Designing an alien species without a government
DataPacRat
role-playing game. (If you'd like to read one of my previous species
designs, feel free to follow the URL in my signature.)
One of the concepts that I'm using as a basis to build upon is that
they don't have any group that can force one of them to do something -
in other words, no government.
I've done a little reading about anarchism (of various sorts), moved to
libertarianism, and am now working through the basics of objectivism.
I've picked up a few random details about how such a society might work,
but I thought I would post here and ask for your thoughts.
For example, contracts seem the closest each individual has to binding
laws, especially if those contracts are registered with third-party
contract enforcement companies. But, other than making sure all such
enforced contracts are publicly posted, how could people make sure that
those companies don't overstep and start 'initiating force' on their own
behalf?
Or, given the existance of the usual Star-Trek-like interstellar
empires, how could they organize a planetary/system defense force to
prevent being conquered?
What other details do you think might be interesting, significant, or
the like?
Thank you for your time,
--
DataPacRat: amateur alchemist, agnostic Gnostic, and memetic engineer.
The Rrangoon species is at http://www26.brinkster.com/tfos/
Dan Clore
>
> In some of my spare time, I'm inventing a new alien species for a
> role-playing game. (If you'd like to read one of my previous species
> designs, feel free to follow the URL in my signature.)
>
> One of the concepts that I'm using as a basis to build upon is that
> they don't have any group that can force one of them to do something -
> in other words, no government.
>
> I've done a little reading about anarchism (of various sorts), moved to
> libertarianism, and am now working through the basics of objectivism.
> I've picked up a few random details about how such a society might work,
> but I thought I would post here and ask for your thoughts.
>
> For example, contracts seem the closest each individual has to binding
> laws, especially if those contracts are registered with third-party
> contract enforcement companies. But, other than making sure all such
> enforced contracts are publicly posted, how could people make sure that
> those companies don't overstep and start 'initiating force' on their own
> behalf?
>
> Or, given the existance of the usual Star-Trek-like interstellar
> empires, how could they organize a planetary/system defense force to
> prevent being conquered?
>
> What other details do you think might be interesting, significant, or
> the like?
You might find this work-in-progress of mine to be of use:
Anarchist and Libertarian Socialist Societies Depicted in
Utopian Works, Science Fiction, and Fantasy: An Incomplete
Listing
by Dan Clore
[intro omitted]
The List
Roger MacBride Allen. The Ring of Charon (). ?
Zainab Amadahy. The Moons of Palmares (1997). [unread]
Poul Anderson. "The Last of the Deliverers" (1957; revised
version 1976). After the US and USSR have broken up, thanks
to a source of cheap, decentralized solar energy, the
highest level of political organization consists of
libertarian-socialist townships. In these townships, the
community owns the land and such tools of production as
tractors, plows, and harvesters, but those who raise the
crops own the produce. Others are also self-employed,
preferring to produce quality, crafted goods as needed, and
spending the rest of their time in other rewarding pursuits,
such as making love and hunting deer, rather than worrying
about making a profit. In a town in Ohio, the last
capitalist debates the last Communist, and everyone else is
bored by their irrelevance.
"No Truce with Kings" (1963). Earth's states have broken
into small, feudal realms; alien invaders attempt to
reintroduce civilization to the "starveling anarchs" of the
planet, who prefer the relative freedom offered by a choice
of masters.
The Winter of the World (1975). ? [unread]
Anonymous. The Laws of Leflo (). ? [unseen]
Anonymous. "Visit Port Watson!" (1985).
(http://www.sonsorol.org/port_watson.html ) The editors
(Rudy Rucker, Peter Lamborn Wilson, and Robert Anton Wilson)
of the Semiotext(e) SF issue were unable to obtain any works
of "radical utopian vision" from their contributors, so they
reprinted this piece from a magazine called Libertarian
Horizons: A Journal for the Free Traveler. This is a
fictional description of the (real) Pacific island Sonsorol
combining ideas from libertarian socialism, libertarian
capitalism, and the marginals milieu.
C.R. Ashbee. The Building of Thelema (1910). A utopian
romance influenced by William Morris. [unseen]
Iain M. Banks. (Banks publishes his mundane fiction under
Iain Banks, and his science fiction under Iain M. Banks.)
The Culture series: Consider Phlebas (1987), Player Of Games
(1988), Use Of Weapons (1990), Excession (1996), Look To
Windward (2000). A socialist-anarchist society has been
created through the use of nanotechnology to eliminate
scarcity. Banks is very popular at the moment. [all unread]
L. Frank Baum. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). In the
sequels Oz gradually evolves into a state-socialist utopia.
The series is worth citing here because it reveals how
conceptions of socialism have changed, as Oz has an
interesting mix of authoritarian and libertarian features
(Baum was influence both by Bellamy's Looking Backward and
by Morris's News from Nowhere). In the sixth novel, The
Emerald City of Oz (1910), Baum writes:
"There were no poor people in the Land of Oz, because there
was no such thing as money, and all property belonged to the
Ruler [the Fairy Queen Ozma]. The people were her children,
and she cared for them. Each person was given freely by his
neighbors whatever he required for his use, which is as much
as any one may reasonably desire. Some tilled the lands and
raised great crops of grain, which was divided equally among
the entire population, so that all had enough. There were
many tailors and dressmakers and shoemakers and the like,
who made things that any who desired them might wear.
Likewise, there were jewelers who made ornaments for the
person, which pleased and beautified the people, and these
ornaments also were free to those who asked for them. Each
man and woman, no matter what he or she produced for the
good of the community, was supplied by the neighbors with
food and clothing and a house and furniture and ornaments
and games. If by chance the supply ever ran short, more was
taken from the great storehouses of the Ruler, which were
afterward filled up again when there was more of an article
than the people needed.
