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Cooperation Over Competition In Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward

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Looking Backward was a revolutionary novel for its time, and became Edward Bellamy’s most famous work. The entire premise of the book was to promote the benefits of socioeconomic reform in the United States. Bellamy argues that our current system of competition is wasteful of valuable resources. Instead, Bellamy suggests an economic system where the State owns and distributed all income and assets in the country. This idea of cooperation over competition is seen as superior and more efficient. Bellamy argues that working for the common good instead of for ones individualistic goals would improve the quality of life for the masses. I could not disagree more with Bellamy. In my opinion, having a society where all goods are produced and dispersed by the State is a far bigger waste of resources. One of these being the most valuable resource of all, people. If everything is owned by the State, than citizens have no …show more content…

For example, is there was only one car manufacture, the automotive industry would greatly suffer for multiple reasons. Firstly, if a person wanted to buy a new car, there would only be one option to buy from. The car company could pick any price arbitrarily because there would be no competing car companies. The car company could also sell low quality cars. It would not make a difference because there would be no industry standard. Competition keeps companies striving for the highest quality products for the lowest price because they want to attract customers. However, if people had no choice where to buy their car, it would not matter what a company sold. Additionally, if there was no competition, there would be no way to benchmark your products for quality or technological advancements. Still using the car company example, the car industry would be like it is in Cuba where everyone drives cars from the 70’s, because that is all they

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Edward Bellamy’s book, Looking Backward, shows the optimism of the late 19th century modern America through numerous contextual examples that follow the “modernity” philosophical view. One of the core concepts of modernity is power over nature as evidenced by the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Bellamy’s book, this power over nature idea is expanded upon when Julian finds himself walking through a “continuous waterproof covering” that encloses the sidewalk to create a “well lighted and perfectly dry corridor” (Bellamy 53). Julian further mentions how “in the stormy weather the streets of the Boston of my day had been impassable” (Bellamy 53). This shows a particularly optimistic view as Edith states it would be “extraordinary

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