Step in front of the cameras and be free — such is the mantra of a recent wave of reality shows, which take the American impulse toward renewal one step further, by enabling people to shuck off the identities they’d spent decades forming and have a chance at starting anew. This fall, Fox began an ambitious show, “Utopia,” which isolated 15 participants on a California ranch with minimal amenities (but dozens of cameras) and tasked them with building a society from scratch. On the National Geographic Channel, “Live Free or Die” follows a handful of people living in extreme anti-modern fashion.

Both of these shows were rooted in the premise that capitalist society is, in effect, broken, and demands a severe head-cleaning to rid oneself of its evils. This is a shift for reality television, which has often been used as a vehicle to a better, more-enhanced self. In the 2000s, reality TV tended toward ubiquitous makeover shows, from the charitable “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” to the smilingly sinister “America’s Next Top Model” to the ghastly theatrics of “The Swan.” These were game shows of a different sort: Subject yourself to the cameras, and you would be rewarded handsomely.

Now reality TV is in retreat. Series about those who work hardscrabble blue-collar jobs have given way to series that romanticize those who live with very little, off the grid. You could run a whole network just with shows about living in Alaska — “Life Below Zero,” also on Nat Geo, is a worthy recent entry in that category, sharing traits with the newest spate of pioneer shows.

Those programs fetishize a pre-technological, pre-capitalist mode of being. On each, participants often talk about their reasons for leaving civilization behind — some thoughtful, some naïve. “Utopia,” which got the ax from Fox after only two months into a planned yearlong run, included Dave, an ex-convict looking to change his life by separating himself from old influences; Bella, an earth mother scared of microwave ovens; and Red, a good ol’ boy with deep family demons.