"Every one worked half the time and played half the time,
and the people enjoyed the work as much as they did the
play, because it is good to be occupied and to have
something to do. There were no cruel overseers set to watch
them, and no one to rebuke them or to find fault with them.
So each one was proud to do all he could for his friends and
neighbors, and was glad when they would accept the things he
produced.
"You will know, by what I have told you here, the Land of Oz
was a remarkable country. I do not suppose such an
arrangement would be practical with us, but Dorothy assures
me that it works finely with the Oz people."
In Oz, furthermore, there is no police force and the Royal
Army of Oz has but a single soldier. (This soldier doubles
as the Police Force of Oz when it becomes required in the
eighth volume, though this had never been necessary before.)
Oz is contrasted to contemporary America. Uncle Henry and
Aunt Em never recover financially from the loss of their
house in the first volume's cyclone, and by the sixth volume
the bank forecloses on their farm. Fortunately Dorothy is
able to convince Ozma to bring them to Oz to live.
Barrington J. Bayley. Annihilation Factor (1964) includes
the character Castor Krakhno, based on Nestor Makhno.
[unread]
Charles Willing Beale. The Ghost of Guir House (1895). This
Theosophical haunted-house novel includes a vision of the
city of Levachan in the year 3,000.
Edward Bellamy. Equality (1897). This sequel to Bellamy's
well-known authoritarian socialist utopia Looking Backward
2000-1887 (1888) attempts to revise it in accord with
libertarian, feminist, and other criticisms. [unseen]
J.D. Beresford. What Dreams May Come . . . (1941). Presents
a dream vision of a non-mechanical, religious utopia.
[unseen]
Louky Bersianak. The Euguelionne (1976). ? [unseen]
Walter Besant and James Rice. The Monks of Thelema (1880). ?
[unseen]
Alfred Bester. The Computer Connection (). ? [unread]
Hakim Bey (pseud: Peter Lamborn Wilson). Crowstone (). ?
[unseen]
Eando Binder. "Giants of Anarchy" (1939). ? [unseen]
Robert Blatchford. The Sorcery Shop: An Impossible Romance
(1907). Fantasy novel influenced by News from Nowhere.
[unseen]
Robert Boardman. Savior of Fire (). ? [unread]
Dorothy Bryant. The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You (1971;
originally titled The Comforter). [unread]
Bujold.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The Coming Race; or, The New Utopia
(1870). The narrator discovers a society living in caverns
deep underground in this satirical novel. This society is
organized along lines that satirize Charles Fourier and
other libertarian socialists; work is assigned according to
personal taste, for example, so that children - who of
course love to smash things - are given the job of
destroying the dangerous giant reptiles that inhabit the
wilder regions of the underground world. Work is
accomplished through the use of the Vril, a sort of sexual
energy force, through which the Vril-ya (as they are known)
can power machinery and fly. Any one of them could also use
it to destroy any of the others, or even the entire race, so
none of them can take power over the others.
William S. Burroughs. Burroughs' work is primarily
dystopian, but a few anarchistic utopian societies do show
up. In The Wild Boys (1969), for example, Burroughs portrays
an anarchistic society that consists of roving gangs of
dope-smoking, homosexual teenage boys who wear nothing but
jockstraps and rollerskates. The trilogy that begins with
Cities of the Red Night (1981) includes material about
several attempts to found libertarian societies, including
Libertatia (see under Daniel Defoe) and a group of
Rimbaud-reading, dope-smoking, homosexual Zen gunslingers in
the Wild West. Ghost of Chance (1991) stars Captain Mission
and his pirate utopia Libertatia.
Cassius Minor. The Finding of Mercia (1909). [unseen]
Robert W. Chambers. The Slayer of Souls (1920). In this
novel, "Anarchists, terrorists, Bolshevists, Reds of all
shades and degrees, are now believed to represent in modern
times" a conspiracy descended from the (real)
Satan-worshipping sect of the Yezidi, whose homeland has
been moved from the Middle East to Central Asia. Of marginal
interest at best. [unseen]
A. Bertram Chandler. The Anarch Lords (1981). A former space
pirate is punished by being made governor of the "anarchist"
planet Liberia. [unread]
Alexander Chayanov. The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the
Land of Peasant Utopia (1920; translated 1976). Portrays a
libertarian socialist utopia set in 1984. The translation
first appeared in the Journal of Peasant Studies. [unseen]
Nikolai Chernyshevsky. What Is To Be Done? (1862; first book
publication 1905). [unread]
Ivan Chtcheglov. "Formulary for a New Urbanism" (1953). A
brief, bizarre vision of a libertarian socialist city in
which everyone will have his own cathedral and "There will
be rooms more conducive to dreams than any drug, and houses
where one cannot help but love". (Available in Ken Knabb's
Situationist International Anthology (1981) and online here:
http://www.slip.net/~knabb/SI/Chtcheglov.htm )
Curt Clark (pseud: Donald E. Westlake). Anarchaos (1967).
Portrays a planet where anarchy is chaos, and everyone is
your enemy.
Daniel A. Coleman. The Anarchist (2001). ? [unseen]
John Crowley. "In Blue" (). [unseen]
Steve Cullen. The Last Capitalist: A Dream of a New Utopia
(). [unseen]
Cyrano de Bergerac. Other Worlds: The Comical History of the
States and Empires of the Moon and the Sun (published
posthumously in 1657, first unexpurgated edition 1920). ?
Dennis Danvers. The Watch: Being the Unauthorized Sequel to
Peter A. Kropotkin's Memoirs of a Revolutionist -- as
Imparted to Dennis Danvers by Anchee Mahur, Traveler from a
Distant Future; or, A Science Fiction Novel (2002). [unseen]
Daniel Defoe (as Captain Charles Johnson). A General History
of the Pyrates (1724-28). Includes an account of Libertalia
(or Libertatia), a pirate colony in Madagascar founded by
one Captain Misson (or Mission) and run along libertarian
socialist lines. It also describes a purely anarchistic
breakaway colony. This account is most likely fictional,
although the rest of the book is nonfiction (see Peter
Lamborn Wilson's Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and
European Renegadoes).
