In Search of the Common Good: Utopian Experiments Past and Future

By Charles J. Erasmus

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029096308
• ISBN13: 9780029096307
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Free Pr
• Length: 420 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

HELPFUL, BROAD SURVEY OF VARIOUS UTOPIAN IDEAS AND "ACTUALITIES"

UC anthropology professor Charles Erasmus wrote this book in 1977. Not merely a survey of different utopian communities, Erasmus probes the historical background that leads to such experiments. With chapters such as "Mutual Aid: Preindustrial Forms," "Property Incentives: Origins of Capitalist Man," and "Worker Management and Utopian Anarchy," he also examines political and economic forces underlying the development of such communities. In the Preface to the paperback edition, Erasmus notes, "Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when university students were emulating the Red Guards of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Maoism was being hailed as the political philosophy of the future.... This book grew out of lectures designed to present evidence for a contrary view. To make labels less emotional, millenialism took the place of communism, and Rousseau's ideas on progress and inequality served me as a substitute for Marx." Unlike many survey books on utopias (which focus exclusively on America and Europe), Erasmus includes significant chapters on Israeli communes (he notes "the kibbutz movement is still the largest commune movement the world has ever seen," and "The kibbutz ... showed how hard it is to avoid representative government"), as well as socialist experiments in Russia and China. Here are some excerpts from the book: "With the exception of Oneida our eutopias are, or were, primarily farming communities." "The common dining hall occurred (or occurs) among the strongest American communes, the Shakers, Hutterites and Amana Inspirationists. Oneida had it as well." He includes some "seamy-side" facts, as well, observing that one issue in the ultimate breakup of Oneida as a "utopian" adventure was "Noyes's practice of initiating the young girls into the sexual life of the community. The fact that most of them were indoctrinated shortly after the onset of menstruation made Noyes eligible for charges of statutory rape. In 1879 Noyes fled to Canada, and within two years the Oneida Community became a joint-stock company."

Unforgetable anthropology

Erasmus of Santa Barbara, having extensive research in indigenous tribes throughout Latin America, draws on his research and on extensive field research in order to review utopian schemes past and present. The most memorable chapter is on 19th century American Utopian societies. There is another on the communist societies of Russia and China. Not all of the Utopiae or intentional, the author's main specialty is on indigenous communal groups in Latin America.