Thread by @Helenreflects

Thinking of King Cape Gilette's (inventor of a safety razor system, co-founder of the Gilette company), and his strange and wondrous #solarpunk utopia (1894) where all of the US would live together in one huge city, with one publicly owned company, powered by Niagara falls

The plan of his utopian city, outlined in The Human Drift (1894) is extremely detailed. You can read it here.
Gilette was a gilded age businessman but he believed business competition was harmful for the people, and thought of a different idea.
archive.org/details/TheHum…

All the people would be the stockholders of the *one* company that would produce everything. The president and board of directors would be voted by the stockholders, aka the people. Gilette believed people-owned companies would lead to wealth and progress for all

Here's a picture of "a perspective view of a complete building and its imaginary surroundings. Here we see the tiers of apartments arranged in a circle and joined at the back, and the interior court thus formed is surmounted by a dome of metal and glass."

And here's a picture of what an individual apartment would look like, suitable for a family of 4-8 people. Note it has a library, a music room, a veranda

Now I am intrigued about why Gilette believed that competition was harmful and decreased the overall wellbeing and wealth of the people (contrary to e.g., Smith, Mandeville). My guess is extreme wealth inequality + oligopolies in the late 19th c much like today

E.g., only 3 companies produce insulin and prices have become exorbitant. Gilette thought thiswas not ideal for the super-wealthy either "They are under a constant strain of anxiety in guarding their property and keeping their surplus invested in safe securities." (poor them :))

Moreover, and it seems to me that Gilette echoes Alexis Tocqueville (Democracy in America), and maybe Marx, there is an imbalance between the proprietors and the people, which results in increased poverty.

He also worried that social inequality would de facto mean slavery for many people. So, for him equality was to an important extent connected to freedom as that would allow ppl to expand their natural capabilities

As in all utopias, Gilette considered that the urban environment of Metropolis (the name of the city) should be not merely functional but also beautiful, a "an endless variety of beautiful designs" in the public buildings

This passage is the most solar-punky where you have pedestrians, cyclists, and people using electric cars. Outside of the city you'd have the natural environment.

Here we have a map of how Metropolis would be laid out concretely near Niagara Falls with sizes of current populations in the US to give an idea of scale (he also left some room for population growth/future immigration)

Also Gilette believed a single large publicly owned company and its progress would free up our minds from the grind of labor + production that most of us are tied in now, through scientific progress we'd finally be free to invest our labor into science, arts, and inventions

Finally, the book is dedicated to all of humanity "for to all the hope of of escape from an environment of injustice, poverty, and crime, is equally desirable". \end