A trip to Plutopia by E. Haldeman-Julius
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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. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Haldeman-Julius, E. (Emanuel), 1888-1951 |
|---|---|
| Title | A trip to Plutopia |
| Original Publication | Girard: Appeal to Reason, 1919. |
| Series Title | The Appeal's pocket series no. 8 |
| Credits | Charlene Taylor, Tom Trussel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Satire |
| Subject | Dystopias -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77446 |
| Release Date | Dec 12, 2025 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 270 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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