Did a utopian society published in the horse-andbuggy days of 1888 predict our massive Costco and Walmart stores and the use of credit cards for payment. —Well, maybe.
“Looking Backward” was an extremely popular book in 19th century America, third in popularity after “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Ben-Hur.”
When I first read “Looking Backward” in the early 1960s, there were no bulk stores or credit cards, so the author’s descriptions of life in America by the year 2000 seemed mostly unlikely. Having just re-read his novel, these are two aspects of his utopia that came to be, although by a different pathway. And by this time, primitive electrical and phone systems were in place. An entertainment he proposes in the year 2000 is piped-in music, barely thinkable in 1888 but what Pandora and Spotify provide today.
His system employed all citizens between ages 21 and 45 in suitable vocations. The work week was even shorter than today, thanks to mechanization. All would then receive regular cards indicating payment for their work, and this would continue after they retired, an early form of social security. (Keep in mind that life expectancy was far less a century ago.) Folks would then proceed to a huge central store where they would examine products and put in their order that would be promptly delivered to their home, not too unlike today’s home delivery that rapidly expanded in the pandemic. They would “pay” by having the cost deleted from their work card. There was no need for money or taxes. Other reforms included the elimination of lawyers, competing merchants, government politicians and military. To channel citizens into the more rewarding lines of work, “parents and teachers watch from early years for indications of special aptitudes in children,” something that today’s education fails to accomplish under standardized one-sizefits- all education. Bellamy also recognizes the role of professional disciplines, noting the utopian President lacks the knowledge to make policy in professional fields such as medicine and education. Today’s school boards could take notice.
Edward Bellamy (1850– 1898) had attended college, spent a year in Europe and mostly Germany, trained in law but decided to become a journalist. He founded the newspaper “The New Nation.” But with the success of this book, he focused on writing for the rest of his life, including a sequel “Equality.”
The late 1800s was a time of anger against big railroads that overcharged for passengers and freight as well as other large corporations that paid poverty wages. Therefore Bellamy's utopia resulted in the formation of Nationalist Clubs that would eventually be absorbed into the Populist Party movement. Despite the term “nationalist,” Bellamy’s position was one of patriotism or love of country, but lacking any aspect of imposed superiority found in the term “nationalism.” Bellamy’s many social systems described in “Looking Backward” could be considered socialist, but Bellamy was very aware of the semantic problem of the term “socialist.” It drew a kneejerk response to the term, similar to how “communist” and “socialist” draw an immediate negative response from Americans today who are mostly clueless the term’s details. Thus the word “socialist” never appears in this book. His philosophy today aligns closely with “communitarianism,” a term which did not exist at that time, but which would propose many similar ideas under the efforts of the late Amitai Etzioni.
His novel is structured on the premise of an 1880's man undergoing a Rip van Winkle extended sleep and waking up in the year 2000. But in the early chapter, Bellamy describes the economy of his time as being like a runaway coach, pulled by poor and desperate workers with rich riders on top. But as the coach endures turbulent roads, some rich fall off and join the pullers, and a few pullers struggle to gain or regain a position on top. For readers who live in a time before automobiles, this is an effective scenario.
Bellamy suffered tuberculosis and died relatively young. In the 1945 printing, his son Paul Bellamy noted the post-war need: “In this soul-searching era, the prophecies of Edward Bellamy deserve and compel consideration.”
Bellamy’s book had an extended influence on readers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And the central problem of excessive individualism thrives today. His politics was indeed an extended family affair. His cousin Francis Bellamy wrote the first version of the Pledge of Allegiance.