Abstract

Contrary to dominant debates about Utopia, I do not think it matters whether Thomas More actually believed that ‘communism’ was the solution to social inequality and injustice; what I think is important is that the book raises the question of a different type of society. As I argue in the second part of my article, the power of Utopia, like all radical utopianism, derives not from the production of blueprints; rather, it comes from the stimulation of desire for a ‘happy place’, which can reflect negatively on, and produce discontent within, the here and now. Understood in this way, radical utopianism offers a form of resistance to dominant constructions of reality and our complicity, conscious and unconscious, with them.