Summary Of Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia

Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, written in 1975, presents a utopian world steeped in ideals of socialism, living in harmony with nature and its resources. The term Ecotopia refers to the name of a fictional nation created by the secession of parts of Northern California, Washington and Oregon from the United States of America following a ‘revolution’ during an economic crisis in the late 1970s. The narrative is made by an American journalist, Weston, who is sent to Ecotopia by the US president to try resuming ties and trade with the Ecotopian government. It is learned that Ecotopia has already been in existence for roughly two decades since the revolution and has severed all ties with the US government. The US government, which had originally

People are critical of the government at all levels and make their opinions known by directly commenting to policy makers. Agriculture and large-scale industrial capital are nationalized. The government passes, in Weston’s words, “stringent conservation laws,” “confiscatory inheritance taxes,” and “draconian tariffs.” A central bank undertakes all investment, though Weston notes that this appears to contradict their notions of decentralization. Public drunkenness is no longer a crime, though offenses, particularly with regard to pollution and violence, are punished more harshly than in the United States. Contrary to expectation, Environmental standards on consumer goods are not enforced by a central regulatory body (like the FDA or EPA in the US), but by lists issued by scientific committees, which act as “a mechanism of moral persuasion’’. When a product goes onto such a list, the demand for it drops sharply which forces the company producing it to reduce or completely halt production. Callenbach thus argues against the idea of imposing sanctions or fines on harmful industrial processes. Such practices, he perhaps rightly believes, only pass the cost down to the consumer instead of deterring the