3 ms·

One thing I found interesting about the novel was that the depicted Martian utopia is just as growth hungry as contemporary capitalism. [spoiler warning] The p

One thing I found interesting about the novel was that the depicted Martian utopia is just as growth hungry as contemporary capitalism. [spoiler warning] The premise, in fact, is that Mars has consumed its major resources, and now needs to colonise either Venus or Earth in order to survive. The latter option possibly involves exterminating all Earthlings. I've come across claims that communism is a solution to capitalism's unsustainable growth demands, and it was fun reading a major Russian revolutionary imagining his communist utopia with the very same demands.

codeulike 6y ago
Its a weird element in the story, that the utopia wants to eradicate the human race, it doesn't usually go that way in utopian novels. Makes me wonder if there is some subtle satire going on. As if the novel is predicting something like the Great Purge under Stalin? I havent read the novel.
- cesis 6y ago
  The novel is from 1908. That's before Russian Revolution.
  - codeulike 6y ago
    I know, but only a decade before. The idea of revolution was around. E.g. the plot synopsis for the novel on wikipedia says "Leonid, the narrator and protagonist of the story, is a Bolshevik revolutionary and mathematician living in St. Petersburg."
  - ra88it 6y ago
    There was more than one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Russian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Russian_Revolution
sirodoht 6y ago
That's a very interesting remark. There is criticism against both communism and capitalism for exactly this notion: that history progresses only with material advancement [1]. For example, one is by Cornelius Castoriadis [2] (fan of communism until he assigned this very notion of endless material growth as core of its shortcomings) and another by Erich Fromm, where in "To Have or to Be" [3] he talks about similar ideas. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis#The_imaginary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis#The_imag... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Have_or_to_Be%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Have_or_to_Be%3F
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  On the other hand, and I think more recently, Sean Sayers has gone against this conception of Marx that he proposed a 'productivist' ideology or conception of communist society[0], for which Marx is still (mistakenly, in my opinion) criticized, especially by environmentalists and eco-socialists. The special focus on a narrow, technical meaning of the 'forces of production' used in describing hi torical materialism has also been called into question. Marx may have been an 'economic determinist' (this is less controversial but still worth discussing) but he certainly wasn't a 'technological determinist'. [0] https://philpapers.org/rec/SAYTCO https://philpapers.org/rec/SAYTCO

codeulike 6y ago

Its a weird element in the story, that the utopia wants to eradicate the human race, it doesn't usually go that way in utopian novels. Makes me wonder if there is some subtle satire going on. As if the novel is predicting something like the Great Purge under Stalin? I havent read the novel.

cesis 6y ago
The novel is from 1908. That's before Russian Revolution.
- codeulike 6y ago
  I know, but only a decade before. The idea of revolution was around. E.g. the plot synopsis for the novel on wikipedia says "Leonid, the narrator and protagonist of the story, is a Bolshevik revolutionary and mathematician living in St. Petersburg."
- ra88it 6y ago
  There was more than one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Russian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Russian_Revolution

sirodoht 6y ago

That's a very interesting remark. There is criticism against both communism and capitalism for exactly this notion: that history progresses only with material advancement [1]. For example, one is by Cornelius Castoriadis [2] (fan of communism until he assigned this very notion of endless material growth as core of its shortcomings) and another by Erich Fromm, where in "To Have or to Be" [3] he talks about similar ideas. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis#The_imaginary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis#The_imag... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Have_or_to_Be%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Have_or_to_Be%3F

claudiawerner 6y ago
On the other hand, and I think more recently, Sean Sayers has gone against this conception of Marx that he proposed a 'productivist' ideology or conception of communist society[0], for which Marx is still (mistakenly, in my opinion) criticized, especially by environmentalists and eco-socialists. The special focus on a narrow, technical meaning of the 'forces of production' used in describing hi torical materialism has also been called into question. Marx may have been an 'economic determinist' (this is less controversial but still worth discussing) but he certainly wasn't a 'technological determinist'. [0] https://philpapers.org/rec/SAYTCO https://philpapers.org/rec/SAYTCO