Joseph Déjacque. L'Humanisphère: utopie anarchique (The
Humanisphere: An Anarchistic Utopia) (1858-61; first
unexpurgated book edition 1971). A walk-through description
of the world in the year 2858, after the abolition of the
state, religion, property, and the family. (Has an English
translation appeared?) [unseen]
Samuel Delany (http://www.pcc.com/~jay/delany/ ). Triton: An
Ambiguous Heterotopia; or, Some Informal Remarks toward the
Modular Calculus (1976). [unread]
Philip K. Dick. "The Last of the Masters" (1954). After two
hundred years of anarchy, the Anarchist League fights off an
attempt by the last surviving government robot to restore
the state.
Denis Diderot. Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville: A
Dialogue (published posthumously in 1796). A fictional
depiction of the inhabitants of Tahiti as stateless, naked
natives copulating under the sun.
Paul DiFilippo. "Any Major Dude" (1991). [unseen]
Jane Doe. Anarchist Farm (1995). Retelling of George
Orwell's Animal Farm from an anarchist perspective. [unread]
Antonio Francesco Doni. Mondi celesti, terrestri ed
infernali degli academici pellegrini (1562). Mentioned by
Nettlau as portraying a small country without property or
laws. [unseen]
Candas Jane Dorsey. Black Wine (1997). ? [unread]
Henri-Joseph Dulaurens. Compère Mathieu (1766). Mentioned by
Nettlau as portraying a small country without property or
laws. [unseen]
J.G. Eccarius. We Should Have Killed the King (1990).
(Eccarius was a disciple of Marx who defected to the
anarchist side after the split in the International, so I
suspect that J.G. Eccarius is a pseudonym.) [unread]
Greg Egan. Distress (1995). Portrays an anarcho-syndicalist
society on the artificial island Stateless in the Pacific.
The inhabitants mostly ignore anarchist thinkers like
Proudhon and Bakunin; they maintain a state of anarchy by
educating children in sociobiology.
"Chaff" (). [unseen]
S.F. "Through the 'A' in Anarchism" (1956). Brief portrayal
of an anarcho-communist future Britain. First published in
Freedom. [unseen]
Sébastien Faure. My Communism: Universal Happiness (1921:
original title Mon Communisme (Le Bonheur Universel)). The
subtitle could just as well be translated universal
prosperity, welfare, good fortune, etc. [unseen]
Homer Eon Flint. The Queen of Life (1919). In this sequel to
The Lord of Death, it is discovered that the feeble humanoid
inhabitants of Venus have encased the planet in a glass
sphere and live in a state of anarchy. The Venusian league
of nations has "worked itself out", so that there is no
further use for either the league or the nations. Because
all work is now done by machines, there is no longer any
rivalry over getting a livelihood, and so there is no source
of conflict, and every individual has the resources
necessary to achieve his own particular desires. (Available
online:
http://purple.home.texas.net/etexts/QueenOfLife/default.html
)
Michael F. Flynn. ?
Gabriel de Foigny. A New Discovery of Terra Incognita
Australis; or, The Southern World (1676). The hermaphroditic
inhabitants of Australia have no state, no property, no
religion, and no family. [unread]
Charles Fourier. Usually considered the founder of the
libertarian wing of socialism, Fourier deserves mention here
because his writings often contain fantastic elements. Once
Fourier's socialism is established, men will grow to seven
feet tall and live 144 years. The moon will be replaced by
five new satellites, each a different color, and some
Saturn-like rings, which will allow it to once again
copulate with the other planets, which will all move closer
to the earth in order to engage in this planetary orgy. The
oceans will turn to lemonade. One idea frequently attributed
to Fourier, however - that men will grow prehensile tails
with an eye and a finger on the end - is apparently really
the invention of a satirist. Fourier often uses a
semi-fictional form to describe his ideal society.
George Foy. The Memory of Fire (2000). Governments and
corporations wage war against anarchist enclaves. [unread]
Anatole France. The Revolt of the Angels (1914). The rebel
angels are portrayed in a manner that parodies the
anarchists of the time. At the end, they triumph and depose
God, putting Satan in his place. Satan then becomes more and
more like the tyrannical God he was rebelling against, until
he wakes up in a cold sweat-it was a nightmare.
The White Stone (1905). Portrays a libertarian socialist
utopia. [unseen]
Ganpat (pseud: Martin Louis Gompertz). Harilek: A Romance of
Modern Central Asia (1923). ? [unseen]
Bert Garskof. The Canbe Collective Builds a Be-Hive (1977).
? [unseen]
William Godwin. Imogen: A Pastoral Romance from the Ancient
British (1784).
Martin Louis Gompertz. See under Ganpat.
Rex Gordon (pseud: Stanley Bennett Hough). Utopia 239
(1955). Portrays an anarchist utopia in a post-nuclear
holocaust world. [unseen]
Jean Grave. The Free Earth: The Pioneers (1908; original
title Terre Libre (Les Pionniers)). [unseen]
Robert Graves. Seven Days in New Crete (1949; American
edition re-titled Watch the North Wind Rise). ? [unread]
George Griffith. The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the
Coming Terror (1893). An anarchist invents the airplane and
puts it at the disposal of Terrorists. They bomb the
existing governments out of existence, and maintain the
world's new anarchist-socialist society by coming out of
hiding in Aëria, their African stronghold. (Available online
here: http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/ff7/angel.htm and
here: http://www.blackmask.com/books29c/angelrevdex.htm )
[unread]
In the sequel, Olga Romanoff; or, The Syren of the Skies
(1894), which takes place in 2030, a hundred years after the
events of the preceding novel, the descendant of the last
Tsar manages to discover the secret behind advanced
technology like airplanes and submarines. Just as she has
nearly attained world domination, the Aërians receive news
from Mars that a comet is about to strike earth. They go
into hiding underground, and return to rebuild their
anarchist society after the comet wipes out all life on the
surface. (Available online here:
http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/ff7/olga.htm ) [unread]
Nicolas Gueudeville. Conversations Between a Savage and the
Baron of Hontan (1704). Mentioned by Nettlau as portraying a
country with no property or laws. [unseen]
Joe Haldeman. Buying Time (). ? [unseen]
Edmond Hamilton. "The Island of Unreason" (1933). Those who
commit "breach of reason"-as, for example, by refusing the
mate assigned to them by the Eugenic Board-are sentenced to
spend time on the Island of Unreason, where there is "no
form of government".
