These are lean times for utopian thinking. We know too much about its dangers and failures. What within previous utopian experiments, from communism to kibbutzim to ’70s communes, undermined them? Human nature? Our particular cultures? We fear it was both, and that it’s beyond our power and skill to remedy. Half of us can’t even maintain our committed couple relationships, so how are we going to pull off a caring community?
So instead we focus on the reforms that have made life under capitalism better for so many of us: the New Deal, trade unions, OSHA, minority rights, etc. These we can believe in. So we adjust to becoming reformists, not revolutionaries… but only until we recall that the people who raised hell and made these things happen often were revolutionaries. If you imagine, believe in, and strive with utmost energy for socialism, maybe you get a New Deal;...
