The Letter
The book starts on a letter of Thomas More to Peter Giles and forms a preface to the work. Giles was a classical scholar and an intimate of Erasmus and his circle. The letter starts with a rambling excuse as to why "our Utopia"has been so long in production. He relates the details of his life: his work and domestic arrangements and the delays they have caused in his recording in plain style their conversation with Hythloday. It is a style he points out that is appropriate to philosophical dialogue, "that couldn't be couched in fancy terms".
The letter then frames the rest of the book setting it up as fact, as he is concerned with detail, and says, "I've taken particular pains to avoid untruths in the book … In short, I'd rather be truthful than correct". This highlights his distinction between telling a deliberate lie and unwittingly telling an untruth. He asks Peter Giles to contact Hythloday for him to verify some facts. He even gives the example of a famous theologian who wants to go to Utopia from religious missionary zeal. This we are shown signifies the effect of the book and Utopia's ostensibly factual existence. It is perhaps also an elaborate joke, satirising the overly gullible reader and the self righteous clergy.
Then the letter goes on to relate the author's anxieties about reader's reception of Utopia and scorn for those who cannot cope with satire. He critiques "minds so ungrateful" and calls men insipid who can't "endure the salt of wit". Thus he aligns himself with the intentions of the Roman satirists like Juvenal and Horace who wrote similar indictments of their unreformed readers and proclaimed a similar mission to educate men and cure social ills through satire:
"They are no different from rude, ungrateful guests who, after they have stuffed themselves with a splendid dinner, go off, carrying their full bellies homeward without a word of thanks to the host who invited them".
Book 1:
This book is made up of a debate between the narrator, More, Raphael Hythloday and Peter Giles. This is, in format, much like Plato's Republic which is made up of dialogue between Socrates, Glaucon and Thrasymachus. Arguing about whether Hythloday should join a king's council is a way of getting the discussion of advising rulers and their responsiveness underway. The focus is on whether it is wise for a scholar to commit himself to practical politics: asking thus, the time old question of the merits of the active and contemplative lives. More counsels him to, "devote your time and energy to public affairs… Worthy of a generous and truly philosophical nature… because a people's welfare or misery flows in a stream from their prince as from a never-failing spring." Hythloday corrects him and his idealistic view of ruler's capacity to listen to their advisors, pointing out the proud and stubborn nature of man:
"it would be a very dangerous matter if a man were found to be wiser on any point than his fore-fathers were."
The dialogue opens up to include dialogue on theft, the general state of England and complex social analysis. Raphael points out "no punishment however severe can restrain men from robbery when they have no other way to eat". As Hexter highlights More sees "in depth, in perspective the mutual relation problems which his contemporaries saw in the flat and as a disjointed series". He understood that in the existing structure of society most of the people in counsel were stirred by self-interest. Theft we are shown cannot simply be solved by harsh punishments because it springs from poverty. He sees fault rather with the upper classes, his moral outrage leads to a critique of them and their sloth, pride and greed.
However his critique is distanced from himself and put in the mouth of Raphael Hythloday, which is further distanced by an extra narrative layer as he recounts the conversation he had with a Cardinal. We are given a portraiture of a useless moneyed individual similar to that in Plato's Republic, "There are a great many noblemen who live idly like drones off the labour of others, their tenants who they bleed white by constantly raising their rents…." - highlighting the corruption and break down in the mutually dependent feudal system. Hythloday contends that English laws are badly administered as thief and murderer are punished alike. Means should be taken rather that to see that men are not driven to steal. The servant class for example, should learn trades, so that they need not have recourse to highway robbery when dismissed by their masters. Also some provision should be made for agricultural labourers that they might not follow a like profession when the arable lands were converted into sheep runs and land was enclosed. This was an evil spreading through England at the time as the price of wool rose making more money for landlords. Yeomen and peasants were pauperised and social dislocation was the result of such practices,
"Your sheep… that commonly are so meek and eat little; now, as I hear, they have become so greedy and fierce that they devour men themselves".
Hythloday suggests instead radical projects of punishment that come close to our concept of community service as he explains that the Polyrites ("people of much nonsense" - adding an element of doubt to the practicality to the suggestion) get thieves to work on public projects; "Thus the convicts are kept occupied, and each brings a little profit into the public treasury beyond the cost of his keep".
