This utopian, or rather dystopian story deals with the consequences of the inauguration of a "Dark Green" government which has introduced "the Punishment of Luxury" according to their radical beliefs about how the world should look like.
The citizens suffer under the Dark Green totalitarian regime where the party prohibits alcohol, cars, tobacco and all other luxury goods that contribute to the pollution of the planet.
The main character of the story, Arnold Watney, intrigues against the Dark Green government and puts up secret resistance against it by owning a car (which is called Mabel the Morris Minor and hidden under a sheet in his lounge at home), smoking cigarettes and drinking his home-brew beer.
Therefore, he secretly dumps his beloved Morris Minor into a pond and confesses his drinking and smoking habits to the Dark Green Cell, who sends him to the Re-education Centre.
The attitude which is presented by the short story is clearly anti-utopian: although there might have been a formerly honest and upright intention, namely to create a better world by avoiding everything which is unnatural and thus harmful to the environment, it is shown that everything which is driven into an extreme is negative.