alice wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 4:21 am
I've often wondered what a socialist utopia would actually look like. Maybe it's worth its own thread?
There's an amusing book out there called
The Machinery of Freedom that goes in deep detail into how a libertarian utopia would work.
I know, I know, libertarians and all that.
But it's a fascinating book at conworlding, and you have to give kudos to the author for actually trying to figure out how it would work in practice.
I think we're missing a left-wing counterpart to this book. (As zompist said, people did their best to figure it out in the Capitalism thread while I played that annoying guy who finds fault with everything)
Looking at it from a conworlding perspective, though, that would be a great project.(*)
In SF we have
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress which, honestly, makes a good case for libertarianism. (And also explains how insurance companies work!)
There's a similar effort in
The Dispossessed. It's supposed to be, in the author's world, an ambiguous utopia. But personally, I see nothing ambiguous about it. Anarres is straight-up described as a very unpleasant place. It is more honest than
Moon (Heinlein can see no fault with his loonies, except when they're not libertarian enough) but there are more handwaves. The computer at Abbenay handles most of the economy offscreen, while Heinlein's Lunar society would work just as well without Mike.
Iain Banks' Culture is just great as a conworld, don't get me wrong! But as a utopia it utterly fails. It's supposed to be socialist within and anarchist without. We don't see much of either, to be honest. What it really is neoconservative abroad and dictatorial at home. The Big Brother AIs are friendly, I'll grant you that. Or rather, they'll treat you as pets, unless you happen to have valuable skills in which case you'll be blackmailed into fighting the Evil Empire. (I don't even remember if anyone thought of
just asking the protagonist nicely in the
Player of Games.)
In Ken MacLeod books, we get both socialists and libertarians. We know where the authors' sympathies are, of course, but frankly the libertarians look a lot more fun to be around.
Wasn't the Star Trek Federation supposed to be socialist at some point?
(*) For a bit of self-promotion: you can stay tuned for my own ideas on how a truly civilized society should work, soon-ish in the Yttes thread. It's not intended to be either utopian or socialist, but I think an advanced society would include parts we'd think of as socialist.
Hi!
At the bakery one cost as much as two at the supermarket, and even that is expensive I think. The different varieties they had at that supermarket all had palm oil in them, and another supermarket I went to didn't have any at all.
