Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)
Perhaps it used to be the case that people had trouble imagining a utopia, but here&#x27;s two solid utopias (or near enough) I&#x27;ve encountered in fiction: the entirety of Ian M Bank&#x27;s &quot;Culture&quot;; and the second chapter of Cory Doctorow&#x27;s &quot;Walkaway&quot;.<p>Also, there&#x27;s the perennial example of Burning Man (and related festivals) - here&#x27;s an example of people creating happiness that has little to do with the removal of scarcities, and plenty to do with the addition of abundance.<p>To go off @mactintyre&#x27;s selection: if &quot;nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary&quot;, well, seems to me that&#x27;s a failure of imagination and experience more than an incapacity in humans or reality.<p>You could also look to Asimov&#x27;s &quot;Profession&quot; (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.inf.ufpr.br&#x2F;renato&#x2F;profession.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.inf.ufpr.br&#x2F;renato&#x2F;profession.html</a>) - again, while not exactly a Utopia, it&#x27;s decently close - and more importantly:<p>&quot;It won’t do to say to a man, ‘You can create. Do so.’ It is much safer to wait for a man to say, ‘I can create, and I will do so whether you wish it or not.’&quot;<p>These are the people that, when all scarcity has been eliminated, take that bland contentedness which results and turn into something <i>more</i>.<p>Not to say the Orwell is wrong - he&#x27;s on the nose: &quot;Happiness hitherto has been a by-product, and for all we know it may always remain so. The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood.&quot;