Utopia Summary/Explanation Part 2 - pages 20-41

-People are essentially accountable for all parts of a society, and people are to act as a unit rather than as an individual. This manifests itself in almost all policies that Raphael describes. One of these is the system of having people in the city also working in the country. People are also not allowed any property. They are to move from home to home every few years and can be ordered to move from place to place as the government sees fit.
*In theory, this is excellent. However, I am more of an individualist and I believe that you should only be accountable for yourself, and to give what would be property in our society to all of the community makes you rely on the goodwill of others to have a good life. I do not agree with the idea that the government can move people from place to place, because I believe in autonomy.

-People are not to be overworked. With this idea in mind, the number of hours a person works is regulated by the government. The people are to dedicate a great deal of the rest of their time to reading or going about other ways of improving their minds.
*I think the idea of having more people on the whole working less hours individually is good because it burdens all of society with the workload rather than a few people who work. However, I do not know how to get all of the population to work. I also do not know how a culture would be able to motivate its whoel citizenry to strive to attaining knowledge.

-There are rules regarding how people should be frugal. This includes the idea that people should only own one set of clothes. They also have a unique way of holding onto their gold and other precious metals. They keep their gold on slaves and diamonds are just child toys.
*I think it is noble that the people are not eccentric, but the personal expression that clothes allow for is a freedom that I do not think the government should intrude on. But for a country who does not rely on money for exchanging goods, the ways of keeping gold/diamonds is a good idea.

-Utopia will never use its people to fight in war. It will instead pay for mercenaries to do the fighting, and the only just cause of war is to set up colonies when the cities in Utopia are overcrowded and the land they are taking over is idle.
*I think that war is rarely just, and to take land from another nation by force because you have become overcrowded is one of those cases.