Utopia, Science, and the Nature of Civilization in Theodor Hertzka’s Freiland

In November 1889, the Viennese political economist and journalist Dr. Theodor Hertzka published Freiland: Ein soziales Zukunftsbild, a novelistic account of the formation of a colony of Europeans in East Africa meant to illustrate his solution of the “social problem.” The paradox of modern capitalism, as Hertzka saw it, lay in the fact that consumption continually failed to keep pace with the ever expanding productive capacity of the modern industrial economy, creating crises of overproduction even in the midst of widespread poverty and want. Freiland depicts a new economic system in which free access to capital (which cannot be owned, but can be used by anyone) and universal availability of production information stimulate the rapid and tandem expansion of production and consumption, leading to universal prosperity.

Embedded in the novel are adventure narratives, two love stories, and a war, but what dominates its 400-plus pages are lengthy discussions of the Freeland system of production (replete with detailed lists of agricultural and industrial output) and descriptions of the flora and fauna of the Mt. Kenya region in which the colony is located. The characters are flatly drawn (even for a utopian novel) and the plot lacks any real tension, as the Freelanders proceed from triumph to triumph, guided by the lodestar of Hertzka’s economic theory. Despite its stylistic shortcomings, the novel proved a popular success, running through ten German editions in seven years. By 1892 the novel had been translated into English (1890), Czech (1891), French, Hungarian, Dutch (1892), and further editions in Polish, Romanian, Russian, Italian, and Swedish were in preparation (Horr, The Freeland Movement 1; Neubacher 10–11; “Neue ‘Freiland’-Uebersetzungen” 1). The novel’s popularity inspired Hertzka to publish the 1893 sequel, Eine Reise nach Freiland, which addressed criticisms of his system through the memoir of a new and skeptical immigrant to the society. Though not as successful as the original, the cover of a 1905 English translation boasted that it had sold over 70,000 copies in Germany (A Trip).

As its author had hoped, the novel’s success extended beyond the literary realm. Within months of its publication, Freiland-Vereine had sprung up throughout German-speaking central Europe. By the end of 1890, the movement boasted ten chapters with a total of 245 members. Six months later, membership had climbed to about a thousand people in twenty-four chapters and Hertzka had begun publishing a biweekly Freiland insert in his Zeitschrift für Staats- und Volkswirtschaft (Freiländische Actions-Comité 59; Neubacher 23–25). Freeland Associations continued to proliferate in cities throughout Austria-Hungary, Germany, western Europe, and even the United States. At its height, the movement encompassed nearly a thousand local chapters (Glass 267 n.35; Hertzler 236). In 1891, Hertzka established the Freeland Action Committee, which began to plan an expedition to found a colony according to his principles and by 1894 had accumulated over 87,000 Marks in contributions (Hertzka, Freiland xxiv). In February 1894, under the leadership of Viennese businessman Dr. Julius Wilhelm, twenty men drawn from over 300 applicants set out for Africa in a ship purchased by the society, charged with finding a suitable location in the Kenya highlands for the colony (“Freiländische Nachrichten” 1). Upon their arrival in Africa, the group ran afoul of British authorities suspicious that the Freelanders represented an attempt to establish a Germanic sphere of influence in British East Africa, despite Wilhelm’s belief that he had gained British government approval for the venture during a visit to London (“Wiener Freilandverein” 1–2; Horr, The Freeland Movement 2–3). The would-be colonists remained stranded in the coastal town of Lamu, unable to begin their inland trek up the Tana River. In July, when it became clear that British colonial authorities would not let them proceed, the last of the dispirited Freelanders returned to Europe (“Nachrichten aus Afrika” 4–5). Following this disappointment, the movement soon fell apart. Hertzka “left the field of propaganda,” according to his committed follower Alexander Horr, “knowing that nothing less than a political party of the proportions of the...