What makes the community in The Giver a Dystopia?

While Utopian fiction is a peek into a future in which society is working very well, dystopian literature is that which gives us a look at a future that is not working out at all.  A dystopian work shows us a future that is dysfunctional, usually because mankind has made some dreadful mistake or miscalculation.  While on the surface, the society in The Giver seems quite successful, it is clear by the end of the...

While Utopian fiction is a peek into a future in which society is working very well, dystopian literature is that which gives us a look at a future that is not working out at all.  A dystopian work shows us a future that is dysfunctional, usually because mankind has made some dreadful mistake or miscalculation.  While on the surface, the society in The Giver seems quite successful, it is clear by the end of the book that it is profoundly dysfunctional in ways that only the Giver and Jonas are privy to because they are the only fully human people in the story.

The mistake that the community has made is to have given up what makes its people human in exchange for security and stability. They must conform to the rules of Sameness, which takes away most of their choices. They have given up the sense of color and music.  They have given up emotions such as happiness and love.  They have given up memories of anything that happened before their lives began.  They have no choice in mates, child-bearing, or in work.  In exchange, they have a sterile, climate-controlled existence, which seems to keep them free of disease and food or housing insecurity. They are safe, but while they have traded away unhappiness, they are not capable of happiness, either. 

While there may be some who do not see this as dystopia, I think most people understand that this is a bad bargain, that giving up choices and differences, giving up color and music, giving up all the best of human emotions, is a choice that leads to a community of essentially robots, who follow the leaders unquestioningly.  The Giver and Jonas understand the cost that the community has paid, even though the people themselves do not see it.