Mumford contrasts these kinds of utopias with some of the classical ones, such as Plato's Republic. In the Republic, for
example, a whole picture is presented, of how society would be governed, how people would be educated, how the
economy would function, what civil society would be like, etc. It's a whole coherent vision, perhaps similar to what exists in
many ways, but with some radical changes and with its own internal consistency. It describes a transformation of society,
rather than an alteration.

I see a lot of the partisan utopian proposals these days on the net. For example, there is something called the social credit
movement. These folks have a particular proposal for financial reform, along the lines of distributing money to the population
based on the wealth created in the nation. It's a reasonable proposal, and I'm not doing it justice here in my over-brief
summary. I have no problem with it as a desirable reform proposal. It is however an example of one of these partisan utopian
visions.

And in this case, the partisan aspect is very evident. I presented my own economic ideas to some of these people, my
development model. They were very adamant about how their proposal was the only reasonable way to proceed. Rather
than their proposal being an idea, that could be discussed along with other ideas, it has become a cause, a specific
movement ? either you're with us or against us kind of thing.
        I don't mean to single out the social credit people. The same thing happens with all sorts of reform ideas. For some, the
only way forward is financial reform, for others it's election reform, or end of corporate personhood, media reform,
initiatives and referendums, etc. etc.

Mumford sounds very modern in the way he talks about whole systems, and how everything needs to be considered
together, if we want to come up with useful utopian visions. I think this becomes particularly important if we want to talk
about how a transformational vision might actually be achieved.

In the past I've referred to partisan proposals as magic bullet ideas. If only we could pass this one piece of legislation, we'd
catch the establishment off guard and everything would be better. This way of thinking is like the thing they tell children: it's
easy to catch a pigeon, all you have to do is put salt on its tail. Right, if you get close enough to put salt on its tail, you
could have grabbed it instead. If we could pass one of these magic-bullet bills ? one powerful enough to make a real
difference ? the system would need to already change before that. Such a bill can't be passed the way the media and political
system operate.
        The Federal Reserve Act was an example of a magic-bullet piece of legislation, but it was the people and their elected
representatives who were caught off guard, not the establishment elite. The sun never sets on their eyes and ears.

I was very pleased by the way Mumford mentions the community a lot, and sees it as a touchstone for examining utopian
ideas. He brings in community casually, as a common sense observation ? that the real meaning of any utopian vision can be
seen in what it would be like to live in a community in that utopia. After all, we all live in a community, and if our community
isn't going to be what we want, is it really all that useful that the society as a whole has changed in some beneficial way?
Perhaps it might be useful, but we aren't really talking about a utopia, something really worth working for, if it isn't what we
want where we live.

In my own work, I first came to see community as being central from a political-science perspective.  If we want to have
democracy, then we need to know what the will of the people is. But what is the will of the people? The fact is that no such
thing exists. We have individuals with ideas, and we have factions with programs. There's no mechanism for the people as a
whole to create or articulate a shared agenda, an inclusive agenda.
        It seems self-evident to me that if a means is to be found for the will of the people to come into existence, that means
must operate at the local level, in the community, where the scale is small, the inherently shared interests are maximized, and
people can interact on a face-to-face, ongoing basis. At a minimum, we can say with certainty, that if the will of the people
cannot be brought into existence at the community level, it certainly cannot be brought into existence at any larger level.

Later on, I also came to see community as being central to popular mobilization for change. The model of change-oriented
organizations, with members sprinkled throughout society, leads to divisiveness ? Republicans vs Democrats,
environmentalists vs. unions, or whatever. In this model, activist movements cancel out one another. If whole communities can
mobilize around an agenda, we have a hope of avoiding divisiveness.

Community also becomes central in the thinking that has been done about sustainability. Communities, and the communities
within a bioregion, give us the natural scale at which we can begin to achieve sustainability.

Also, from the perspective of transformation as a general principle, community is a natural focus. If a system is to be really
transformed, into a new kind of system, it has to be built from the bottom up. You can't turn a horse cart into an automobile
by changing it; you need to build an automobile as a new thing, with new operating principles, new materials, etc. etc. That's
why the butterfly is such a good metaphor for transformation. The caterpillar needs to dissolve down to its constituent
proteins, before it can be regenerated as a butterfly. Our communities are society's constituent proteins.

To these perspectives, Mumford adds community as criteria: quality of community as a measure of quality of
transformational vision. by R K Moore

*     *  *     *      *   *     *     *     *      *   *     *     *     *      *   *     *     *     *

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