Culture Magazine

Criteria for Utopian Visions

By Bbenzon @bbenzon
Olin Wright has laid out five criteria for evaluating utopian visions:
  • Evaluate alternatives in terms of three criteria: desirability, viability, achievability
  • Do not let the problem of achievability dictate the discussion of viability
  • Clarify the problem of winners and losers in structural transformation
  • Identify normative trade-offs in institutional designs and the transitional costs in their creation
  • Analyze alternatives in terms of waystations and intermediary forms as well as destinations. Pay particular attention to the potential of waystations to open up virtuous cycles of transformation.

H/t Mark Liberman, Language Log.


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