The dialogue then turns to that between the cardinal, fool and friar that Raphael is in company with. It is comic and light-hearted as the fool jests that the country will not be rid of beggars until they provide for friars as well. This pinpoints the abuses of the clergy contemporary to More's time in a comic manner. Raphael then goes on to divulge how the growth of luxury and excess corrupts and degenerates society and give the example of corrupt king and counsellors. The cure in the model of the Macaranians (from 'blessed') and their king who limited the amount of money in the treasury because he cared,
"more for his country's welfare than for his own wealth, and wanted to prevent any king from heaping up so much money as to impoverish his people"
Hythloday contends further that most of the difficulties of European government grew out of the institution of private property. Hythloday discusses how despite the sound nature of his philosophy and advise that rulers are reluctant to listen and learn paralleling Erasmus's remark on the reception of Plato's intellectual position;
"it is extraordinary how Christians dislike this common ownership of Plato's …. Although nothing was ever said by a pagan philosopher which comes closer to the mind of Christ"
Hythloday sees the abolition of private property as the only route to social justice and productive of the best conditions for a commonwealth. The objection is made that a nation cannot be prosperous where all property is common because there would be no incentive to labour, men would become slothful and violence and bloodshed would be the result. More's objection is based on the arguments made by Aristotle in answer to Plato's ideas on communism. Hythloday answers this objection by the account of the practices and customs of the Utopians and his strong belief that
"wherever you have private property, and money is the measure of all things, it is hardly ever possible for a commonwealth to be governed justly or happily".
This debate on the difference between ideals and practical efficacy leads us neatly into book two where Hythloday gives evidence of the compatibility of the moral and the expedient in political life through his account of the land of Utopia, particularly demonstrating the ideal of equality as compatible with stability and prosperity.
Book 2
Turning to the second book we are presented with a striking juxtaposition of Europe and all its evils with the exemplary by contrast, of harmonious Utopia. The discussions of social degeneracy in book one form an apt prelude to the presentation of a possibly better society. Book one and two could be said to be split between precept and practice. Or perhaps as a frame for Book Two, a dialogue introducing the philosophy so that it is not received as a mere plaything.
To construct the Utopia that More narrates in the voice of Hythloday in book two, the method and design for an ideal commonwealth springs from the ancient antecedents as devised by Aristotle and Plato. It concerned the principle of self-sufficiency, 'autarkeia'; in that the best commonwealth is one that includes everything that is necessary to the happiness of its citizen's, and nothing else. The central question of ethical theory is to determine what constitutes the happiest life for the individual. The next decision is to derive communal goals whose attainment result in the happiness of the citizens. The third decision is a programme of physical and institutional components that the commonwealth must include. The final consideration is the particular form that these components should be given in order to assure that collectively they would constitute the best commonwealth.
Plato's tract differs from the society envisioned in Utopia because there are still class distinctions: the ruling class, auxiliary class and the rest of society are compared to gold, silver and iron. Plato recommends communism only for the ruling classes. Hythloday's vision of Utopia pictures a communal almost medieval monastic lifestyle. It is almost totally egalitarian and classless as everyone is equal, shares the same work and has the same rights.
The communist republic, communal labour and eating, no private property, no exchange of money radically contradicts the workings, social mores and systems of More's age and turns upside down a host of traditional aristocratic ideals. There is in Utopia no one State religion and the State's basis is essentially secular where in More's sixteenth century England the social hierarchy was held as an earthly shadow or mirror of God's divine hierarchy. Where in England there was a divinely ordained hereditary monarch to mediate between the secular and eternal realms Utopia has nothing of the sort - its law is based rather on reason and logic not tradition. Thus Utopia signifies an ideological break and shift towards a more secular world-view, something hard to reconcile with the author's strong religious sentiments.
The Height of Organisation - Surveillance and social control.
"Anyone who wants to visit friends in another city, or simply to see the place itself, can easily obtain permission … Because they live in full view of all, they are bound to be either working at their usual trades or enjoying their leisure in a respectable way."
So travel is restricted, movements are watched and controlled, and even leisure time is managed. In Utopia there is an obligation for everyone to work for six hours a day at whatever he/she is best at. All people in the country spend time working the land, as this is an agriculturally based society they must assure themselves of continued crop growth. The government is representative in form. From each city three wise and experienced men are sent each year to the capitol to deliberate on public affairs. The rural population live in farm-houses scattered through the island, each of which contains at least forty persons besides two slaves. For every thirty farm houses there is a leader called a philarch. Ten philarchs together with their groups of families are under an officer called a chief philarch. The prince of the island is chosen for life by the philarchs from four candidates nominated by the people. He may be deposed if he is suspected of tyranny. The laws are few in number and seldom violated.
