Utopia (Thomas Moore) Essays - Utopian Novels, Utopia,

Utopia (Thomas Moore) In his book Utopia, Thomas More examines a society that seems to be the ideal living situation for human beings. The main thesis of Utopia is his solution to many of the problems that are being faced in English society in the early 16th century. In forming his ideas for the country of Utopia, More points out many of the problems that he sees in English society. One of the most striking examples of English social problems that More points out is the punishment of thieves. In England, thieves are punished with death. There is no distinction between the severity of crimes in the justice system and a man who steals a loaf of bread is given the same sentence as a man who kills. According to More, this method of dealing with thieves is both unjust and socially undesirable. (More, 44) More sees the system of capital punishment to be unfair to the perpetrator and by no means an effective deterrent to the crime of theft. In order to prevent theft, More feels that the people need to be given a way to exist that alleviates the need to steal. He says ...no penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it's their only way of getting food. (More, 44) This argument seems to be a direct attack on the English class system. Because English society is made up of mainly two classes, the wealthy and the peasantry, it seems next to impossible to make a society in which all people are able to exist comfortably. More points out that people are compelled to steal because of their environment. In England in the 16th century, many peasant farmers were being driven from their land because wealthy land owners were turning cultivated land into pastures in order to raise more sheep, which in return the wool would produce a lager profit than the crops yielded from the land. More describes this process as follows; Each greedy individual preys on his native land like a malignant growth, absorbing field after field and enclosing thousands of acres in a single fence. Result-hundreds of farmers are evicted. (More, 47) Without land, people have no means of supporting themselves and are forced to either turn to begging and lose all of their self respect or steal to survive and More says theft comes easier to a man of spirit.(More, 48) More sums up his feeling on the matter by saying Thus, a few greedy people have converted one of England's greatest natural advantages into a national disaster. (More, 48) When examining the problems of English society, More points out that another of the main contributing factors is the centralized kingship of the country. More says, it is generally agreed that a king can do no wrong, however much he may want to, because everything belongs to him, including every human being in the country.... (More, 61) Because the king has so much power over his country and his land, there is nothing to assure that the people under his command can lead happy and healthy lives. One of the main points More focuses on in Utopia is the kings powers and how he uses them. Kings have the ability to make war, but More questions why anyone would want to go to war in the first place by saying I don't see how it can be in the public interest to prepare for war, which you needn't have unless you want to, by maintaining innumerable disturbers of the peace-when peace is so infinitely more important. (More, 46) Kings have the power to send their people off to fight and lose their lives perhaps because he just feels like war or because he is land hungry. More feels that the kings should simply focus on the land and subjects he has rather than dividing his attention between his duties and his ambitions. He also feels that what kings fail to realize is that they are creating crime and then punishing people for the wrong doing. By allowing war to occur, they are creating an environment of lower moral standards in their kingdom. People are hungry and since the king is so wrap ped up in his petty war