In the following essay, Abrash looks into the public acceptance of Bellamy's Looking Backwards.

A certain nineteenth-century writer, also active in journalism, created an extraordinary utopian vision in which all productive facilities were owned by society. Unlike the great majority of earlier utopian proposals, this one was specifically applicable to full-blown industrial technology and organization which, under centralized rational direction for use rather than profit, was presumed capable of providing all the world's people with the material necessities of a good life. This writer also envisioned an egalitarian incomes policy and the elimination of social classes. His vision spread rapidly and became part of western civilization's heritage of powerful ideas.

The summary thus far clearly fits Edward Bellamy—and just as clearly fits Karl Marx. But when we move ahead to the reception of their doctrines, a sharp divergence appears. Marx was fiercely attacked, harried out...