In 2015 a tiny Seattle startup created waves when it announced that all employees would make at least $70,000 per year. Gravity Payments then CEO Dan Price declared that he was cutting his own salary to the new self-imposed minimum. The move garnered national attention from the Seattle Times to the Wall Street Journal, with supporters calling Price a visionary and critics labelling him a Socialist. In fact, both rather missed the point. Whether conscious or not, wage inequality has become salient enough in the American consciousness, that it’s begun manifesting in voluntary corporate policy. Gravity Payments action and the attention it drew are both leading indicators of a deeper problem. America’s social gradient between rich and poor is out of balance, resulting in unhealthy wage disparities and limited social mobility. More importantly, such leading indicators presage more serious declines in our social fabric, trust in government, and open the door for dangerous ideologies.
Differences in outcome are a feature of the capitalist system. This is, at least partly, predicated on preferencing individual freedom over collective stability. Individual failure is allowed to ensure the possibility of individual success. In a society where sufficient numbers of citizens succeed, the overall community (the collective whole) benefits. Plato recognized this relationship in Republic, though emphasized the opposite hierarchy, stating that a wise state begets wise citizens (Charbit, 2002 p. 222). In fact, the relationship is not so binary. A society cannot rise above its citizenry, and a citizenry – at large – will have a difficult time rising above existing social norms. Polarization, income inequality, and affordable housing are all examples of broad social trends that individuals might overcome, but where achieving radical social change is difficult. Gravity Payments decision to dramatically increase its minimum wage, for example, did not spawn a wave of similar movements across the industry, nor does one person choosing to overcome their partisan polarization result in a dramatic sea change. Yet societies do change, and dramatic transformations do exist. The rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, are such examples, as is the multi-century evolution of the American colonies into the United States. The countries of China, Japan, and Vietnam have also undergone radical changes in government and social norms since the turn of the 20th century.
It bears contemplation then that all nations have an inevitable end, including the United States. There will one day, no longer be a thing called America. This need not necessitate a dystopian depression, merely an acknowledgement that history deals from a deck of very limited cards. Each hand has a shelf-life and there is constant pressure to wipe the board clean and deal another round. There is also a propensity, perhaps inevitability, that history will deal a hand previously favored. Utopian concepts, for example, have existed throughout human history and continue to surface in the modern day. Marxism is its most recent conception, but the principles of Marxism are not themselves new. Plato was highly suspicious of democracy, private property, and decadence. In so far as establishing the ideal city, he saw the individual as entirely subservient to the state (Futre Pinheiro, 2006 p. 158). The welfare of the collective, in Plato’s mind, was paramount. The great philosopher John Locke also advocated for strict social controls amongst the American colonies, going so far as to express a need for tithingmen and draconian norms such as neighbors reporting each other’s transgressions (Hsueh, 2008). Both Locke and Plato, and for that matter, Karl Marx, wrapped these totalitarian ideas in a vision of utopia. A perfect society of uniformity, contentedness, and intellectual exploration. It is what makes such ideas so dangerous but precisely what makes them so appealing, particularly in times of great division.
In fact, utopian and totalitarian tendencies manifest throughout the American free world. Homeowners Associations are one such example. These islands of perfection are devoid of individualism, ruled by a vaguely democratic but wholly totalitarian body, where neighbors report neighbors, and the collective can strip owners of their properties. Consider further the East Wind Community, a child of the hippy commune established in 1974 (Mariani, 2020) and which continues to operate in a wholly Marxist manner today. There, food and labor are equally distributed amongst its 72 residents and a minimalist approach is taken to technology (para. 3). More insidiously, our online communities exhibit utopian tendencies through closed (private) groups, closely guarded both algorithmically, administratively, and through strictly enforced social norms. All of these examples suggest that utopian, collectivist, and tribal tendencies are tightly intertwined and very present in western society. It is paramount, therefore, that these tendencies be acknowledged and understood by liberal governments. The attention garnered by Gravity Payments is not so notable because of what it is, but because it is at all. Totalitarian tendencies are corralled only (and then not always), by prosperous societies. When such inequalities exist, utopian ideas gain broad appeal, and they provide a vehicle for totalitarian ideology to spread. In that, Gravity Payments is not an example of Socialism run amok; it is an early warning sign that social inequality is dangerously out of balance.
In summary, history is bound to repeat itself. The utopian concepts of antiquity are just as present today as they were in the time of Plato. Modern inclinations toward totalitarianism are no less benign because they exist in the 21st century, or because they’re wrapped in visions of bliss. They are dangerous because they carry broad appeal when capitalism fails to maintain adequate social balance. It is necessary, therefore, that western governments ensure social mobility to avoid a return to history.
References
Charbit, Y., & Virmani, A. (2002). The Platonic City: History and Utopia. Population, 57(2),
207–235. https://doi.org/10.2307/3246608
Marinari, M. (2020). The new generation of self-created utopias. The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/16/t-magazine/intentional-communities.html
Pinheiro, M. P. F. (2006). Utopia and Utopias: a Study on a Literary Genre in Antiquity. In S. N.
Byrne, E. P. Cueva, & J. Alvares (Eds.), Authors, Authority, and Interpreters in the Ancient Novel:
Essays in Honor of Gareth L. Schmeling (Vol. 5, pp. 147–171). Barkhuis. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13wwxhm.12