In a capitalist society can utopia really be obtained? I really don’t think so; because if utopia is defined as a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions, then a place where everything is perfect for everyone is not likely. Perfection, I believe, cannot be obtained in a capitalist society because of competition. Competition can help society in many areas, such as improving technology, forcing individuals to work harder, and making more money for the overall economy. But ideal perfection can’t be realistic with competition.
Because of competition, in my opinion, perfection in laws cannot be attained. One reason I think this is true is because of the many laws that governments of a capitalist society has; such as monopoly be outlawed. Laws are not ideal perfect because they are some people who would want to generate more money and can’t because of some law that would prevent them to do so. There might also be some ethical issues between businesses that might lead to imperfection. There might be some common law within businesses that might be unfair for other business that makes society imperfect. Ideal perfection means that all people in the society are not only happy with their economic status but also have no need to improve on that, and when we have competition playing a major part in our society, there is no chance of improvement not happening.
Government perfection is really hard to attained because it is rare when everyone agrees on something that the government provides. Government has to maintain not only a good economic system, but also a stable society. In an ideally perfect government there cannot be any differentiation in taxes, nor can there be such a great difference between upper class and lower class. In a capitalistic society there is differentiation in taxes and a wide gap between upper and lower class incomes. A good, successful government in my opinion cannot be ideally perfect. I would think that that could only happen if the government controls the people, like a communist country, but then that in the society’s point of view isn’t perfect either.
Can social conditions really be perfect, ideally perfect, for everyone? This is I believe the strongest argument against attaining utopia. What is perfect social conditions, is it everyone having a job, family, and values. Is it following the economic system and trying to reach for the ultimate goal in a capitalist society, which is the bottom line. Does everyone have a home under our ideally perfect society, are all our morals and values justified in this society. I will have to disagree because our “great” capitalist society doesn’t teach morals or value, it teaches and promotes competition and winning. It doesn’t care about the mean just the end. I don’t believe a society, which doesn’t show morals and values, can’t possibly be attaining utopia. Our society isn’t perfect, and we can’t obtain utopia until competition, mainly the winning part of competition, is still an existence.
There may be many other reasons why utopia cannot be attained in a capitalist society. There might be good strong cases in favor of utopia being obtained. But, in my personal opinion, perfection is hard when you live in a society where there has to be loser.