Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward

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Mackenzie Turpen Dr. Acker Looking Backward Historical Sources of Looking Backward Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy consists of different genres such as science fiction and a utopian type novel, which reflects his version of a utopian society. However, as a historical analysis, it gives a depiction on what was taking place at the time when published, while also shaping our understanding of society during the author’s present time frame and even giving a mere glimpse of what the present day is like, one hundred and twenty six years later. First, looking at a different angle for a moment, I noticed that this book was written in the late 1800s, around the year of 1888. Given this information, one must take into account that the United…show more content…
The citizens are a type of labor force that produces all of the country's goods. Citizens will retire at the age of forty-five and to make sure that there is either a vast amount or a shortage in volunteers for work, shorter hours are required for more extraneous trades and longer hours for less extraneous ones. Workers can also change careers if they find that their original choice was not a good one. This also was an utter shock to Julian because he was used to living in a society that political parties played a heavy role in life, public officials were very corrupt and the citizens were definitely not a well-organized labor force. All of these were the complete antithesis of what type of society he was used…show more content…
Everyone is given a credit card for his or her share of the country's wealth to purchase the goods and services he or she needs. The credit is more than enough to provide the cardholders’ needs. At the end of the year, any credit remaining, returns to the country. Everyone is to perform the same amount of labor, because the nation wants everyone to do his best with his skills and abilities. Julian asks why the average citizen would work so hard if he is guaranteed to receive the same pay as anyone else. This question that Julian had asked stopped me in my tracks for a bit because I realized that not only was this an issue that was taking place during his current time, referring to the gap between rich and poor, but also that simple question that Julian had asked Leete, is a question that is still being asked even to this current day, why would one work so hard if you were going to get the same amount of pay as everyone else? Julian's question deals with the problem of motivating everyone to do his or her best, a problem still seen today. Julian believes that employees will not do their best if they know that they will not only be the same no matter how they perform, but also that everyone else will receive exactly the same amount of credit at the end of the year. In the nineteenth century, wages and the threat of starvation provided the motivation for workers. If

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