Harry Harrison. The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted (1987).
Harrison says: "the evil guys invade the planet which had
their own system of Government which is right out of the
textbook! It's anarchy. It has a bad name. But no one knows
a thing about anarchism these days. That world is a world of
hard working anarchy. Every single character there is right
out of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And not one person ever
noticed. So much for saying you hate anarchy! This was just
pure textbook anarchism. So now you know more about
anarchy." [unread]
M. John Harrison. (Moorcock mentions that he is a
libertarian.) The Centauri Device (1975). [unread]
Robert Heinlein. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966).
Portrays a society similar to anarcho-capitalism, the origin
of the phrase "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"
(TANSTAAFL)-which is very popular with those who pay for
their lunches with the products of other people's labor.
[unread]
"Coventry" (). [unseen]
Howard V. Hendrix. Light Paths (). ? [unread]
Theodor Hertzka. Freeland: A Social Anticipation (1890;
original title Freiland: Ein sociales Zukunftsbild).
[unseen]
James P. Hogan. Voyage from Yesteryear (1982). [unread]
Cecilia Holland. Floating Worlds (1975). A worldwide
anarchist culture in the year 3000+. [unread]
Lizzie M. Holmes. "World's Exposition in the Year 2,000"
(1896). A brief portrayal of an anarchist future. First
published in The Rebel. (Available online here:
http://www.alf.org/alfnews/alf72.html )
Aldous Huxley. This author's novel Brave New World (1932)
stands with Yevgeny Zamiatin's We (1924) and George Orwell's
1984 (1949) as one of the three greatest dystopian works.
(By some strange coincidence, all three of these are by
authors sympathetic to libertarian socialism.) Huxley states
that it "started out as a parody of H.G. Wells' Men Like
Gods, but gradually it got out of hand". In Brave New World
Revisited (1958) he presents libertarian socialism as an
antidote, mentioning anarcho-syndicalism as one possible
model.
Island (1962) presents Huxley's own anarchistic, psychedelic
utopia. [unread]
Hans [Henrik] Jaeger. Fra Christiania-behêmen (1885). ?
[unseen]
Muriel Jaeger. The Question Mark (1926). Portrays a
libertarian socialist utopia. [unseen]
Malcolm Jameson. "The Anarch" (1944). ? [unseen]
Captain Charles Johnson. See under Daniel Defoe.
William W. Johnstone. Anarchy in the Ashes (1997). [unread,
but no anarchistic content anticipated]
James Patrick Kelly. "Mr. Boy" (1990). ? [unseen]
Ken. "Fable for the Future" (1985). Tale of a future
anarchist community. Published in The Green Anarchist.
[unseen]
Rudyard Kipling. "As Easy as A.B.C." (1912). Sequel to "With
the Night Mail" (1905). [unread]
Cyril Kornbluth. The Syndic (1953; edited and revised by
Fred Pohl ). [unread]
Peter Kropotkin. The Conquest of Bread (1906; revised
edition 1913). An attempt "to sketch a Communal Utopia".
[unread]
R.A. Lafferty. Past Master (1968). ? [unseen]
Sterling F. Lanier. Menace under Marswood (1983). The UN
wages war against anarchist tribes on a terraformed Mars.
[unread]
Ursula [Kroeber] LeGuin. The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous
Utopia (1974). An attempt to portray an anarchist-communist
society in full, with both its good and bad features readily
apparent. On Anarres, moon of the planet Urras, there is a
society founded on the philosophy of Odonianism, a synthesis
of Taoism and anarcho-syndicalism. This novel is currently
very popular amongst anarchist-socialists, but many
pro-capitalists consider Anarres an unambiguous dystopia. (A
study guide is available online:
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/science_fiction/dispossessed.html
)
"The Day before the Revolution" (1974) concerns Odo, the
founder of Odonianism, the mix of anarcho-syndicalism and
Taoism portrayed in The Dispossessed. Odo is, furthermore
(according to LeGuin), one of "The Ones Who Walk away from
Omelas" (1973) and refuse to benefit from a system in which
some gain at the unwilling expense of others. In her
introduction to the story in The Wind's Twelve Quarters
(1975) LeGuin says, "Odonianism is anarchism. Not the
bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name
it tries to dignify itself with; not the social-Darwinist
economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism,
as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by
Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's
principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or
socialist); its principal moral-practical theme is
cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most
idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political
theories." LeGuin also states that "To embody [anarchism] in
a novel, which had not been done before, was a long and hard
job for me, and absorbed me totally for many months." This
could be criticized on a couple of grounds: first, only
one-half of her novel takes place on an anarchistic world;
second, she was preceded by Joseph Déjacque, William Morris,
H.G. Wells, and others. The story is dedicated to the memory
of Paul Goodman.
"Sur" (1982).
The Word for World Is Forest ().
Always Coming Home ().
The Telling ().
Stanislaw Lem. The Star Diaries (1954-71; translation 1976).
?
Doris Lessing. ?
