Dystopian Times? The Impact of the Death of Progress on Utopian Thinking

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Theory, Culture & Society

DOI: 10.1177/0263276482001001061982; 1; 53Theory Culture Society

Ruth LevitasThinking

Dystopian Times? The Impact of the Death of Progress on Utopian

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Dystopian Times?The Impact of the Death of Progress

on Utopian Thinking

Ruth Levitas

In this paper I shall explore the connections between images of utopia and the socialconditions which give rise to them - not simply in terms of the content of those

images, but where they are located; whether, that is, they are located elsewhere in

space, or elsewhere in time, either in the past or the in the future. I shall also beconcerned with associated issues of how, if at all, it is imagined these images ofutopia are to be translated into reality, and thus with perceptions of time andhistorical development. I should state at the outset that in using the term utopia Iam making no evaluation whatsoever of whether the particular state of society could

possibly or will actually be realised. I use the term simply to denote the state of

society to which individuals or groups of people ultimately aspire. The reasons forusing this definition will become apparent presently.

In a recent article in the Times Higher Educational Supplement, Parrinder (1981, p9) talking about futuristic fiction, remarks I have said nothing in this article about

utopias, because I doubt if the last years of the present millenium are going to be a

very good time for them. In making this statement, Parrinder in unwittinglyfollowing in the footsteps of others who have expressed concern about what they haveperceived as a lack of utopias. Mannheim (1936) in Ideology and Utopia,complained of a crisis in the provision of such images; so does Bauman (1976) inSocialism: TheActive Utopia, and Polak (1973) in The Image of the Future. Itseems to me that this apparent dearth of utopias exists only in so far as people have

been looking for the wrong sort of thing: the view of utopia as a future state whoseimage acts as a catalyst of social change has linked utopia too closely to the processof deliberate social transformation, and consequently obscured the fact that thisrelationship is itself the product of a very specific set of social conditions, and thatunder other circumstances, utopias are simply different, both in content and inpossible social role. Indeed it is precisely because utopias were seen by Mannheim,Bauman and Polak as important in directing social change that they were/areconcerned about their absence.

Yet before utopias came to be located in the future as ideal states to be striven for,they had passed through a number of stages. (No sense of progress is implied bythis.) They have also been fantasy-worlds affording some kind of compensatory

escapism, as in the Land of Cockaygne, which, if given a location at all were givenone elsewhere in space. And where a transformation of society was implied or

demanded, as in the millenarian fringes of the Peasants Revolt, then the transitioninvolved Divine intervention. Utopia took on the role of a catalyst of social changeonly as society appeared to be increasingly malleable and open to human control -and it is perceptions rather than actualities that are crucial here. This is a shiftwhich began to affect utopias in the 17th century, where Winstanley invoked not onlyDivine Intervention to transform the world, but appealed to Cromwell to implementthe blueprint of a new society outlined in The Law of Freedom.


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The gradual dominance of an evolutionary view of social change and the idea of

progress confirmed utopia in a new position of an ideal future state to which thingseither are moving or can and should be made to move. Ironically, the need here isto see how the end-state is to emerge out of the present limits to the extent towhich the projected image can transcend the present reality: constraints arise not justfrom what it is possible, in any given place and time, to imagine, (which limitstranscendence anyway,) but also from what it is possible to imagine as possible. Idoubt whether medieval peasants found the notion of ready-cooked larks flying intothe mouth plausible - but as they were not in the position of having to explain how

Cockaygne was to be achieved, this didnt matter. When utopias must emerge out ofthe present, such issues become more important.

There are then two partially distinct issues involved in the existence or non-existenceof future-located utopias which can be used as goals in social change. One is the

image of social development, of where society is going, and whether the course ofthe transition or of time itself is seen as continuous or broken; the other is the

question of power, of who, if anyone, has the means to implement utopia. The

utopias of the 19th century were predicated on a view of social development thatwas evolutionary - i.e. continuous and progressive, and on the assumption of humancontrol over that evolution. I have argued in a previous paper (Levitas, 1979) that ifyou look at the history of the English utopia, the kind of utopia prevalent in the 19th

century forms a special case, and that, by extension, one can see that utopias doindeed exist in the present time, they are merely different in content and in socialrole, because they are predicated on different assumptions about social development,time and power. What I want to do now is extend this argument in relation to the

present, which seems to be characterised more by expectations of catastrophe thanexpectations of utopia.

