The Political Economy of Utopia and Dystopia

Lane Conaway

Advisor: Virgil Storr, PhD, Department of Economics

Committee Members: Stefanie Haeffele, Peter Boettke

Online Location, online
July 17, 2024, 01:00 PM to 03:00 PM

Abstract:

This dissertation seeks to use the lens of political economy to investigate notions of utopia and dystopia.

The first chapter examines two types of utopias - 'other world' utopias aiming to rise above worldly constraints, and 'this-world' utopias which are similarly optimistic but which remain grounded in their promises  and methodology. Despite promises from their advocates, attempts at other world utopias fall victim to the same sort of knowledge and incentive problems and difficulties exporting institutions across cultures as            other, less utopian, visions of economic development or nation-building.

The second chapter examines the social criticism and social science of Karl Marx. The chapter contends that the success of the two projects is not linked - that valid social criticism has not resulted in successful         predictive or prescriptive social science, but also that the failure of the latter does not necessarily invalidate the social criticism itself. The chapter shows that, in fact, much of the social criticism remains relevant and  supported by a variety of contemporary voices in economic sociology, who collectively identify the threat of a dystopian future for individuals within a capitalist economy.

The third chapter uses the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as an example of a shock drawing on dystopian rhetoric and fears. Due to the severity of the pandemic and its impacts, a variety of mitigation strategies were      aggressively pursued. Yet despite the costs imposed by these measures, many of their benefits were minor or nonexistent. Furthermore, many of the other insights from studies of past crises and their affects remain          present - knowledge problems regarding mitigation strategies, opportunities for corruption, etc. The continued applicability of these lessons suggests that they would still be likewise present in both more enduring                 dystopian settings as well as in a possible utopian future.