under a universal framework.This dissertation will study utopia with the method of typology. I will explain that capitalism, socialism and communism represent three major types of modern utopia. They were born in the transformation period which is from feudal society to modern society in Europe. It is not a coincidence. In fact, they represent three basic ideas of these ideologists on solving the modernity problems. According to social system theory discovered by Talcott Parsons, modern society is characterized by the increasing independence of economy system. Then came out the problems:is this new society a good society? How does it operate?Capitalism utopia theory can be traced back to Adam Smith who had positive attitude on modernity. He insisted that economics can be the major means of social integration, so that in this society the relationship among people became the relationship of personal interests. This new society not only captures the human nature but also operates automatically requiring no outside forces-capitalism utopia is established under the function of the generic economic world. As to politics, it has to serve for the economics activities, while the political justice is constructed through conflicting of different groups consisting of people of similar interests ("politics of interest"). As to culture, the culture of abstinence in medieval society has to be changed. As to law, the constraint of the "rational economic person" is to rely on"moral calculation" discovered by utilitarianism. As to historical philosophy, Adam Smith and his companions showed that the progress of economy liberated the human. On the contrary to the positive attitude of Capitalism utopia theory, Communism utopia has a negative attitude on modernity in the sense that it does not admit that economy system is the dominant system-in essence, Communism utopia theory is an anti-modernity theory. The Communist criticized capitalism from the perspectives of value system and community system. On the idea of the operation of the society, communism and capitalism are at opposite poles. As to the integration problem, the communist referred to "community". As to politics they requested a sort of "general will politics". To culture they did not conceive of material interest as happiness; To personality, contrary to "civilized man", they thought highly of "unsophisticated man"; To law, they argued that the purpose of the law should be to abolish private ownership; To historical philosophy, they deemed that economy enslaved human.If we call capitalism "thesis" and communism "antithesis", socialism will be "synthesis". Socialism is like capitalism in the attitude to modernity. Thus in its view, communism is much too abstinent. However, socialism is against capitalism in the design of the system. In the theory of socialism, on one hand, the efficiency of capitalism is not high enough; on the other hand, capitalism caused the unfairness of distribution and interpersonal tension. In its view, capitalism and communism are in a mutually exclusive choice:either to choose efficiency but to sacrifice social harmony, or to choose the opposite option. Socialism attempts to combine the advantages of the two "extreme" theories. Saint Simon, Charles Fourier and Robert Owen are the greatest pioneers of socialism. Saint Simon is a rationalist, who agreed that operation of economy is based on the development of technology and a commander can adjust the economy. He is a pioneer of social-planner economic theory. Charles Fourier discovered a kind of "physics" of the desire of human. Under the guidance of the physics, the economy will run automatically. Robert Owen intended to change the motivation of working, in specific to teach people to work for friendship instead of self-interest. As an environmental determinist, he pointed it out that education was the best way to achieve this aim.At last the relationship between utopia and reality has also been preliminarily studied, focusing on the theoretical and practical feasibility of these three utopia theories.