Utopia: The Epistemological and Axiological Dimensions of Being
Utopia is not merely a poetic fantasy, but the most serious of human concerns. It represents an epistemological revolt—a rebellion of cognition against a reality dominated by the logic of profit. In axiological terms, utopia concerns an order of values that escapes market calculations and balance sheets.
In this article, we will analyze how great social projects—from antiquity to the digital age—have attempted to tame the world of objects. You will learn how rationing, gift exchange, and technological abundance shape our identity and relationships with others in the search for a just order.
The Utopia of Rationing: From Plato to Thomas More
The utopia of rationing is a child of the modern fear of the chaos of consumption and waste. Its foundation is the belief that social order must prevail over the sphere of goods to avoid being devoured by it. In his Republic, Plato viewed private property as an ethical problem that shatters the community and fuels destructive ambitions. His "communism of the guardians" aimed at a ritual purification of power from the temptation of possession.
In Utopia, Thomas More redefines the relationship between labor and freedom. In his vision, common goods are the foundation, and labor—though mandatory—is reduced to a minimum to free up time for spiritual development. This tradition was continued by Morelly and Mably. The former saw property as a sin requiring total equality, while the latter, as a realist, postulated its moral restraint through education. All these visions share a warning against biopower—a system that, by regulating access to things, begins to control human desires.
Marcel Mauss and Abramowski: The Gift as the Foundation of Social Bonds
A completely different direction is set by the utopia of the gift. Marcel Mauss proved that primitive exchange was not based on money, but on the obligation of reciprocity. The gift is the "cement of society"—to give is to bind, and to receive is to acknowledge the other person. This paradigm strikes at the fetishization of things, freeing objects from the bonds of possession and turning them into carriers of memory and care.
In Polish social thought, this idea was developed by Edward Abramowski. His Republic of Friends is an ethical project based on voluntary cooperation, rejecting state coercion and property. Abramowski believed that "islands of the good life" could transform the system from the bottom up. In this view, things become transparent—they do not serve to build status, but to cement solidarity, providing a radical alternative to soulless market exchange.
The Utopia of Abundance: Rifkin and the Digital Revolution
The contemporary utopia of abundance is based on a radical trust in progress. Jeremy Rifkin announces the arrival of a society with zero marginal cost. Thanks to digitalization, the Internet of Things, and prosumption (the blurring of the line between producer and consumer), the production of goods becomes nearly free. When things are available for next to nothing, the fuel for competition and the motivation for accumulation disappear.
This shift has a profound anthropological dimension: it liberates humans from the homo economicus model. The digital gift utopia, supported by distributed technologies, allows for the sharing of resources and energy outside the logic of domination. In a world of satiety, work ceases to be a ticket to humanity and becomes a form of expression and relationship-building. Things lose their hypnotic charm, giving way to empathetic motivation and the need for meaning.
Summary: The Revolt of Matter Against Humanity
Despite precise designs, the relationships between people and things remain inherently unpredictable. Every attempt to "rationalize" exchange—whether through planning or technology—generates side effects: new forms of alienation, the bureaucracy of surveillance, or the inflation of meaning. Matter often resists human systems, exposing the contradictions of our civilization.
Utopia, however, is not a futile dream. It is an essential tool of critique that forces us to ask: who would we be if objects stopped ruling us? Although an ideal order may never exist, the very pursuit of it helps save the soul of society from the total domination of the commodity.
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