[lbo-talk] Utopia (was: Weber's polar night)

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Wed Jun 22 12:46:09 PDT 2005


On 6/22/05, Gar Lipow wrote: >I don't believe in utopia at all as an obtainable or even a desirable goal.<

how could utopia not be a desirable goal? Utopia is, by definition, desirable. (Of course, different people have different utopias.) It is unobtainable, however, as you note.

"Utopia" is a word coined by Thomas More, combining "eutopia" (good place) and "outopia" (no place). For example, the Walrasian general equilibrium system (as codified by Arrow & Debreu) is a utopia (from the NC economics perspective). It's similar to Edward Bellamy's non-market utopia in terms of being both ideal and unreal.

JD



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