Alternatives to Capitalism Explored in Thomas More's Utopia

Alternatives to Capitalism Explored in Thomas More's Utopia

Thomas More's use of dialogue in "Utopia" is not only practical

but masterly layed out as well. The text itself is divided into two parts. The

first , called "Book One", describes the English society of the fifteenth

century with such perfection that it shows many complex sides of the

interpretted structure with such clarity and form that the reader is given the

freedom for interpretation as well. This flexibility clearly illustrates

More's request for discussion and point of view from this reader. In one

concise, artistic paragraph, More clearly illustrates his proposition of the

problems people possess within a capitalist society and the fault of the

structure itself; clearly showing More's point of view for "Book One". If More

attempted to get anything across to the people of England it was this:

Take a barren year of failed harvests, when many thousands of men have been

carried off by hunger. If at the end of the famine the barns of the rich were

searched. I dare say positively enough grain would be found in them to have

saved the lives of all those who died from starvation and disease, if it had

been divided equally among them. Nobody really need have suffered from a bad

harvest at all. So easily might men get the necessities of life if that cursed

money, which is supposed to provide access to them, were not in fact the chief

barrier to our getting what we need to live. Even the rich, I'm sure, understand

this. They must know that it's better to have enough of what we really need than

an abundance of superfluities, much better to escape from our many present

troubles than to be burdened with great masses of wealth. And in fact I have no

doubt that every man's perception of where his true interest lies, along with

with the authority of Christ our Saviour..... would long ago have brought the

whole world to adopt Utopian laws, if it were not for one single monster, the

prime plague and begetter of all others---I mean pride. (More, pg.83) For one to

fully realize the significance of this virtueous paragraph they first must

remember the time period it was written; more so now that we are in the