Books The Human Drift by King Camp Gillette (1894)

The Human Drift is a work of Utopian social planning, written by King Camp Gillette and first published in 1894. The book details Gillette’s theory that replacing competitive corporations with a single giant publicly owned trust (“the United Company”) would cure virtually all social ills.

One-third of the book is devoted to Gillette’s plan for an immense three-level metropolis (called “Metropolis”) on the site of Niagara Falls. Designed to accommodate a population of tens of millions of inhabitants, it would in fact be the only city on the North American continent. Economies of scale would mean that a single one of every necessary facility — one steel mill, one shoe factory, etc. — would exist. Advances in mechanization would generate ever-greater efficiencies, and ever-greater wealth for the whole society. Social progress would be natural and inevitable; gender equality would be the rule.