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Title: Anarchist Science Fiction Author: Iain McKay Date: 2013 Language: en Topics: science fiction, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review Source: Retrieved on 28th January 2021 from https://syndicalist.us/2013/07/11/anarchist-science-fiction/ Notes: From Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #60, Summer 2013
It is with a sad heart that I write this article – Iain Banks, the
Scottish writer, has died at a far too early age. Reading the many
interviews and obituaries, it is obvious that one of the good guys has
shuffled off this moral coil. In terms of his writings, I’ve only read
his science fiction works and I would recommend them to all anarchist SF
fans – particularly the Culture series.
To be honest, I’m surprised by how sad it makes me feel to think that
there will be no more Culture books. I read The Hydrogen Sonata this
year, which was fun (although not as fun as Surface Detail –
particularly the wonderful chapter sketching the rise of artificial
heavens and hells). I’ve read them all and the only one I found
disappointing was Matter and even that was worth reading (it mentions
anarchist revolutionaries!). My one quibble is that the books tend to
have somewhat anti-climactic endings – Banks builds up the story, the
ideas, the threat so well that when it ends it always seems somewhat
less than hoped for. However, while the destination may be less than
hoped for the journey makes it worthwhile.
For those who don’t know, the Culture is a post-scarcity
communist/anarchist utopia and it does present a fun vision of a free
society. So in terms of SF it gives a glimpse, particularly the novella
The State of the Art in which Culture agents visit Earth in 1977 and the
obvious contrasts are made:
On Earth one of the things that a large proportion of the locals is most
proud of is this wonderful economic system which, with a sureness and
certainty so comprehensive one could almost imagine the process bears
some relation to their limited and limiting notions of either
thermodynamics or God, all food, comfort, energy, shelter, space, fuel
and sustenance gravitates naturally and easily away from those who need
it most and towards those who need it least. Indeed, those on the
receiving end of such largesse are often harmed unto death by its
arrival, though the effects may take years and generations to manifest
themselves.
I particularly liked the speech by a Culture member noting that,
compared to Earthlings, he was the richest man alive as he had access to
the vast economic, social and cultural wealth of a vast chunk of the
universe but he was also the poorest man alive as he owned none of it.
Banks was clearly a man who understood what Proudhon was getting at, the
core idea of socialism which recognizes the difference between
use-rights and property-rights. He did, however, indicate a certain
attachment to central planning (as indicated in The State of the Art and
in an interview I read). Suffice to say, if central planning requires
hyper-intelligent super-computers to work then just as well proclaim
that all we need is fairy dust as well.
Which is one of the many reasons I love Ursula le Guin’s The
Dispossessed – it remains my favorite anarchist SF novel precisely
because it does not invoke technology much more advanced than we have
and, moreover, suggests that a free society will not be perfect, will
face difficult decisions, will face problems. The Culture is fun and
expresses the mind-set well, but it is utopian. She also clearly
understands anarchism and the anarchist mind-set as shown by The
Dispossessed and the excellent short story “The Day Before the
Revolution.” If you have not read her works, do yourself a favor and do
so – starting with The Dispossessed! You can tell that her parents were
anthropologists given the richness of her work.
Reading David Graeber’s Debt (which I would urge you to do, as it is an
important work) two things struck home. Graeber notes the poverty of
imagination of most economists (who basically project a money economy
backwards and then remove the money, causing them to invent a barter
system which no tribal society ever had). Second, the poverty of
imagination of most SF writers (particularly the “classic” ones from the
mid-20^(th) Century) whose characters are white, male, middle-class
Americans in space. In terms of fantasy, much the same can be said –
Conan’s world is just our world’s history with slightly different names.
This point was made by another one of my favorite writers, Michael
Moorcock in his essay “Starship Stormtroopers.” This first appeared in
Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review (the anarchist movement needs
something like this these days), but I first read it as part of The
Opium General which also included a review of Michael Malet’s book on
Nestor Makhno. These got me aware of anarchism and when I read the
introduction to The Anarchist Reader and the extracts on Makhno in it, I
was pleasantly surprised to discover that the ideas I had developed by
myself had a name – anarchism. And talking of Makhno, Moorcock has him
fighting Stalin in an alternative 1940s in the fun The Steel Tsar, the
final part of his A Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy regarding the
adventures of Captain Oswald Bastable. The first book in this series
(The Warlord of the Air) also has anarchists in it. Both are worth
reading.
I should also mention Marge Piercy’s Women on the Edge of Time and Body
of Glass, both excellent (her City of Darkness, City of Light is also
excellent, set during the French Revolution it made me read finally read
Kropotkin’s The Great French Revolution – something else I would urge
revolutionary anarchists to do). And it would be remiss of me not to
mention Alan Moore, specifically V for Vendetta. Do not let the film put
you off. Its best bits are those taken straight from the book and the
politics are gutted, anarchism being mention once – when someone shouts
“Anarchy in the UK” after stealing from a shop when the totalitarian
surveillance system goes down! The book itself is a classic and V’s
speech to the nation is a brilliant piece of anarchist propaganda. And,
no, it is not an inspiration for anarchist tactics (as some clueless
Marxists suggested when the film came it) as it is, obviously, a
superhero comic.
I should also mention the ex-Trotskyist (and friend of Iain Banks) Ken
MacLeod and his Fall Revolution series, which I did not particularly
like. I read The Stone Canal first, being drawn in by it starting at
Glasgow University (which I attended long after MacLeod). The
“anarcho”-capitalist utopia is unpleasant, as you would expect, but the
end suggested that The Cassini Division, with its libertarian socialist
utopia, would be more interesting. It was, although very much a
Marxist-inspired stateless communist utopia, and unlike the rest of the
series, it was the only one I wanted to know how it ended. I then read
The Star Fraction and The Sky Road, neither of which appealed. Finally,
Leninist China Mieville. I’ve read two of his books (Perdido Street
Station and Iron Council) and they were enjoyable enough (I would say
they were a bit long, but I cannot complain about others on that
score!). They were very imaginative, so it came as a surprise to
discover he was then a member of the British SWP! Saying that, Iron
Council did show his SWP politics by taking Marx’s “revolutions are the
locomotives of history” a bit too literally, not to mention “the
anarchist passion” of one of the protagonists (who very much acts in
terms of “propaganda by the deed” which does seem to be the Leninist
notion of “real” libertarian tactics!). Still, Mieville seems to have
made the right decisions in terms of the recent crisis in the SWP which
is good news and I would by far to prefer to pick up with one of his
books than MacLeod (to be totally honest).
I’m sure that there are other SF and Fantasy writers and works of a
libertarian nature – who would you recommend?