The Human Drift

by King Camp Gillette

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96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1894

Reviews

[Wreade1872 · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The only remedy is such a change as will recognize the rights of the community as a whole, anterior to the rights of individuals"

Ok maybe if i hadn’t have read so many similar things i might, might have given it 2-stars. I guess there is some very minor elements of interest but its also super boring and dry.
Its all pretty much non-fiction. Its a proposal for a new utopia based on a making a mega-corporation in charge of all production and... somehow.. theoretically run by ‘the People’.

"For no one will suppose that the people, as a whole, would submit to the dictation of one man or one company, unless such company were controlled by the people and for the people."

One of the main issues apart from how terrible that idea is in general, is that this is all based on the assumption that continued consolidations of business will inevitably lead to a single corporation in charge of everything. So why not jump the gun and make one run by ‘the People’ rather than a handful of mega-rich.
Of course since laws were able to stop business consolidation and the one country or earth mega-corp is not on the horizon, this whole thing becomes somewhat pointless.

After the initial pitch we get a fictional interview which really just reiterates the proposal. Eventually we get to the architecture sections which are the only bits of interest.

"Can any one with an artistic mind see beauty in our present cities and towns, which are built haphazard, without any idea of uniformity in structure and design.."

You see in this new society, efficiency of production will be the central tenet and with this in mind all production and living will be done in a single location. One single city per country, maybe even per continent.
If the idea of such a city doesn’t cause a shudder your a braver man than I. In any case it won’t quite be the warhammer 40k style hivecity of nightmare. It will instead be much more boring and monotonous. An near endless sequence of apartment blocks each separated 600 feet from the next and stretching to infinity.
Th entire city is also build on a 50 ft platform under which are utilities.. so all of the roads, paths, parks etc. are on a platform stretching for mile upon mile. Which is certainly.. something.

Anyway the author does their best to make it not seem the soul deadening monotonous hellscape that it feels like to me.. but its mostly just dull.

If you want to read something like this try the more engaging Freeland A Social Anticipation or even Roadtown. At least the latter, even while almost as dull at least has some more modern interest since its basically a proposal for The Line, written in 1910.

[Jeremy Bullian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read from the turn of the 20th century documenting Gillette's concept of an Utopian society.