Utopia Essay, Research Paper
Utopia
My own personal vision of New California would be based on small, communal type living; opposed to a centralized government system. I was struggling with the fact that I don t know if this type of living could actually work, but it is my Utopia. I do feel this would have a better chance of actually working here in New California due to its rather secluded location away from the urban sprawl of Old California and the rest of the world. The small population up here would also help communal living to become a reality. Furthermore, I m under the assumption that this is the North Coast and it seems like there are generally more good people here. Good people are quite necessary for communal living to essentially take place. Without a governmental authority to tell the people what they can and can t do, a completely new way of life will be experienced. Residents of New California will be free to do whatever they choose. However, each person will be directly responsibility for their actions and the actions of those around them. Those who help support the community will in turn be supported themselves by the community. I feel that a simpler way of life would result from communal living. This will greatly reduce stress and anxiety amongst New California s inhabitants, promoting togetherness and harmony between community members.
As far as the structure of my Utopia, there will be one major principle of New California that will basically lead to any following principles. That is, there is not going to be any type of government in place to tell the people what they can and cannot do. The population will be divided up into relatively small communities who are free to decide how they want to live their lives. This means each community will come to a consensus on whether or not to elect officials, whether or not to meet with outside communities, they will decide their own rules, guidelines, standards of living, etc. The people will be free to live in whichever community they see fit, and are free to leave at any time. Since everybody will be living in small communities with no authoritarian government, there will be no need for the ownership of land. The second principle is that no land will be owned. People will definitely occupy land to live and grow food on, but no one will own it. It will be community land, opposed to some kind of private property. I fell this will, in a way, help make everyone equal. They will share the land and work together for the good of the people. Another method to help achieve equality will be the barter system. Goods will be traded amongst people instead of being bought. U.S. currency will still be used, however, it will be used as a trading mechanism rather than as legal tender. This means people will be able to trade goods for money or goods for goods. As far as education and health care go, it is basically up to the communities to decide how to handle the matter. If a group wants to organize a schooling system, apprenticeship program, or whatever, they will be free to do so. If a person wants to learn a trait and are unable to do so in their home community, he/she will be free to travel to another community to find a teacher. Health care will be treated very similarly. Each community will choose whether it wants modern type medicine or more traditional whole earth type medicine. If a person is sick than the community will help to get that person better. Infrastructure and energy will likely be changed from how we know it now. There won t be any government to provide these types of services, so it is up to the people to do it themselves. Alternative energy will almost inevitably arise because where else is it going to come from. Almost everything I could even think of will follow the same pattern. It will be the people living in the community and the community itself s responsibility to accomplish anything. If they want something, it is up to them to do something about it. Without a government, the people would be free to do as they choose. They must nevertheless realize that this freedom will also make them directly responsible for any actions taken. It would be a whole new way of life, and I think it would be a good one.
They are essentially different in every way. One country, named C.A.L.S. by my group, is based on more of a socialist perspective. We provide free education and free health care for all of our citizens. As far as government services are concerned, these are two major strengths of our country. I also really like the way we tried to emphasize community service as a way to become a legal immigrant and as punishment for less severe crimes. This will help reduce the amount of state employees we will need and save our money for other things. Free public transportation would be another strong asset of C.A.L.S. This will help to reduce emissions from cars and lessen the need for automobiles. I feel these were the major strengths of our country, along with our overall more eco-friendly lifestyles. Now it is time to delve into the weaknesses of C.A.L.S. One flaw in our government is that land will be governmentally owned to help all of our trees from being cut down. This almost sounds like a good idea, but why should the government have the right to own the forest and decide what trees will go? If any type of corrupt officials happens to rule our country at any given time, our beautiful forests will be in their hands. What we really wanted was for everyone to own the land, but I think we were unclear in conveying this message. Another weakness was our higher tax for families with more than two children. The idea behind this is to encourage smaller families with the final goal of having the whole village raise the children. I like the concept of the village raising the children, but I do not agree with the government telling its citizens how many kids they can have. The next weakness is simply having a government. If it truly were a Utopia, no government would be needed. The people would be able to govern themselves and life would be great.