pantisocracy
English
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editFrom pant(o)- (“all-”) + isocracy.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editpantisocracy (countable and uncountable, plural pantisocracies)
- A utopian social system in which every member participates equally in government.
- 1794 September 20, Robert Southey, chapter III, in Charles Cuthbert Southey, editor, The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by His Son, [...] In Six Volumes, 2nd edition, volume I, London: Printed for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, […], published 1849, →OCLC, page 221:
- We preached Pantisocracy and Aspheterism everywhere. These, Tom, are two new words, the first signifying the equal government of all, and the other the generalisation of individual property; words well understood in the city of Bristol.
- The date of the letter is from Robert Southey ([1849?]) chapter III, in Charles Cuthbert Southey, editor, The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 75.
- 1883, Anne Gilchrist, Mary Lamb[1]:
- Coleridge, too, had left Cambridge and was at Bristol, drawn thither by his newly formed friendship with Southey, lecturing, writing, dreaming of his ideal Pantisocracy on the banks of the Susquehannah and love-making.
- 2016, Björn Bosserhoff, “Almost Susquehanna”, in Radical Contra-Diction: Coleridge, Revolution, Apostasy, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, part 1 (Catching Fire: A Politico-biographical Account, 1792–96), page 64:
- "Aspheterism," then, the belief that only an abolition of private property would bring about the desired moral transformation, lies at the very heart of Pantisocracy. [Robert] Southey and [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge believed that once people returned to sharing a "common ground," they would no longer feel envy or a need to compete. […] But "aspheterism" was not the only milestone on their path to universal philanthropy; it was accompanied by ideas about improving everyday interpersonal behaviour.