Brad Linaweaver. Anarchia (). ? [unseen]
Stephen Lister. Hail Bolonia! (1948). ? [unseen]
Saab Lofton. A.D. (1996). An inhabitant of a dystopia ruled
by the Nation of Islam and the White Aryan Resistance
becomes a sleeper who wakes in a Libertarian Socialist
Democracy, or LSD. [unread]
H.P. Lovecraft (http://www.hplovecraft.com ). "The Mound"
(1929-30). Several of Lovecraft's works-e.g. At the
Mountains of Madness (1933) and "The Shadow out of Time"
(1934-35)-feature extraterrestrial races with democratic
socialist societies, which he somewhat idiosyncratically
refers to as "a sort of fascistic socialism". These
represent Lovecraft's own ideal. In contrast, the decadent
mound-dwellers' government is "a kind of communistic or
semi-anarchical state; habit rather than law determining the
daily order of things." Their society resembles a
combination of Bulwer-Lytton's coming race and the utopian
schemes of de Sade's libertines. See S.T. Joshi's essay
"Lovecraft's Alien Civilizations: A Political
Interpretation", included in his Selected Papers on
Lovecraft.
Simon Louvish. The Resurrections: A Novel (1994). A
political thriller set in a parallel universe in which the
libertarian Marxist Rosa Luxemburg has led a successful
communist revolution. [unread]
P.M., bolo'bolo (1985). A full-length attempt to design a
libertarian socialist society with enough respect for the
diversity of humanity's desires that a community of
cyberpunks who live online might be placed next to a
community made up of bands of hunter-gatherers. Frequently
whimsical but well thought-out; sometimes verges into
semi-fictional form. Recommended.
Ken MacLeod (http://www.webart.hr/nrnm/eng/about/kml.htm ).
The Star Fraction (1996), The Stone Canal (1997), The
Cassini Division (1999), The Sky Road (1999). Portrays a
future that includes both a libertarian socialist society
and a libertarian capitalist society. [all unread]
Sylvain Maréchal. The Golden Age: A Collection of Pastoral
Tales by the Shepherd Sylvain (1782; original title L'Age
d'Or, recueil de contes pastoraux par le Berger Sylvain).
Mentioned by Nettlau as portraying a country without
property or laws. [unseen]
Judith Merril. (Moorcock mentions that she was a
ex-Trotskyist turned libertarian.)
J. Leslie Mitchell. Three Go Back (1932). A transatlantic
airship goes through a timewarp and crashes into a mountain
of Atlantis. The three survivors are found by a tribe of
Basque-speaking Crô-Magnons, whose society has no
government, property, war, superstition, clothing, or other
vices of civilization. [unread]
Gay Hunter (). [unseen]
(Mitchell was an anarchist.)
Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu. Persian Letters
(1721; original title Lettres persanes). Mentioned by
Nettlau as portraying a country without property or laws
(the troglodytes). [unseen]
Michael Moorcock. The Jerry Cornelius series includes a
number of mentions of Nestor Makhno; in particular, The
Entropy Tango (1981) takes place in a parallel universe
where Makhno's Insurrectionary Army has led a successful
anarchist uprising in the Ukraine, and Makhno (who is one of
the novel's main characters) roams around the world taking
part in further anarchist uprisings in places including
Somalia, Yucatan, and Ontario. The Makhnovist uprising was
also successful in the parallel universe of The Nomad of
Time series; in The Steel Tsar (1981), Makhno once again
appears as a character and engages in political arguments
with Stalin. Byzantium Endures (1982) also features Nestor
Makhno as one of its characters, though in this series the
anarchist uprising was unsuccessful. Moorcock seems to have
had Makhno on the mind in the years 1981-82. "Nestor
Makhno", his review of Michael Malet's Nestor Makhno in the
Russian Civil War, was collected in The Opium General along
with the essay "Starship Stormtroopers" (1977), which
describes his experiences as an anarchist editing the
government-supported magazine New Worlds.
Dancers at the End of Time series.
Chris Morgan. Anarchist In The Rose Garden (1971). ?
[unseen]
William Morris.
A Dream of John Ball (1886-87). A modern dreamer visits a
mediæval revolutionary peasant movement, and notes its
similarity with his own libertarian socialist ideas.
News from Nowhere: or, An Epoch of Rest: Being Some Chapters
from a Utopian Romance (1890; revised 1892). A sleeper
awakes in a far future libertarian socialist society very
similar to Mediæval Europe. It is worth noting that Morris
was writing against the primary (statist) current in utopian
fiction, and in particular against Edward Bellamy's Looking
Backward. In a nice twist on the utopian literary tradition,
the sleeper awakes once again to find it was all a dream.
This is the best-known anarchistic utopia, and highly
recommended.
The Story of the Glittering Plain, Which Has Been Also
Called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying
(1890). The inhabitants of Cleveland-by-the-Sea live in a
federation of clans consisting of an extended family and
those adopted into it. Each clan has its own totem, such as
the Raven or the Rose. The protagonist, Hallblithe, states
that: "as for Lord, I know not this word, for here dwell we,
the sons of the Raven, in good fellowship, with our wives
that we have wedded, and our mothers who have borne us, and
our sisters who serve us."
Pat Murphy. The City, Not Long After (1989). [unread]
Larry Niven. "Cloak of Anarchy" (1972). The "copseyes" that
prevent violence in a Free Park are disabled, and the place
immediately bursts out with gang rape, robbery,
monopolization of resources, and murder. Once order is
restored, the character who had formerly propounded
anarchism recants, having learned The Error Of His Ways.
(Cf. the "copseyes" with the devices employed in A.E. Van
Vogt's The Anarchistic Colossus.) (Available on-line here:
http://www.larryniven.org/stories/cloak_of_anarchy.htm )
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso). The Metamorphoses (). In the
golden age of Saturn men had no laws or property.