However the regulation of their dress and all their waking hours shows the standardisation of behaviour in Utopia and the lack of personal freedom:
"of the day's twenty four hours, the Utopians devote only six to work. They work three hours before noon, when they go to lunch … they go to bed and sleep eight hours"
The monotony of dress, houses and gardens creates an image of a restrictive world sowing the seed for Aldous Huxley's "dystopian" (anti-utopian rather than anti-Utopian) Brave New World. There is no freedom of speech or travel, individualism is minimal, family affection discounted as they transfer people from households for the sake of balancing numbers. It is a society where utilitarianism seems dominant: an old person is beyond being helpful, is a burden to self and community and is therefore encouraged to suicide. Their rational justice can impinge on individual rights and can create moral injustice as discipline and fear of social ostracism curtail freedom. Too much freedom would, it is assumed, threaten the stability and security of the commonwealth. This, in the nature of things, has to be the political goal of highest priority. We must then notice how there appear to be suffocating constraints in Utopia - it is a flawed commonwealth - when individual liberty requires restraint in order to effectuate Utopian's attempt to secure more liberty and leisure for all.
Communal labour - the idle are expelled from society
Among the Utopians agriculture is a science in which all are instructed. The children in the schools learn its history and theory. From each group of thirty farms twenty persons are sent annually to the neighbouring cities to make room for an equal number who come from city to the country so that all have a taste of farm life. In addition to agriculture all people are taught a trade. They only need to work for six hours a day because it is sufficient to provide them with all the necessaries and comforts for life; little time is spent in supplying useless or vicious luxuries. Division of labour is always equal and these sentiments are echoed in Marx when he says
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". Like the communes of Leninist Russia, Utopia maintains collective farms.
In a classless society there is no exploitation of one group by another. This is of course something More realized and one was one of his reasons for devising an ideal commonwealth. More was most likely revolted by the luxury of the sixteenth century Europe's ruling class. He saw that this luxury was the result of the peasants and so to cut out this poverty necessitated cutting out the ruling classes' luxury. More saw that there was no benefit to the common good if all the peasants work all day and night, and that the work only benefits a small minority. The idea that Hythloday presents of every worker being able to see and enjoy the fruits of his labour lending it dignity and not simply relegating them to the role of drudges; resembling Marx's view of labour.
Community and Family
In the cities groups of families have common dining halls, although anyone who chooses to do so may dine at his own house. Slaves perform the menial service in these dining halls, while the women of the various families by turns superintend the preparation of the meals. When the Utopians have produced enough to supply them for two years, they use any surplus which they may have to carry on commerce with neighbouring nations, securing from them gold, silver and iron and other things they need in turn. They do not use gold and silver as money, since they have common property but they procure it principally to hire mercenaries from among their neighbours.
More is conservative in his family structures in comparison to Plato who would have children raised communally to prevent family bonds from forming. In Utopia social units are synonymous with the family unit. When a couple plans to marry the pre-marital ritual is an interesting and theoretically somewhat comic event: the wife to be or husband to be must show themselves naked to their respective partners. Whilst this appears as ridiculous we are faced with a logic based on a reasoning equal to that of the lusty and economically driven 'Wife of Bath' in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales;
"When men go to buy a colt, where they are risking only a little money, they are so cautious that, though the animal is almost bare, they won't close the deal until saddle and blanket have been taken off lest there be a hidden sore lurking beneath".
And so marriage and trade are likened in terms of utility and investment.
The oldest male heads family units and utopia appears as hospitable and understanding towards mothers. The concept of eliminating parental bonds is non-existent as not only do parents keep their children but the society is structured to make the job as easy as possible. Women sit on the outside of the dining hall so that "if they suddenly feel sick, as pregnant women often do from time to time, they can get up". We must also recognise however, that More is willing to compromise the family for the good of the city. Households that are too large (over sixteen adults) can be divided and the surplus sent to other households of less than ten adults. Further if a town is too full its population is transferred to another town, and if the island of utopia is overpopulated, some citizens leave to colonise the mainland. People become commodified, quantified, and treated as currency as they are transferred and used to balance numbers:
"if a city has too many people , the extra persons serve to make up the shortage of population in other cities".
Although not as radical as Plato, More appears here to sacrifice the benefits of family structure for that of strong political structure - individual costs for the benefit of the masses.
In Utopia, pride is regarded as a social vice and children are taught this from their youngest age. As Hythloday says, "Men and animals are alike are greedy and rapacious from fear of want. Only human pride glories in surpassing others in conspicuous consumption. For this kind of vice there is no room whatsoever in the Utopian way of life". So More's utopian discourse is based on a diagnosis of the ills of sixteenth century Christendom: identifying it as pride and prescribing remedies. It defends and advocates the systems of the simple communal living against the growth of modern capitalism and ruthless self- advancing Machiavellianism.
In addition to creating the same conditions for everyone, this assures that they will have ample supplies and suppress the instinct of fear of want. Everyone gets "plenty of everything that's needed for a comfortable life". Whenever the head of a household wants anything "he just goes to one of these shops and asks for it … He's allowed to take it away without any sort of payment, either in money or in kind". All Utopians then are equal and even the guardians of the cities, who are exempted from the normal work "go on working voluntarily to set a good example".