4 ms·

Miéville's Fifty Fantasy and Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read

10 points by eatonphil 3y ago

mensetmanusman 3y ago
Do socialists these days believe in individual land ownership? What does socialist SciFi say?
- jfengel 3y ago
  Socialism has always been primarily aimed at technological societies. Capitalism had already largely broken down feudal control of land. Socialism seeks to break capitalist control of things like factories. Russia and China tried to go directly from feudalism to socialism. Not to get all no-true-Scotsman but they weren't what Marx was predicting. Marx's real prediction failure was that England didn't have a socialist revolution. Modern socialists would care less about the land ownership than about the massive technologies that make farms insanely productive, while treating migrant workers as disposable machines. Ownership of your suburban lawn just doesn't figure into it. Maybe it would be different in a different kind of economy but it's not what socialist theory is about.
  - drewcoo 3y ago
    > Capitalism had already largely broken down feudal control of land. This is in response to a comment about land ownership. So land ownership doesn't mean anything now? This explains why Bill Gates owns more of the US than any other person, right? > Russia and China tried to go directly from feudalism to socialism. I thought the goal was communism and socialism was used to get there. And I thought that USSR (not Russia) and China did what Engels would have called "state capitalism." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism > Ownership of your suburban lawn just doesn't figure into it. That's a flippant way to dismiss the GP's question of "individual land ownership." > it's not what socialist theory is about You seem to have different ideas about socialism than I do. So what exactly is socialist theory all about? And please explain praxis while you're at it.
krupan 3y ago
I don't understand why some of these are for socialists. The Master and Margarita is a pretty damning take on socialist Russia. And it didn't get past the censors as the author of this page seems to assume, Bulgakov was deathly afraid and kept it hidden! Also, interesting that Atlas Shrugged is on this list with the reason being "know your enemy" and 1984 is not.
- DicIfTEx 3y ago
  Authoritarian socialism is one of two strands of the socialist movement. Vanguardist authoritarian socialism (i.e., Marxism–Leninism and its offspring) are a substrain of that wider current and, much like that xkcd strip about crazy straws, you can keep going down into endless internecine fights, squabbles and historical mass murders between its different factions. As far as I can tell, Miéville has historically been some sort of Trotskyist, so including works criticial of the Soviet Union and Stalinism would be pretty on-brand. However, he left the Socialist Workers Party some time ago. The path from Trotskyism to anti-authoritarian socialism is shorter than from some other forms of Marxism–Leninism, so he could be anywhere nowadays. He didn't include Nineteen Eighty-Four, but he did include We which I understand to be similar in its anti-totalitarian message (though I've not read it myself). He also left off Brave New World FWIW.
- turtleyacht 3y ago
  Someday, we may be able to categorize books into a list of types. We have TV Tropes¹, for example. Folks surveying a rich field like books could quickly get oriented along their interest axis--a literal map of preferences. We also see it in Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs (TTRPGs), where one or more words make up a phrase summarizing a monster's abilities and describing the subsequent mechanics: Berserker Hunger. Suddenly, the creature can move 1d4 additional feet and grapple target player. Something like that. My wish, though, is we look back on these works and handle stuff through the lens of Dramatica Theory of Story²: characters are "functions" for solving the central problem; each work is a self-contained StoryMind trying to look at the problem in a variety of ways; and there are four Throughlines through the story. All of which is a long way to say, if these works are related to socialism, each presents a menu of ideas in a certain way, and advances a central argument (with certain degrees--or absence of--nuance). ¹ https://tvtropes.org/ https://tvtropes.org/ ² https://dramatica.com/theory https://dramatica.com/theory
readthenotes1 3y ago
I'm not surprised that neither 1984 nor Animal Farm made the cut. Perhaps they are assumed to have been read (not anymore, though), or perhaps they paint to cynical an outcome for socialism experiments?

10 points by eatonphil 3y ago

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Do socialists these days believe in individual land ownership? What does socialist SciFi say?

jfengel 3y ago
Socialism has always been primarily aimed at technological societies. Capitalism had already largely broken down feudal control of land. Socialism seeks to break capitalist control of things like factories. Russia and China tried to go directly from feudalism to socialism. Not to get all no-true-Scotsman but they weren't what Marx was predicting. Marx's real prediction failure was that England didn't have a socialist revolution. Modern socialists would care less about the land ownership than about the massive technologies that make farms insanely productive, while treating migrant workers as disposable machines. Ownership of your suburban lawn just doesn't figure into it. Maybe it would be different in a different kind of economy but it's not what socialist theory is about.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > Capitalism had already largely broken down feudal control of land. This is in response to a comment about land ownership. So land ownership doesn't mean anything now? This explains why Bill Gates owns more of the US than any other person, right? > Russia and China tried to go directly from feudalism to socialism. I thought the goal was communism and socialism was used to get there. And I thought that USSR (not Russia) and China did what Engels would have called "state capitalism." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism > Ownership of your suburban lawn just doesn't figure into it. That's a flippant way to dismiss the GP's question of "individual land ownership." > it's not what socialist theory is about You seem to have different ideas about socialism than I do. So what exactly is socialist theory all about? And please explain praxis while you're at it.

krupan 3y ago

I don't understand why some of these are for socialists. The Master and Margarita is a pretty damning take on socialist Russia. And it didn't get past the censors as the author of this page seems to assume, Bulgakov was deathly afraid and kept it hidden! Also, interesting that Atlas Shrugged is on this list with the reason being "know your enemy" and 1984 is not.

DicIfTEx 3y ago
Authoritarian socialism is one of two strands of the socialist movement. Vanguardist authoritarian socialism (i.e., Marxism–Leninism and its offspring) are a substrain of that wider current and, much like that xkcd strip about crazy straws, you can keep going down into endless internecine fights, squabbles and historical mass murders between its different factions. As far as I can tell, Miéville has historically been some sort of Trotskyist, so including works criticial of the Soviet Union and Stalinism would be pretty on-brand. However, he left the Socialist Workers Party some time ago. The path from Trotskyism to anti-authoritarian socialism is shorter than from some other forms of Marxism–Leninism, so he could be anywhere nowadays. He didn't include Nineteen Eighty-Four, but he did include We which I understand to be similar in its anti-totalitarian message (though I've not read it myself). He also left off Brave New World FWIW.
turtleyacht 3y ago
Someday, we may be able to categorize books into a list of types. We have TV Tropes¹, for example. Folks surveying a rich field like books could quickly get oriented along their interest axis--a literal map of preferences. We also see it in Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs (TTRPGs), where one or more words make up a phrase summarizing a monster's abilities and describing the subsequent mechanics: Berserker Hunger. Suddenly, the creature can move 1d4 additional feet and grapple target player. Something like that. My wish, though, is we look back on these works and handle stuff through the lens of Dramatica Theory of Story²: characters are "functions" for solving the central problem; each work is a self-contained StoryMind trying to look at the problem in a variety of ways; and there are four Throughlines through the story. All of which is a long way to say, if these works are related to socialism, each presents a menu of ideas in a certain way, and advances a central argument (with certain degrees--or absence of--nuance). ¹ https://tvtropes.org/ https://tvtropes.org/ ² https://dramatica.com/theory https://dramatica.com/theory

readthenotes1 3y ago

I'm not surprised that neither 1984 nor Animal Farm made the cut. Perhaps they are assumed to have been read (not anymore, though), or perhaps they paint to cynical an outcome for socialism experiments?