Problems with Utopias: Civil Order and Stigma

Many utopias purport not to need a police or other type of civil force. Citizens are described as complying with the society's blueprint. The authors rarely address, say, More's city-dwellers refusing to move to the countryside or leaving the countryside before the 2 years of required labor are up. They very rarely address goods not being distributed as expected. The idea that "it says so on paper, so it will happen" is part and parcel of the utopia. 

The narrator claims that there are few private disputes in Utopia, which "observation" doesn't correspond to any human society that has ever existed in the course of history. 

Granted, More's Utopia is partly a thought experiment--but one imagines that a thought experiment would include some way to enforce the expected social customs/structure. Faced with how often human beings would fall short in More's Utopia, how could it possibly be kept going as described?

There are only two ways: totalitarianism or stigma/condemnation. 

More falls back on a combination. The ultimate punishment is in fact death--first, the malefactor (breaker of customs) is placed into slavery (from which the malefactor can be pardoned), but if the prisoner/slave continues to rebel, the slave is killed. (How slaves are monitored is bypassed: the necessary number of guards is never addressed.)

The section on Punishments and Rewards, however, focuses more on stigma/condemnation. The virtuous are rewarded with accolades while the threat of possible stigma lurks around every corner (social media, anyone?). Citizens, for instance, can eat at home rather than in communal cafeterias but "no one does it willingly because it is not thought proper...besides, it would be stupid." 

Guess all us homebodies will have to go live in one of the colonies (thank goodness!). 

Many utopias disguise stigma/condemnation with assumptions of compliance. They then rave about harmony and beautiful vistas, rather like small-minded American idealists being ushered about by bored Soviet hospitality managers. Oh, my, everything looks so nice--how can Reagan be so critical of the USSR?! (See PJ O'Rourke's Holidays in Hell.)

In truth, these assumptions of compliance are a variation on stigma/condemnation. When people argue their "niceness" or "good intentions" or "high-mindedness" or "identity" or, for that matter, other people's bad behavior/thoughts excuses how they are treated, they are arguing for stigma. It becomes okay to take away people's jobs, smear their reputations, steal their life's work, commit violence against them, and attempt through various venues to cow them into submission. 

Jealousy and small-mindedness under a veneer of benevolent righteousness.