Emile Pataud and Emile Pouget. How We Shall Bring about the
Revolution:
Syndicalism and the Co-operative Commonwealth (1909; second
edition with preface by Peter Kropotkin 1911; original title
Comment nous ferons la Révolution). Presents a
semi-fictionalized account of the revolutionary process.
[unread]
Algernon Pentworth. The Little Wicket Gate (1913). ?
[unseen]
Fredy Perlman. Manual for Revolutionary Leaders (1972, as
Michael Velli, a pseudonym meant to recall Machiavelli). In
the guise of presenting revolutionary leaders with advice on
how to gain power, this book presents a number of scenarios
in semi-fictional form showing how to prevent authoritarians
from taking power in a revolutionary situation. One section,
The Seizure of State Power, has been reprinted separately.
Recommended.
Eden Phillpotts. The Lavender Dragon (1923). L.D., the
Lavender Dragon,
Marge Piercy. Woman on the Edge of Time (1976). [unread]
He, She, and It (). [unseen]
Charles Platt. Free Zone (). [unread]
Anarchy Online: Net Sex Net Crime (). Not a work of fiction;
mentioned here due to its title. [unseen]
Fred Pohl. The Years of the City (1980). [unread] (See also
under Cyril Kornbluth.)
Emile Pouget. See under Emile Pataud.
Graham Purchase. My Journey with Aristotle to the Anarchist
Utopia (1995). Yet another sleeper awakes, this time to be
given a guided tour of Bear City in the Cat-River bioregion,
an eco-anarchist utopia. [unread]
Thomas Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow ().
Gary Raab. The White Knight in the City of Pirates
(1996-99). Portrays a twenty-seventh century anarchistic
pirate colony. (The first two chapters are available online
here: http://www.antelope-ebooks.com/SF/WKOS2/city01.html )
François Rabelais. Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-64). The
noble members of the Abbey of Thélème live by the motto "Do
what thou wilt".
Herbert Read. The Green Child (1935). ? (Read was an
anarchist.) [unread]
Andreas Georg Friedrich Rebmann. Hans Kiekindiwelts Reisen
in alle vier Weltteile und den Mond (1794; title translates
as John Lookintheworld's travels to all four parts of the
world and to the moon). Mentioned by Nettlau as depicting a
small country without property or laws. [unseen]
Mack Reynolds. Commune 2000 A.D. (1974). The government,
through technocratic means, has eliminated the need for most
individuals to work, and has instituted a Universal
Guaranteed Income. Only those who come out on top when
taking tests to determine their Ability Quotient are able to
obtain jobs. More and more, jobless individuals join
communes and pursue their own interests - there are communes
for homosexuals, lesbians, artists, nudists, kids who hate
everyone over thirty, swinging singles, and many others. A
government official objects that "An increasing number of
the communards don't participate in even the civil
elections. Most aren't eligible to participate in the guild
elections, because they hold no jobs, but they don't bother
to vote in the civil elections, either. To put it bluntly,
they're anarchists." After the main character, who has been
assigned to investigate the communes, discovers that the
communards are in a conspiracy to institute anarchism by
eliminating the political state and transferring democracy
to the economic sphere, one member tells him that they
"prefer the term 'libertarians.' Say 'anarchist' to most
people and they think in terms of bomb-throwing fanatics."
(The about-the-author note in Commune 2000 A.D. mentions
that Reynolds has set fiction in fascist, socialist, and
anarchist worlds. Are there others?) (Reynolds was an
activist with the syndicalist Socialist Labor Party.)
Adam Roberts. Salt (2000). ? [unread]
William Harrison Riley. "A Visitor from Luna" (1901).
Published in Freedom. [unseen]
Kim Stanley Robinson. Mars trilogy. [unread]
From an on-line interview:
Faliol: Are you a libertarian anarchist?
KSRobinson: No, I am a green socialist, roughly. A utopian.
I don't like libertarianism as I understand it because it
seems to keep private property, police, and other aspects of
the current system, indeed it seems to keep capitalism.
Faliol: I myself agree with Chomsky's ideas.
KSRobinson: I like Chomsky's writing very much. He should be
more represented in mainstream American press; it's a sign
of how bad they are that he isn't. But I still don't like
libertarianism. Nor anarchism either, though at least that
one has a nice idea at its heart.
Faliol: Have you read Bakunin?
KSRobinson: Yes, I have read Bakunin, maitre'd of anarchism.
Joel Rosenberg. An on-line convention report mentions that:
"Rosenberg said he and Mike McGarry are writing a novel, in
which all the Earth's libertarians are dumped on an alien
planet, and the history of the planet followed for the next
150 years. He described it as a 'thought experiment' -- but
then couldn't resist telling us how it comes out: feudalism.
Joel, if you've predetermined the conclusion (I remarked),
it's not an 'experiment'! One might also question the wisdom
of someone who knows so little about a subject writing a
book about it. (Rosenberg was uncomprehending, even
contemptuous of the distinction between the anarchist and
the limited government libertarian. Most if not all of the
Founding Fathers were 'libertarians' in the latter sense.)"
(Has the novel mentioned above appeared?)
Rudy Rucker. Software (1982). Portrays an anarchistic robot
colony on the moon. [unread]
Eric Frank Russell. "Late Night Final" (1948). As the crew
of an invading spaceship learn to communicate with the
anarcho-communist natives, they defect one by one until no
one but the captain is left onboard. Recommended.
The Great Explosion (1962) is a fix-up novel incorporating
"And Then There Were None" (1951). Four hundred years after
humanity has colonized space, a method of fast space travel
is invented, and earth sends forth ships to claim these as
colonies under the pretence of providing for common defense
against alien invasion. Two of the four planets visited in
the novel provide examples of anarchistic societies. First,
Hygeia, was originally colonized by a group of Doukhobers
called the Sons of Freedom. They have been overrun by a
group of nudist health cultists. Second, the planet of the
gands, who take their name from Gandhi as exponent of
non-violent resistance. According to James J. Martin's Men
Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism
in America, 1827-1908, the society of the gands is very
similar to that advocated by American anarcho-individualists
such as Josiah Warren. ("And Then There Were None" is
available online here:
http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm .) Highly
recommended.