If the view of social development as continuous and progressive gives way to a viewthat society is in decline, this logically gives rise to utopias located in the past, or,if they are to be located in the future, they have to be at the other side of somekind of radical break; they cannot be seen to emerge out of the present in anycontinuous way. Herminio Martins (1974) has argued that there has indeed been aresurgence of caesurist thinking about time, that is, an increasing perception ofhistorical time as discontinuous and broken. He does not adduce any evidence for

this, but it is possible to do so, both in relation to academic debates about thenature of historical time, and indeed from current literary utopias.

Recent debates about historical time are relevant for two reasons. The first is that

they seem to illustrate that a caesurist view of time has permeated a whole

spectrum of social and indeed scientific thought in much the same way as

evolutionism came to be a dominant world view in the 19th century. The second, towhich I shall return later, is that they also force the recognition that perceptions oftime and social development vary between different groups in the same society atthe same time - so that when I talk of certain views of time being dominant, I amnot implying that there is a homogeneous society. Any cursory glance at historyillustrates this: that millenarian movements, which by definition conceptualize thetransition to utopia as a sudden break often involving divine intervention, havegenerally been explained in terms of the experience of oppression and powerlessness isone example of this point.




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It is probable that scientific discussion of time itself has moved towards a lesscontinuous view; the development of catastrophe theory may be illustration of this.One might also cite in this context recent arguments about evolution influencing theorganisation of the display at the Natural History Museum; and the extraordinaryprogramme on Radio 4 which resembled a replay of early nineteenth century

arguments among scientists about the status of evolutionary theory.(1) It isundoubtedly true that one of the major divisions in the discussion of historical time isbetween those who see it as essentially continuous and those who do not, althoughcutting across this is another division between those primarily concerned with theobjective nature of time and those concerned with the subjective experience of it.These divisions tend to be confused to the point where the protagonists seemsometimes to be talking past each other.

Braudel (1980; 1972) has attempted to distinguish between different levels of objectivetime: Ie temps court in which the events which are usually conceived of as

constituting history occur; la moyenne duree, which consists of the more gradual

changes underpinning events, such as shifts in the relationships between social groups,changes in the economic system and so on, and la longue duree more long-termecological shifts. Each of these scales operates at a different rhythm and none ofthem is internally homogeneous, so that different aspects of social life proceed, insome objective sense, at different, overlapping paces. However, that there aredifferent rhythms, different times, need not lead to confusion, because there is also auniversal, objective, world time, a continuous scale to which they can all be related.Thus it is possible to talk of occurrences in different timescales happening at thesame time. (2)

Althusser similarly argues that different levels of the historical process operate at

different paces, although what he stresses is that different levels of the socialformation and different modes of production are characterised by different temporalrhythms. Althusser, however, denies the possibility of subsuming these different timesunder a single historical tim;~; there is no way in which they can be assumed to havea common Now; it is not the same point in time because it is made up of points indifferent times. Thus while Braudel wishes to convene the different time-scales into

a single continuous stream, Althusser dismisses this as ideological and claims that itcannot be done: there can be no question of relating the diversity of the differenttemporalities to a single ideological base time, or of measuring their &dquo;dislocation&dquo;against the line of a single continuous reference time, (Althusser & galibar 1977 pp104-5). Thompson (1978) has vehemently opposed Althussers view of &dquo;levels&dquo; motoringaround in history at different speeds and on different schedules as an academicfiction. Yet his position is not really one of opposition to the notion of differentialhistorical times for people in different structural positions or for different sorts ofprocess, but rather an assertion that unless these different temporalities can beconvened within the same real historical time, the time within which processeventuates, (as Braudel insists on) then no understanding of historical process ispossible at all. I am not, in fact, sure whether Thompson really does accept theexistence of different objective as opposed to subjective time-scales.




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Anderson (1980) has attempted to resolve this by distinguishing between chronologicaltime, time as duration, and time as rhythm or development, which gives rise todifferent temporalities, which, while always convertible into a single chronology, maybe more significant than the single time within which they are unified. I do not

think Althusser is so easy to rescue. In the first place, when he talks about

different levels of the social formation, heseems to be referring not just to different

rhythms, but to different stages of development. To say that it is not the sametime has both a rhythmic and a chronological meaning. And to say it is not thesame time would seem to imply precisely that single measuring rod against which thedifference could be assessed which he rejects as ideological. If we cannot measure

the dislocations of different temporalities against a single continuous reference time,it seems difficult to know how we can perceive them as different, let alone sayanything about their relationship to one another.

