Looking Backward Review

I just finished reading "Looking Backwards From 1887 to 2000" by Edward Bellamy. Very interesting science-fiction book written in 1887. It is pretty refreshing to read such a utopian vision of the future. In the story, the main character finds himself in the future (the year 2000). He is taken care of by the doctor that found him and the doctor's family. The book mostly consists of conversations between this person from 1887 and the doctor from 2000, in which the doctor explains how the world has changed, outgrowing money, poverty, class, war and scarcity. Descriptions of the world of 2000 are constantly contrasted with harsh but surprisingly accurate criticisms of 1887 capitalism... its vast wealth inequality, poverty, the inefficiency of competition and consumerism, the endless illnesses of capitalist society. Ironically much of the criticisms of 1887 are insightful as a reader into our own time, this being 2015. Unfortunately, little of the issues talked about have been solved even though in some areas, their symptoms may have lessened.

The world in the year 2000 is basically a communist utopia, meaning that the future described is one where the ideas of communism have created a society which works for all, without any negative aspects mentioned in the book, and so therefore do not exist in the fictional scenario. I say it is a communist utopia, (although communism is never mentioned in the book) specifically because capitalism and money have been abolished, every human in the society has employment at jobs which they enjoy, the government has been put fully in charge of all labor and production, and the government exists only to organize jobs and the production/distribution of goods for the citizens. In the future described, there are still nations, but there is no war and nations collaborate with each other.
One of the things I was wondering while reading this vision of the future is, why was there so much emphasis on full employment? Why is it considered such a worthy goal that the future should cling to work, when it is obvious to me in 2015 that advanced technology should be used to free humanity from toil? But then I am forced to admit that I can't blame the writer of 1887 for not visioning labor-freeing technologies for his '2000', when in reality, we haven't gotten there yet either in 2015.
The book can be wordy at times due to the language of the day and a few views on social problems are dated and might even seem sexist or archaic to the modern reader. Overall I think it is a surprisingly progressive and insightful exploration as to the problems with capitalist society as well some thoughtful solutions.

 Another interesting point the book brought for me is this, and I think it is the most important one:
The main character is learning about a futuristic utopia where society takes care of all of its people and everyone gets along, neither competing with each other of seeking personal profit. The character mentions several times that "human nature must have changed" to make people cooperate in this way. It is explained and illustrated many times throughout the book that human nature its self hasn't changed, but that since society treated people fairly and humanely, people just act different and accordingly.

To me, this issue of human nature is a very important one and it is refreshing to see the writer of 1887 understand it so clearly, even in spite of the fact that the belief in his day was that people are naturally competitive, aggressive and selfish. The belief was that nothing can be done to change society, other than to try to control people from their selfish nature. This belief was one of the primary inspirations for the development of the competitive capitalist system and its philosophy.
This misunderstanding of human nature still persists today but fortunately modern science is showing that human's behavior is almost totally influenced by the environment, by the type of social system in which we live.

Humans are in fact highly flexible and adapt to what society requires of them.
If a human finds themselves in a highly competitive society which shows no regard for them, they will express traits that are aggressive, competitive, selfish, even sociopathic. On the other hand, if a human is in an environment where collaboration, empathy, thoughtfulness and these things are valued, then the human will express other traits that benefit that scenario.
So, then what kind of system do we currently live in and what does it demand from our highly adaptive "human nature"? How does it shape us?
The book "Looking Backwards From 1887 to 2000" Does a great job of illustrating this concept that modern behavioral science is finally coming to recognize with the help of people like Dr. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University, Dr. Gabor Maté and many others.