Throughout the novel, every aspect of Bellamy's fictional society is eventually explained in terms of its financial importance. Whether his main character Julian West asks about art, freedom of the press, religion or women's rights, the response he receives is invariably in terms of wages, credit and economic efficiency. Bellamy's focus on the economic concerns of society is a response to the significant economic issues of his own time.
	Bellamy dedicates a significant portion of Looking Backwards to addressing working and living conditions because these were notoriously poor in his time period. Bellamy addresses the issue of living condition by awarding all workers the same pay, no matter their job, skill level or seniority. By guaranteeing that they are provided with enough money to live, poverty is instantly eliminated, and along with it most disease, crime and inequality. Working conditions are also addressed in Bellamy's society, where work that is more strenuous and dangerous comes coupled with shorter working hours in order to make all careers similarly desirable. This is a response to the factory work of the 1880's, which frequently had some of the longest hours and lowest pay of all work. Factory workers could barely support themselves and often had to send their wives and children to work in factories as well, making even less than the men did. By making more strenuous work require less hours with the same annual pay, Bellamy inverts the system of low-paid manual labor in our society, equalizing the desirability of all jobs. In addition, workers may volunteer for any career that they choose, giving them a kind of democratic power over their own working conditions. 
This self-regulation of working conditions is in response to the danger of sickness and injury that were common in the factories of the late 1800's. By putting decision-making power into the hands of the workers, Bellamy assures that all working conditions are satisfactory to them; and by providing each worker with an equal, adequate wage, he eliminates the struggle for survival that 19th century workers experienced.
	Bellamy also focuses on the efficiency of industry in his novel, in response to the inefficiency and excess of his own time. Bellamy blamed inefficiency for wasting wealth, and envisioned a society in which all people have ample wealth thanks to the elimination of inefficiency. For instance, Bellamy's use of central, government-run dispensaries in his society is a reaction to the inefficient shopping system of his time. Much like today, in the 1880's there were many stores for many types of items, and it was difficult, if not impossible, to discover which stores had the best goods or the best prices. In addition, merchandise went from its producer to a wholesaler and then on to a store, creating transportation and handling costs. In Looking Backward, the customer buys directly from the government-run wholesaler, which stocks the same products at the same prices all across the country. This saves money on transportation, handling, and the time spent trying to find appropriate products. Bellamy also eliminates salespeople by including informational slips with each item, which frees more of the labor force to work in producing goods. By centralizing and simplifying the shopping process, Bellamy lowers the cost of goods, saving more money and manpower for the nation. This desire for efficiency can also be seen in the way industry is run. Bellamy creates a centralized system that manages the employment of all of the nations workers, making the process much more efficient. 




The unemployed, unable to provide for themselves, turned to begging, theft, or starvation. Bellamy responded to this problem by placing all workers and all work under one system, so each worker would always be employed. This eliminated the hardship of unemployment the workers of Bellamy's day would have had to face. Bellamy also eliminated household work in order to improve the efficiency of his society. 
Because of the necessity of this work, many woman had a hard time taking care of a household and being employed simultaneously. 
This allowed women to join the industrial army and increase the productive power of the nation. Through his focus on efficiency, Bellamy simultaneously streamlined the consumption, employment and household work systems.
	The economic value Bellamy emphasized the most in his society was equality, which was a reaction to the wealth inequality of his time. Bellamy's system of equal wages, mentioned above, was far different from the reality of the 1800's. Bellamy uses a parable of a coach, with some riding in it and some pulling it, to represent 1800's wealth inequality, in which the majority of people lived difficult, impoverished, unhappy lives, while a few prospered. Bellamy remedied the gap in prosperity by establishing equal wages in his society, regardless of a person's skill or rank. This wage was also extended to those unable to work. In the 1800's from which Bellamy wrote, caring for a family member with a physical or mental disability would have been financially draining.
Along with equal wages for all, the people in Bellamy's society were given fully equal opportunities in life. In the 1880's wealth and privilege were often inherited an unobtainable for those of the lower class. Education, in particular, was available mostly to only the upper class, preventing lower classes from working in many careers requiring education. Bellamy's reaction to this was to make education, including law and medical training, free and available to all people. By making education accessible to everyone, Bellamy ensured that all his citizens would have the opportunity to do whatever work they pleased, which was unheard of in the 1880's, when "professional" jobs like medicine and law were reserved only for the upper class. Through his emphasis of equality, Bellamy addressed some of the most major economic problems facing the time period he wrote from.
	Bellamy focused his novel on the economic systems of his utopic society because he believed that if the prevalent economic issues were solved, the other aspects of society would be perfect. If, in his society, the working conditions, inefficiency, and inequality of the economic system were corrected, Bellamy believed that all of the moral and social problems would also be cured. Bellamy wrote this in response to the economic turmoil of the 1880's, in which labor strikes and poverty were common even while the rich prospered. By solving only these economic issues, Bellamy hoped to create a fully functioning utopia.
