In materialistic utopias, things only unite people, not divide them. Such happy lands are free from market exchange and, consequently, redistributive procedures. Instead, the goods people need are rationed by the government, or decommodified and exchanged between friends, or abundant and free for everyone. No wonder the 2008 crisis and digital technology progress has made such visions mushroom. Should we look forward to any of them becoming reality?

Andrzej Waśkiewicz is Professor of Sociology at University of Warsaw. Currently he is a Visiting Fellow at IWM.

Comments by  Holly Case (Associate Professor of History, Brown University; IWM Visiting Fellow)

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