This whole debate, then, hinges on whether there is a single continuous time in any

objective sense. For the purpose of this paper, resolving the debate is less importantthan noting its existence.

That there are differences in subjective experiences of time is less contentious, sincethis does not relate to the nature of time itself. Discussions of subjective time,however, do not throw any direct light on how these variations arise, and thus howdifferent images of social development relate to objective experience. One mightexpect a connection between different objective temporalities and different subjectivetemporalities, but because those concerned with the subjective experience of timehave not started from here (eg Husserl), (Hall 1980, pp 127-30) there is not muchground on which to make such a connection. Gurvitch (1964) has attempted to do so,arguing that different aspects of life were lived in (objectively) different tempos, andthat the result of this would be that groups would end up with different (subjective)dominant time concepts. The scheme, though, is too fragmentary to use, and alsohas an important omission.

Stressing the link between objective rhythms of life and subjective views of time is

important, but in Gurvitchs hands, it obscures the fact that views of time and ofsocial development are socially produced and part of a shared culture. And as far asdifferent groups within a society are concerned, they may be implicitly or explicitlyan arena of conflict. (This is another reason why the objectively different

temporalities to which Althusser refers must be discussed in relation to one another).That the control of rhythms of work and hence of objective time is a matter ofconflict is amply illustrated vy Thompsons (1967) account f the imposition f aconstant and rational pattern of work in the early industrial period, when much more

irregular patterns had been customary, as well as by more contemporary conflictsover time-speeds. What Thompsons account shows is that changing patterns of workinvolved not only getting used to doing things differently, but the disruption ofcultural expectations and the imposition of a different temporal culture - ie the

hegemonic control by a dominant group. Extending this to images of social

development is more difficult, although it can be argued that part of the ideologicalrole of Christianity has been to control eschatological images and thus images oftime and of society-in-time. At a more mundane level, exactly such a conflict is

implied in Bergers (1978) account of the peasant resistance to the idea of progress,where the conflict is both one of real interests, and also one of ideologies in which

images of the course of change of society over time are central.




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The same hegemonic impulse can be seen in much political propoganda, in talk of the

upturn at the end of the recession, and in attempts to argue that the build-up ofnuclear weapons does not presage disaster, but, by its deterrent role, actually avertsit.

Images of historical development are related to variable rhythms in material life andto the power some groups have to impose their perceptions on others. They are alsorelated to the perceived power of different groups to influence or control social

change. For this reason, images of social change and of the transition to utopia tendto the apocalyptic when people cannot conceive of the changes they want emergingby evolution either because society is seen as immutable and not controlled byhuman agency or because particular groups feel (rightly or wrongly) that they areexcluded from such control. If power is seen as invested in some agent susceptibleto appeal of influence, such as Cromwell or the King, then he can be appealed to (ordecapitated) - an interim stage between invoking Divine intervention and assuming acollective and secular ability to construct utopia.

The decline of the idea of progress and the resurgence of caesurist thought eliminatesthe continuity between the present and utopia. But such a change has a side-effecton the nature of utopias: because they do not have to be plausibly continuous withthe present, they are able to be more fantastic. If they do not seem achievable atall, then they revert to the compensatory role _ of the Cockaygne fantasy. In this wayone can see anti-industrialism as utopian (in spite of Baumans claim to the contrary);it may be a blueprint for an alternative society involving a radical break from the

present, for some an individual escape which can be partly lived in the present,and/or a compensation at the level of fantasy or nostalgia for the ills of industrialsociety, by investing the missed qualities of life in a mythical past, as Williams(1975) argues in The County and the City. The lack of continuity between thepresent and utopia is illustrated in two contemporary science fiction utopias, Marge

