Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The Blithedale Romance, essentially sees as inadequate social or political remedies for human problems. He finds the root of human problems in the human being, rather than in the environment. In fact, Hawthorne clearly believes that the case of Hollingsworth presents the example of an individual who brings himself to the brink of destruction through efforts to save others through manipulation of the environment:
The moral . . . as drawn from Hollingsworth's characters and errors is . . . that, admitting what is called Philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often useful . . . to society at large, it is perilous to the individual, whole ruling passion . . . it thus becomes. It ruins . . . the heart. . . . From the very gate of Heaven, there is a by-way to the pit (243).
Clearly, there are characters who disagree with this estimation, including Hollingsworth himself, at least up to the point of his withdrawal in failure from society. Cloverdale also holds the view that the experiment at the Blithedale farm was a noble one. He looks back to his earlier idealistic days with fondness, but he has clearly lost the belief that society can be perfected, or even profoundly improved, through the efforts of human beings who are so seriously flawed both as individuals and as members of any would-be reformist group.
Certainly Hawthorne does not believe that the social and/or political environment has no impact on human goodness or evil. The views of Coverdale suggest that Hawthorne has sympathy for reformist efforts, but the most important factor in the production of evil in the world seems to be the individual human being himself or herself. Westervelt springs to mind as a thoroughly malevolent character, but Hawthorne also makes clear that the reformer/utopianist Hollingsworth failed both as a reformer as an individual, ruining himself as he tried unsuccessfully to save the world.
Hawthorne's neg...