Thomas More's Utopia

7 Pages 1756 Words

seems far-fetched. Maybe if you live in the present 21st century yes, but had you lived in 16th century England it was neither far-fetched nor unimaginable. To the contrary this was a regular occurrence back then. Sir Thomas More believed this to be a sad characteristic of European society. In fact, within the text of Utopia he had the character of Hythloday state that the capital punishment of thieves “is beyond the bounds of justice and not to the public advantage”(More,p.10). What Sir Thomas More believed was that the reason that thieves were even present in their society was due to society’s failure to provide these people with a sufficient amount of essential necessities such as food and lodging.
“The enclosure movement”, as Sir Thomas More described it was also a failing aspect of his society. The enclosure movement can be described as the process of transforming arable land into private pastures. More rightfully claimed that this movement in a sense steals the livelihood of peasants and creates an oligopoly, which in more reasonable terms simply means ownership by the wealthy few. This simultaneously raises the prices of essential...