Piercys (1979) Woman on the Edge of Time and Ursula Le Guins (1975) TheDispossessed, both of which involve concepts of time which support Martins claim.Woman on the Edge of Time involves the experiences of a woman in anAmericanpsychiatric hospital who is periodically translated into the utopian work in the future,a primarily anti-industrial utopia. The difference between this and standard time-travel is the explicit statement that our time did not develop in a straight line fromyours - ie utopia could not emerge directly out of the present, and one is not simplymoving backwards and forwards along a continuum. The transition is not explained -although after an enforced operation, she accidentally ends up in the wrong (hyper-industrial) future and perceives that there are alternative futures, although they arenot simply dreams and possibilities, but real. The Utopia in The Dispossessed, likePiercys is again an anti-industrial utopia set elsewhere in space and time, resultingfrom dissidents being allowed to colonize the Moon. It is a much harsherenvironment, with a faint flavour of pioneering Israel, perhaps because of the initialdesert conditions; it embodies a rejection of luxury, waste and the unnecessary, and asense that getting back to basic struggles for survival is a relief and an advantage.As far as time is concerned, the central character, Shevek, is a theoretical physicistworking on the simultaneity principle, which if put into effect, would abolish the timeelement involved in space travel. Again, time is not seen as a continuum; and utopiais not seen as an evolving future state of the present but involves starting afreshsomewhere else. The manipulation of time involved in these novels and in DorisLessings Canopus in Argos: Archives is commented on by Khanna.(3) Donaldsons(1978) Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever also embodies parallelworlds with

paralleland different time-scales. Such views are not

new; theyare of

course visible in much older myths about fairy-land. But their present currency issignificant.




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Current utopias, then, are discontinuous with the present and embody discontinuous

images of time which have implications for their content, plausibility, and availabilityas models of social change. This discontinuity is predicated on a view that society isheaded for disaster or at least continuing decline. Such a view is illustrated by anumber of novels in which utopias are either destroyed or shown to be under threat,for

exampleLe Guins

(1977)The Word for World is Forest and to a lesser extent

and more ambiguously, The Dispossessed, Huxleys (1962) Island, Fairburns (1979)Benefits. The major contemporary expression of the view that society is headed forsome ultimnate catastrophe is in the expectation of nuclear war. I am not arguingthat this is to be dismissed as merely a symptom of changing images of time,although it seems more than likely that there are independednt factors which

predispose people to expect disaster; the real danger must be a factor in perceptionsof it, but reality does not determine perceptions. However, it seems to me that the

expectation of so total a castastrophe raises difficulties in relation to utopianism.Disaster and utopia have commonly been linked in apocalyptic thought; but such alink seems difficult to sustain when the disaster involves annihilation and most peopledo not believe in life after death.

I cannot provide anything like a total explanation of why people expect disaster, butonly put forward some elements which may be involved. It is not possible to explain,and implicitly dismiss, prophecies of doom, as Enzensberger (1978) has done, bydrawing attention to the fact that there tends to be an upsurge of millenarianism atthe end of each century and, particularly, at the end of each millenium. (He citesthe years before 1000AD as example of this). As Parrinder says, this is a dangeroushalf-truth, which, as Thompson (1980) has pointed out, says nothing at all aboutobjective danger. It also leaves out the rather important point of the relativesignificance of millenia in the cultures of 980 and 1980; it is doubtful whether thesecular sense of the end of an era resulting simply from the calendar would have soprofound an effect.

In The English Utopia, Morton (1969) dismisses the dystopian novel, and implicitlydystopian thought, as essentially bourgeois, the product of a class in decline. It is atruism that groups whose power is waning tend to locate their utopias in the past, oral least invest their utopias with the qualities of the past, and view the future with

trepidation. By extension, one could argue that Britains economic decline anddeclining significance as a world power may predispose people to fearing the future.

Again, one has the problem that reality does not by itself cause perceptions of it.

More important at a societal level may be a quite deliberate construction of this

view, although it is improbable that all its side-effects are deliberate. Far morepeople according to the opinion polls, now believe nuclear war is more likely than didso in 1963 (40% vs 16%) (Lipsey 1980, p 406). This result follows a concertedattempt by the Government to make nuclear war thinkable (although they have so farbeen unsuccessful in convincing people it is survivable). Disaster has thus beenofficially put on the agenda. (The reasons for this leave room for interestingspeculations, but this is not the place for them). The importance of the mediacannot be overestimated here. Curiously, though, the media may also have theunwitting effect of producing an image of discontinuous development whilesimultaneously inuring people to the consequences of catastrophe. Barkun (1974) haspointed out that news presentation in general informs people of current catastrophesall over the world, which then disappear from the news as though wars, famines,earthquakes, coups do not have continuing effects, and of course most of thesecatastrophes dont actually have much immediate effect on the life of the observer.This may produce a view of the world as made up of a series of catastrophes noneof which are really important or genuinely catastrophic, a view illustrated in theofficial instruction that survivors of a nuclear war should leave their shelters when

the all-clear sounds and resume their normal activities (HMSO, 1980).




