Utopia, Why It Can Never Exist

Sir Thomas More wrote his most famous book, Utopia in 1516, although it wasn't published in English until 1551. Utopia is a Greek word meaning "no-place", over time it has taken on the meaning of another Greek word, Eutopia which means "good-place". In modern English Utopia means heaven on Earth, a perfect society.

The first book of this nature is The Republic by Plato in which he puts forward a perfect City-State. In this City-State children are not raised by their parents but by the Government, it's as nutty as a fruitcake. And there is the recurring theme in all of these Utopia's, that nuttiness never goes away.

Conservatism rejects Utopia, but non of the Ideologies do, in fact quite the opposite. They only exist so that they can push their idea of Utopia. Libertarianism, Anarchism, Liberalism, Communism all have at the end a Utopia, a perfect world, where a perfect government rules over a perfect economy and it is all filled with perfect people. What is obvious is that there is no room for unbelievers.

While it is certainly possible to believe in a Utopia and even to work towards achieving it. It is not possible for a Utopia to ever actually exist and the reason is that people and circumstances change. Because even if it were possible to achieve a state of Utopia it would never be able to remain there, things are constantly moving. People grow older, they change their opinions, their desires, they make decisions both good and bad. They do not remain a constant. Over time of course new people are born and they grew older, as do the next generation and then the next and so on. Each one wanting things that the last generation didn't think were that important. Even without technology or any new knowledge it would not be possible because of human nature.

Now those who believe in Utopia don't tend to believe that human nature exists. Instead they believe in the Blank State, that humans are born empty vessels who are ready to be filled with whatever they want to fill them with. However human nature does exist and we are born with inbuilt traits that grow as we get older. Human nature means that we desire things even if we are not told that we desire them. Ambition, lust, inquisitiveness, competition, approval, we have all of these things inside of us and they do not remain in one state.

Nor do circumstances, the weather changes, seasons change, the availability of goods change. Oil is cheap, oil is expensive, it changes things. Now extend that from one item to everything, because everything changes. It's why Communism as an economic system cannot work because there are simply to many moving parts to keep track of. That principle remains in place for economics as it does for society. Life is far too complex for a Utopia to ever really exist.

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