A trip to Plutopia

A trip to Plutopia by E. Haldeman-Julius is a satirical political allegory written in the early 20th century. It imagines a model island where a tiny plutocratic elite perfects labor exploitation, using regimentation and psychological conditioning to turn workers into compliant “hands.”

The story contrasts 49,500 numbered laborers with 500 pampered elites. Workers live in a single barracks, wear paper-sack uniforms, subsist on three nutrient pills a day, and toil twelve-hour shifts; families are forbidden, women are segregated, and children are reared in institutions to chant “I want to work!” and enter the mills at nine. The elites abolish government, police, and courts, claiming total control through training, while they luxuriate in palaces and vast-denomination currency. A proud plutocrat explains the system: no study for workers, closed inheritance for the elite, and even a plan to breed “ideal hands” combining brute strength and blind loyalty. The lone cracks in this order appear when a child blurts, “I want a pair of skates,” and a worker suggests an extra pill; management would “yield” only by cutting calories. The tale ends by warning that ordinary human desires remain a permanent threat to this exploiters’ paradise.