In fact, Erasmus commented that the purpose of Moore's work, as he understood it, was to show what are the things that occasion mischief in commonwealths. For instance, England allows people to sink into poverty and then puts them to death for stealing what they need to live, something Hithlode calls making people thieves and then punishing them for it. In utopia, by contrast, there is no poverty and no theft. There can't be because private property does not exist there. Of course, the communism of utopia is taken from Plato's Republic, the source duly being flagged for the reader. Indeed, utopian practice goes beyond Plato, who had recommended communism only for the elite class of guardians in his ideal state, not for the whole society. In another sense, though, it falls short of Plato because in utopia, the communism is only economic and does not extend to the sharing of sexual partners and children. The utopian's gender politics are more traditional, with wives obeying their husbands, though women do train for war, are highly educated, and can even be priests. Platonic or not, these proposals do not impress the character of Moore. He says that communism could never work because everyone was stopped working without being spurred on by the hope of gain. Hithlode replies that communism does indeed work and that he's seen it do so with his own eyes, namely in utopia, so that's evidence taken from a fictional place offered by a fictional witness, hardly a ringing endorsement of the feasibility of this economic policy. In Book I, Moore, the character, defends his pragmatism of low expectations by saying that it is impossible to make everything good unless all men are good and that I don't expect to see for quite a few years yet. Then, at the very end of the work, Moore issues a final verdict in his authorial voice. Not a few of the laws and customs described as existing among the utopians were really absurd. This especially applies to the communism. On the other hand, he adds, I freely confess that in utopian commonwealth, there are very many features that in our own societies, I would wish rather than expect to see. Taking these passages together, it looks as though Moore, the author, is pointing to a kind of chicken and egg problem. Utopia could be real if there were virtuous citizens available to live in it. Sadly, we would need to have a utopia already up and running in order to produce such citizens. The imperfect people we have around us in real life could never make up such an ideal society. That is, in itself a reminiscent of Plato, who in the Republic was keenly aware of the difficulty of actually establishing a city in accordance with his specifications. He had Socrates defend its possibility but admitted that it would take an extraordinary set of circumstances to bring it about. Another author who might have been on Moore's mind here could be Augustine. As I mentioned, Moore was well-acquainted with Augustine's city of God, which contrasts the polities of our earthly realm to the perfect society of the blessed in heaven. So perhaps one point being made in utopia is that such a society is impossible in practical terms because human sinfulness makes it unrealizable. It would be lovely to have all things shared in common, to live in cities where all doors can safely remain unlocked because nothing is private. But given that we humans are in fact selfish and acquisitive, it's simply not going to happen. A human community without greed would be like a river without water. One might object to this line of interpretation by asking, are the utopians really so virtuous? If so, why does Hitler Day keep alluding to the systematic regime of punishments imposed in utopia? It seems these would be superfluous if the people are so morally admirable. The punitive measures include the death penalty for some crimes, while for others the punishment is slavery. Yes, utopia has slaves, whose chains are made of gold because the utopians think so little of precious metals. They also use it for chamber pots. The modern meter is shocked by the appearance of slavery here, but would this have been the intended effect for 16th century readers? Again, it's hard to say, because it is emphasized that this is quite a humane version of enslavement. For instance, no one is born into slavery, so that the children of enslaved persons are born free.