SOURCE: Becker, George J. “Edward Bellamy: Utopia, American Plan.” The Antioch Review 14, no. 2 (June 1954): 181-94.

In the following essay, Becker traces the relationship between materialism and social equality in Looking Backward and presents some of the opposing arguments to Bellamy's ideas.

To us today Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) is the author of one novel and a tract. All his other work has lost interest for us, but Looking Backward (1888), supported by the elaborated arguments contained in Equality a decade later, remains to please, to challenge, or to dismay. Though that book has meant many things to different readers, its enduring significance is based on its presentation of two related concepts and a corollary drawn from them. The first idea is that of the economy of abundance; the second is that of economic democracy, while the corollary states that basic human nature is good but can be caused to deteriorate...