Thomas More (1478–1535)

English social philosopher and founder of early utopian socialism in Europe.

More was born on February 7, 1478, in London, England, into a noble family. He lost his mother at an early age, and his father, John More, was a judge of the Royal High Court of England. 1492, at the age of 14, More enrolled in the University of Oxford to study classical literature and law, and during his time at the university he read a great deal of humanist works and philosophical writings by ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle and had deep intercourse with the famous humanists who were teaching at the University of Oxford, such as Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre. After graduating from the university, he successively served as a lawyer, a member of Parliament, a sheriff of the City of London, and was once Speaker of the House of Commons (1523) and Lord Chancellor (1529), but instead of coveting office and wealth, he was concerned with social issues and the lives of the working masses. On July 7, 1535, More was executed for his opposition to the appointment of King Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the Church of England.

In 1516, More published his famous Utopia (full title: A Truly Golden Little Book, No Less Beneficial Than Entertaining, of the Best State of a Republic, and of the New Island Utopia, “A truly golden little book, not less beneficial than enjoyable, about how things should be in a state and about the new island Utopia”), originally written in Latin, which fictionalized the experiences of a seafarer who travels to the foreign land Utopia. The word “Utopia”, derived from Greek, meaning “nowhere”, is a fantastic, fictional, and ideal place. In Utopia, More profoundly exposed the tragic scene of “sheep devouring men” in the process of capitalist primitive accumulation, and at the same time depicted an ideal society, in which there was no exploitation, no oppression, and everyone was equal, and raised, for the first time in the history of socialist thought, the question of abolishing private property and establishing public property. Utopia is the first work of utopian socialism, the inaugural work of utopian socialism, which had an important influence upon later utopian socialist thinkers. However, Utopia’s description of the ideal society of the future was of a fantastic nature and did not find an actual path to realize the ideal society of the future. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels scientifically analyzed and evaluated the viewpoints of the founders of utopian socialism represented by More: To the crude conditions of capitalistic production and the crude class conditions correspond crude theories. The solution of the social problems, which as yet lay hidden in undeveloped economic conditions, the Utopians attempted to evolve out of the human brain.