Utopias Are Envisioned Societies Where Human Beings Live ✓ Solved

Utopias are envisioned societies where human beings live a best

Utopias are envisioned societies where human beings live a best possible life. Utopias are here distinguished from dystopias. Dystopias are envisioned societies where the structuring of society is tragically wrong, bringing human suffering, misery, and difficult to overcome barriers to a decent life. We will not be dealing with dystopias in this assignment.

INSTRUCTIONS: In this assignment you are to construct an Engels-Inspired Utopia. Such a utopia will have 3 main characteristics: 1) A highly developed technologically driven global society 2) Completely devoid of capitalism 3) With minimal if any government.

PREPARATION: You begin by reading Engels notes and the Engels reading. Then you can begin considering elements in our current society that suggest the ways that technology is making the need for capitalism obsolete. This should give you a general sense of how to construct an Engels Utopia. Next you should consider some currently important areas of society that you might find most feasible to extrapolate as elements of this futuristic Utopia.

WRITING: You must choose one of the possible areas below, writing a long paragraph (at least half a page, single spaced) describing what that area might be like in an Engels non-capitalist technologically driven future.

Possible areas:

• ART AND/OR ENTERTAINMENT GOODS
• DURABLE & PERISHABLE TRANSPORTATION
• COMMUNICATION
• FOOD SERVICES
• MEDIUMS OF EXCHANGE
• WELFARE: SAFETY/LAWS

Originality is expected.

Paper For Above Instructions

In a Engels-inspired utopia, the realm of art and entertainment goods would be liberated from the constraints of market scarcity and private profit, evolving instead through collaborative creation, open access, and communal stewardship. This vision rests on the premise that culture is a public good generated by collective effort, and that technology can dramatically lower the costs of production and distribution, allowing richer diversity and broader participation. As Paul Mason argues in Postcapitalism, information technology can decouple value from scarcity, enabling non-market logics to coordinate creative work (Mason, 2015). Similarly, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams emphasize shifting institutional arrangements toward platform commons and policy frameworks that widen participation, rather than concentrate power in monopolistic gatekeepers (Srnicek & Williams, 2015). In such a system, art and entertainment are produced via peer production models, open licenses, and community-funded initiatives that model a social logic of sharing and mutual support (Benkler, 2006). The result is a vibrant cultural ecology where artists collaborate across borders, genres, and media, unimpeded by neocolonial copyright regimes or exploitative labor relations (Lessig, 2004).

Access to art and entertainment goods in this Engelsian order would be universal and free at the point of use, reflecting a cultural commons intensified by digital platforms and hands-on fabrication infrastructures. Digital tools—open-source software, modular hardware, and distributed fabrication networks—would enable anyone to design, remix, and produce works ranging from music and films to interactive installations and performance pieces. This open architecture reduces marginal costs, allowing a proliferation of micro-creations that collectively accumulate into a rich cultural tapestry. The abundance enabled by technology aligns with Rifkin’s analysis of a Zero Marginal Cost Society, in which the cost of adding additional units of digital information approaches zero, thereby enabling non-market sharing of cultural content at scale (Rifkin, 2014). Simultaneously, the social organization of these activities would resist commodification: curatorial labor would be democratically governed, and funding would be provided by public institutions, philanthropic networks, and community endowments rather than private capital seeking an exclusive financial return (Marx, 1848; Mason, 2015).

Intellectual property in such a utopia would be recast as a commons-based regime. Artists would rely on permissive licenses and collaborative licenses that encourage remixing, recontextualization, and distributed stewardship while safeguarding the dignity and rights of creators. Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture framework helps illuminate why open licensing and collaborative reuse are not only ethically sound but practically enabling in a non-capitalist society: cultural production can be simultaneously expansive and diverse when legal structures encourage sharing rather than enclosure (Lessig, 2004). In this setting, the economics of art is not driven by profit maximization, but by a stewardship ethic that values social impact, accessibility, and cross-cultural dialogue. The production and distribution systems would be anchored in commons-based peer production, as discussed by Benkler, where networks of volunteers and professionals collectively generate high-quality cultural goods at a scale unimaginable under capitalist regimes (Benkler, 2006).

The social benefits of this arrangement extend beyond aesthetic pleasure. A culture that prioritizes open access and collaboration can contribute to broad-based education, critical thinking, and social cohesion. When creative labor is decoupled from precarious wage dependence and the public sector provides stable funding for the arts, artists can pursue ambitious projects that interrogate, transform, and reimagine social norms. The democratization of creative labor also empowers marginalized voices, enabling communities with distinct histories and languages to contribute meaningfully to the global cultural conversation. This aligns with Marxian critiques of commodity fetishism, which argue that human labor is alienated when creativity is commodified and controlled by a few proprietors. In a non-capitalist utopia, art becomes a collective activity that strengthens social bonds and expands the experiential universe of all people (Marx, 1867; Engels, 1880).

Yet this vision is not without its challenges. Safeguarding artistic freedom while preventing the emergence of new gatekeepers requires deliberate governance: inclusive decision-making processes, transparent funding criteria, and robust anti-monopoly safeguards for platforms that host and curate works. The risk of cultural homogenization remains real if dominant networks disproportionately shape what counts as “popular” or “prestigious.” Addressing these dangers demands continual experimentation with governance models—participatory budgeting for cultural funds, rotating curatorial councils, and community auditing—so that power does not consolidate in a few hands (Srnicek & Williams, 2015). The utopian promise of freely accessible culture thus hinges on a resilient social contract between innovators, audiences, and the institutions that sustain the commons (Britannica, 2023).

From a historical vantage, Engels and Marx anticipated that technological advances could undermine capitalist arrangements if social relations and institutions adapted accordingly. The Communist Manifesto and subsequent economic writings argue that the development of productive forces under systems of private property has the potential to render capital relations obsolete, provided the surplus value produced by labor is redirected toward collective welfare rather than private accumulation (Marx, 1848; Marx, 1867). The proposed art-and-entertainment regime exemplifies how this redirection might look in practice: public funding, open-source collaboration, and commons-based distribution reorient creative labor toward social good rather than profit. This aligns with contemporary analyses of postcapitalist futures that identify culture as both a driver and a beneficiary of non-market arrangements where technology enables abundance rather than scarcity (Mason, 2015; Rifkin, 2014; Lessig, 2004).

In sum, an Engels-inspired utopia for art and entertainment goods would render culture an accessible, participatory, and globally interconnected enterprise. It would harness advanced technologies to lower costs, expand creative possibility, and democratize access while maintaining a strong public commitment to non-market coordination and collective stewardship. The result would be a cultural ecosystem characterized by diversity, resilience, and social nourishment—an environment where people can engage with art not as passive consumers but as co-creators and custodians of a shared, vibrant commons (Benkler, 2006; Mason, 2015; Srnicek & Williams, 2015). The theoretical foundations trace back to classical analyses of capitalism and its limitations, yet the practical realization rests on new institutional designs that empower collaboration, openness, and community welfare as the engine of cultural life (Marx, 1848; Engels, 1880).

References

• Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. 1848. Penguin Classics, 2002.
• Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I. 1867. Penguin Classics, 1990.
• Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. 1845. Penguin, 2009.
• Engels, Friedrich. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. 1880. International Publishers, 2010.
• Mason, Paul. Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future. Verso, 2015.
• Srnicek, Nick; Williams, Alex. Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work. Verso, 2015.
• Rifkin, Jeremy. The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
• Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, 2006.
• Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture. Penguin, 2004.
• Britannica Editors. Utopian socialism. Britannica Online, 2023.