Jonestown as a Perverse Utopia: A “Greedy Institution” in the Jungle

For 20 days, until December 8, the Jonestown horror story made first-page news in the New York Times. In the course of five hours, 911 adults and children were killed or killed themselves. There had been no threat on their lives from the outside, nor was there any strong transcendental cause that leader or followers meant to serve. The leader had claimed he wanted “socialism” and “Marxism,” and had mixed his missionary zeal with religion because he allegedly believed the followers “needed it.” So for years he gave them “opium for the people,” and in the end cyanide.

The questions that are usually being asked are: What kind of people were those commune members? Were they without roots...