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If hegemonic control is important, everyday experiences may also be relevant,although here we are faced again with the difficulty of making links betwen objectiveand subjective temporalities. Their links are speculative, but it seems likely thatthere are factors both in the sphere of work and in that of family life which mightproduce a catastrophic or at least discontinuous view of the world. As far as work

is concerned, very large numbers of the population are faced with the threat orreality of redundancy or unemployment - and it is through this that the impact ofeconomic decline reaches them. particularly the fear of redundancy would be likelyto make peoples view of the world one of impending catastrophe of some kind.Secondly, .f one takes Begers (1977, 1978) argument that the peasant view ofcontinuity is mediated by the inheritance from parents and passing on to descendantsof the means of existence, the increasing improbability that ones own lifestyle - interms of work or anything else - will be repeated by ones children would be likely todisrupt a continuous view of historical development. Lack of inter-generationalcontinuity, possible as a result of social mobility, may be a factor here.

Having said earlier that such images cannot be assumed to be evenly spread

thoughout society, and having raised the issue of the influence of everyday life, onemust of course ask who believes in the imminence and inevitability of catastrophe.The problems in answering this arise from the quality of available data, which is

mainly in the form of opinion polls, and thus neither reliable nor subtle, and whichtells us nothing at all about the variable salience of the belief even to those who sayyes to the interviewers. According to New Society, 40% of the population believesnuclear war is likely, 77% believes they and their families would not survive, and60% believes that Britain as a nation would not survive (Lipsey, 1980, p 606). Thesefigures vary little with social class, thought the middle classes are very marginallymore optimistic. This almost certainly obscures differences rather than establishesthat they do not exist: other surveys have shown that businessmen are (or were) more

optimistic about the future than supporters of ecological pressure groups,(4) or that a

particular section of the middle classes engaged in, for example education and thehelping professions, is more likely to see the world as in a state of decline, albeitfrom the top of a parabola (Musgrove, 1974). One might add to this that it isprecisely these sections of the middle class who were active in the CND campaign inthe 60s and appear to be so now. There is a problem about extrapolating from thisto the view that such groups are particularly prone to catastrophic thinking, sincethey are also more likely to join pressure groups anyway, and in the case of CND,membership probably amplifies any tendency to catastrophic thought. Nevertheless,Musgroves curious view of a parabolic view of development is consonant with thefact that such middle class groups contain large numbers of upwardly mobileindividuals, who both experience a lack of continuity and may feel their present goodfortune or relative affluence and privilege to be precarious. They are also not the

most privileged and powerful sections of the middle class, and are perhaps the onesmost likely to fear redundancy at present through factors perceived as beyond theircontrol because they are largely employed in the public sector. (Also, theconstrasting security of this group in the 60s may be a contributory factor in therelative optimism of that movement by comparison with the present one).

But another point confusing the relationship between the social base of the protestmovement and that of catastrophic thinking is the question of power and of thedistribution of fatalism. Far more people are worried about nuclear weapons nowthan in the earlier campaign (65% vs 25%); 40% are worried and do not thinkanything can be done, a further 17% are worried and unwilling to do anything (Lipsey1980; p 606, Driver 1964, p 98).(5)




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Again, fatalism is itself quite deliberately cultivated by government arguments thatnot only is the need for nuclear weapons created by circumstances beyong our

control, but also, and perhaps more importantly, by assertions that unemployment is

inevitable, and indeed nothing negative that happens is within their control. Such adenial of control reinforces a view that no-one can change what is going on, let

alone oneself (either individuallyor

collectively). Thus while expectationsof disaster

may not be particularly rooted in a section of the middle class, they may be less

ready to accept their own impotence. There are movements in the middle class -and the same section of it - which illustrate a fatalism there too, in the emphasis on

physical health and personal growth, which can both be seen as a withdrawal from

trying to affect social processes, to controlling the only thing one can control,oneself. (They may also be interpreted as bougeois individualism, but this I think

gives no explanation of why individualism should take that form, and is also

questionable in view of the particular groups involved, especially where the personalgrowth movement is concerned).

The notion that change, either social or technological, is outside anyones control

seems to be both prevalent and a direct contrast with the conditions commonlythought to be implicated in the rise of the idea of progress. The expectation that

every innovation, however well meant, will have undesirable and unpredictable sideeffects does not encourage planned change. Such a view is epitomised in Le ruins(1974) The Lathe of Heaven, in which the central character has effective dreamswhich alter reality retrospectively to fit the dream. Manipulated by a psychiatrist,he is encouraged to dream dreams to improve the world, but they always result in

making it worse. What he wants, above all, is to stop dreaming.