"Basic Right" (). [unseen]
Marquis de Sade. The libertines in de Sade's novels, such as
Juliette, frequently indulge in descriptions of utopian
schemes which give a ruling class total freedom, which they
can apparently find nothing better to do with than endless
raping, torturing, and slaughtering of the slave class. Of
tangential interest at best.
Robert Sheckley. "The Resurrection Machine" (1989). Includes
Michael Bakunin as a character. "Simul City" (1990).
Includes Bakunin as a character. [unseen]
Mary Shelley. The Last Man (1826). ? [unread]
Percy Bysshe Shelley. "The Assassins" (1814). The isolated
valley of the Assassins, who appear to be envisioned by
Shelley as Godwinian anarcho-communists, receives its first
visitor in centuries - the Wandering Jew. An unfinished
fragment. William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson have
also used the Assassins as libertarian forerunners.
Will Shetterly. Chimera (). ? [unseen]
Lewis Shiner. Slam (1990). Influenced by Bob Black's The
Abolition of Work. Shiner says: "In fact, I was at a
cyberpunk conference in Leeds this summer and one of the
participants gave a paper on my stuff. It was not a
terribly theoretical paper; his point was that all my books
involve anarchy to one degree or another. The anarchist is
perceived as a positive force to reawaken a stagnant
society. He found this in a great number of my works. I'll
buy into that, particularly since the novel I'd already
finished -- Slam, which he hadn't seen -- is a blatant novel
about anarchy. Genre distinctions or the presence or absence
of certain tropes in a work is a very minor detail compared
to the other stuff." [unread]
John Shirley. Silicon Embrace (1996). ? [unseen]
Robert Silverberg. "The Songs of Summer" (). [unseen]
Joan Slonczewski. A Door into Ocean (1986). [unread]
Clark Ashton Smith. He says: "One other observation:
Communism, as practised in the insect world is a poor
recommendation for its possible effect on humanity. Nothing
sickens me more than to watch the mechanistic activities of
ants, who have certainly achieved the ultimate in
regimentization and co-operation. I guess I must be an
anarchist myself; and I am sure I would be strictly
non-assimilable in any sort of co-operative society, and
would speedily end up in a concentration camp."
S.P. Somtow. (Based a tetralogy on the premise of Sturgeon's
"The Skills of Xanadu".)
Norman Spinrad. Child of Fortune (1985). Spinrad says:
"Child of Fortune is another anarchist novel [what was the
first?], because there's no government. (All right, so I'm
an anarchist - but I'm a syndicalist. You have to have
organized anarchy, because otherwise it doesn't work.)"
[unread]
In Greenhouse Summer (1999), capitalism falls and is
replaced by anarcho-syndicalism. [unread]
Olaf Stapledon. One of the most important figures in the
history of science fiction, Stapledon (like H.G. Wells) was
a democratic socialist, who believed (also like Wells) that
state socialism would and should develop into a stateless
society. In Last and First Men (1930) and Star Maker (1937)
this development is briefly portrayed.
Starhawk. The Fifth Sacred Thing (1994). [unread]
Mary Staton. From the Legend of Biel (1975). [unread]
Bruce Sterling. Islands in the Net (1989). Influenced by Bob
Black's The Abolition of Work. [unread]
"Bicycle Repairman" (1996) takes place in an anarchistic
squatters settlement.
Theodore Sturgeon. "The Skills of Xanadu" (1956).
S. Andrew Swann. Hostile takeover trilogy: Profiteer (1995),
Partisan (1995), Revolutionary (1996). Set on the planet
Bakunin. [all unread]
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels (1726). Because they are
ruled by reason (unlike humans and Yahoos) the Houyhnhnms
have no government, and Gulliver has difficulty even
conveying the idea to them.
John Taine (pseud: Eric Temple Bell). The Time Stream
(1931). [unread]
Unitas. The Dream City (1920). Describes an
anarchist-socialist utopia called Delectaland. [unseen]
Jack Vance. Wyst: Alastor 1716 (1978). Portrays an "egalist"
dystopia.
Big Planet (1957; first unabridged edition 1978) and
Showboat World (1975) take place on Big Planet, a frontier
world to which innumerable groups of dissidents of all sorts
have migrated, creating a vast patchwork of different social
and political systems. Showboat World quotes the Handbook of
the Inhabited Worlds to this effect:
"Big Planet lies beyond the frontier of terrestrial law, and
has been settled by groups of impatient with restraint, or
determined to live by unorthodox tenets of conduct:
nonconformists, anarchists, fugitives, religious dissidents,
misanthropes, deviants, freaks. The tremendous expanses of
Big Planet indifferently absorb them all.
"In a few isolated districts something like civilization
exists, though always in some more or less unusual variant.
Elsewhere, beyond the environs of small communities, law is
only as strong as local custom, or, as often, nonexistent."
A.E. Van Vogt. The World of Null-A (1945, latest revised
edition 1970). On the Earth of 2560 A.D., training in
General Semantics has been adopted as the standard of
sanity. The degree to which individuals have integrated
these non-Aristotelian (or Null-A) techniques is determined
by a month-long trial administered by the Games Machine, and
positions of responsibility are then given out according to
the results. Those who score highest are allowed to go to a
terraformed Venus, which is stateless (the city containing
the Games Machine is left policeless during games month to
give a taste of what this is like and to measure progress on
earth). The situation on Venus is described by a roboplane
in this way:
"To understand the political situation here, you must reach
out with your mind to the furthest limits of your ideas of
ultimate democracy. There is no president of Venus, no
council, no ruling group. Everything is voluntary; every man
lives to himself alone, and yet conjoins with others to see
that the necessary work is done. But people can choose their
own work. You might say, suppose everybody decided to enter
the same profession. That doesn't happen. The population is
composed of responsible citizens who make a careful study of
the entire work-to-be-done situation before they choose
their jobs.
