Development in a Dream: Bellamy’s Idea of Administration

Utopias are mirrors of the period in which their writers live. The conditions and problems of those periods are reflected in utopias. The utopia writer gives place to these problems in her/his work, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. The nineteenth century is a period of abundance in utopia literature. With respect to political regime and geographically, not only Europe but also America has been the place of utopias. America’s desire for development was due to its political regime as well as the abundance of its natural resources on the continent. The idea of the development of society in the nineteenth century was related to industrialization and the development of capitalism. The world that Edward Bellamy envisions in Looking Backward as a utopia is an industrialized state monopoly. The capitalist company is replaced by the monopoly state, which is defined as nation. The nation is mechanized as an economic and political organization rather than a living organism. The ideology that sustains the society is an industrial nationalism which leans on the concept of nation. Production and working order are shaped according to a military discipline. The capitalist corporation’s state is transformed into a socialist nation corporation.