What, then, of utopia? It is difficult to locate utopianism in relation to thefatalistic expectation of catastrophe, or even among those who expect it and are

attempting to protest about it or prevent it. This is in spite of the fact that

disaster is normally supposed to be invoked as a road to the promised land. There islittle utopianism in Lessings (1976) Memoirs of a Survivor; And little in BristolCNDs satirical Radioactive Times, the newspaper of the first anniversary after the

dropping of the bomb. Nevertheless, I do not think that catastrophic thinking is as

totally devoid of millenial expectation as it might appear at first glance. In the first

place, I question the meaning of the opinion poll finding that 77% of people do notthink they would survive. within CND, people do not rationally believe they wouldsurvive; but many have images of what life would be like if they did. This may bebecause the magnitude of the expected catastophe is too great to be emotionallygraspable. but whatever the reason, there is an implicit view of post-nuclearconditions involving ones own survival. This is not necessarily utopian: RadioactiveTimes is grisly reading. Nevertheless, a nuclear holocaust may be seen in part asthe radical break necessary to break out of the current trajectory, to begin again,albeit with a not exactly clean slate, to construct a society which could not be

envisaged as emerging out of the present in a continuous manner. There is a

perceptible love-hate relationship with the final act of destruction, with a sense ofrelief that the decline has stopped. And at least those who do survive will bedealing with what life is really about, with basic issues of survival, in a way thryare not now - again, the importance of this is reflected in The Dispossessed; thereare traces, too, in Wyndhams work (1954, 1956) in The Kraken Wakes and The Dayof the Triffids. Such elements occur, albeit satirically, in The Bedsitting Room,where, emerging from a period of life on the Circle Line, the ordinary woman(changing into a wardrobe) says she is glad its all over; weve all been so muchhappier since ... ; and if Id known the end would be such a relief ... . (Antrobus &

Milligan 1972).




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It would be a mistake, I think, to overplay this element. There is not a great dealof millenial hope predicated on the expectation of a nuclear holocaust. The point Iwish to stress, though, is while one must agree with Parrinder that the presentclimate is not conducive to social utopias - if by these you mean utopias set in thefuture which can be brought about by conscious social change - this does not mean

there are or will be no utopias at all. Rather, with the disruption of an evolutionaryand progressive world-view, futuristic utopias are possible only on the basis of brokenimages of time. If people are fatalistic, utopias will tend to be escapist, orindividualised into the preservation and protection of the self, body and mind. Yetprecisely because the broken image of time liberates utopianism from continuity withthe present, there is in a way more scope for utopias, especially at the level of

compensatory or exploratory fantasy. They are more likely to be labelled fantasy orscience-fiction, simply because the transition from the present is difficult orimpossible to envisage. Yet this does not mean that they embody desires andaspirations any less than the utopias of the 19th century. I think more is gained bytrying to understand this shift in the location, content and social role of utopia thanby asserting that utopia is dead. And perhaps the concern that utopias aint what

they used to be is itself a manifestation of the fact that we live in dsystopian times.




11/1362

NOTES

1 BBC Radio 4, 14 July 1981, In the beginning. The Guardian billed thisas ... Theory of evolution under fire from scientists as well as the Bible

lobby. The arguments were remarkably similar to those described by

Gillespie (1951)as

taking place duringthe 1830s as a result of

Lyellstheories. The revived debate within geology and biology between stasisand punctuation (ie continuity and discontinuity) within the evolutionarysequence is discussed by John Maynard Smith (1981) Did Darwin get it

right

2 A brief account of Braudels position can be found in Hall (1980).

3 Lee Cullen Khanna Womens Worlds: New Directions in Utopian Fiction.

4 S Cotgrove Catastrophe or Cornucopia

5 Drivers and Lipseys figures are not strictly comparable as the questionsare not the same.




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Althusser L & Balibar E (1977), Reading Capital, London: New Left Books

Anderson P (1980),Arguments within English Marxism, London: New Left Books

Antrobus J & Milligan S (1972), The Bedsitting Room, London: Tandem

Barkun M (1974), Disaster and the Millenium, New Haven: Yale University Press

Bauman Z (1976), Socialism: theActive Utopia, London: Allen & Unwin

Berger John (1977), A Class of Survivors, New Society, 22 & 29 December

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