"For instance, when a detective dies or retires or changes
his occupation, he advertises his intention, or, in the case
of death, his position is advertised. If he is still alive,
people who would like to become detectives come to discuss
their qualifications with him and with each other. Whether
he is alive or dead, his successor is finally chosen as a
result of a vote among the applicants."
In the sequel, The Players of Null-A (1948; also published
as The Pawns of Null-A), a character exclaims that "The
galaxy swarms with anarchistic ideas, but I've never before
heard of them working."
In The Anarchistic Colossus (1977) the earth has realized
anarchism through a novel method: a network of computers
constantly reads everyone's minds through their Kirlian
auras, and zaps anyone about to do anything naughty with
lasers. Aliens believe that this makes man unable to defend
himself, and invade.
The Violent Man (1962), a study of the authoritarian
personality type set in revolutionary China, is also of
interest.
Jules Verne. One of the most important figures in the
development of the science-fiction genre, Verne was a friend
of leading anarchists including Peter Kropotkin and Elisée
Reclus. A number of his works show some degree of sympathy
to anarchism and libertarian socialism.
In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) the
anarchist Captain Nemo is "first among equals" on the
Nautilus, a submarine whose standard is the black flag with
a white N.
The Survivors of the "Jonathan" (book publication 1909;
translated into English in two volumes as The Masterless Man
and The Unwilling Dictator) includes the anarchist character
Kaw-Djer, who may have been modeled on Kropotkin. [unseen;
the French edition includes an essay on "Socialism,
Communism, and Anarchy"]
Vernor Vinge. "The Ungoverned" (). ?
Elizabeth Waterhouse. The Island of Anarchy: A Fragment of
History in the 20th Century (1887). The governments of the
world declare anarchists outlaws and dump them all on
Meliora, a newly arisen island in the Pacific. The
government of "Burmah" adds "a large company of an entirely
lawless robber race known as the Dacoits" to the mix of
anarchists of various nationalities, and they immediately
engage in widespread plunder, causing the others to set
aside their differences and unite against them. The task
seems futile, however, as another shipload of Dacoits will
shortly arrive; but the prayers of a Christian woman who had
come to the island to preach to the anarchists are answered,
and the ship sinks while a great tidal wave drowns most of
the Dacoits already on shore. At this even the anarchists
convert to Christianity, forming a Christian Anarchist
society, and "this Anarchy, which was truly a Theocracy"
remains peaceful until the island once again sinks beneath
the waves, leaving only a sole survivor to convey the story
before he too expires on board the ship that rescues him.
Stanley Weinbaum. In "Valley of Dreams" (1934), a sequel to
Weinbaum's seminal classic "A Martian Odyssey" (1934) it is
discovered that the ostrich-like Martians have the one
system no one on earth has yet tried: anarchism. As the
character Jarvis explains:
"Well, when you come right down to it, anarchy is the ideal
form of government, if it works. Emerson said that the best
government was that which governs least, and so did Wendell
Phillips, and I think George Washington. And you can't have
any form of government which governs less than anarchy,
which is no government at all!" (This famous dictum is
normally attributed to Thomas Jefferson and Henry David
Thoreau.)
The Black Flame ().
H.G. Wells. That Wells was a Fabian socialist is well known;
it is not well known, however, that he believed that state
socialism would and should develop into a stateless society.
Wells novelized his experiences with those in the Fabian
Society who disagreed with him about this in The New
Machiavelli (1911).
In A Modern Utopia (1905) Wells attempts to outline a
practical plan that would eventually reach this goal; there
he says that "Were we free to have our untrammelled desire,
I suppose we should follow Morris to his Nowhere, we should
change the nature of man and the nature of things together;
we should make the whole race wise, tolerant, noble, perfect
- wave our hands to a splendid anarchy, every man doing as
it pleases him, and none pleased to do evil, in a world as
good in its essential nature, as ripe and sunny, as the
world before the Fall." Rulers in this utopia will be a
class self-chosen from among those ready for anarchism,
which Wells calls the Samurai.
In The World Set Free (1914; also published as The Last War)
an atomic war is followed by the worldwide adoption of
socialism; eventually the World State only meets once a year
to congratulate itself on how well things are going.
[unread]
In Men Like Gods (1923), some individuals from this earth
visit a parallel universe where humanity is around three
thousand years in advance of us; this society has reached a
fully stateless state. Highly recommended.
The Dream (1924). [unseen]
Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928). [unseen]
The Autocracy of Mr. Parham (1930). [unseen]
The Shape of Things to Come: The Ultimate Revolution (1933).
[unseen]
In Star-Begotten: A Biological Fantasia (1937), a character
hypothesizes that Martians ("Some of you may have read a
book called The War of the Worlds-I forget who wrote
it-Jules Verne, Conan Doyle, one of those fellows") are
bombarding the earth with cosmic rays in order to create
beneficial mutations. It is further hypothesized that these
newly Martianized humans will bring about a libertarian
socialist society through assassination and sabotage.
However, "It would be anarchism, I suppose; it would mean
'back to chaos,' if it were not true that all sane minds
released from individual motives and individual obsessions
move in the same direction towards practically the same
conclusion." Recommended.
The Holy Terror (1940). [unseen]
Michael Velli. See under Fredy Perlman.
Curtis White. Anarcho-Hindu (1996). ? [unread]
Oscar Wilde. "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1890).
Wilde's vision of anarchism.
Robert Anton Wilson (http://www.rawilson.com ). The
Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975, in collaboration with Robert
Shea) includes many anarchist characters and groups and
several appendices that discuss theoretical issues in
anarchism. Highly recommended.
The Illuminati Papers (1980) includes essays by a number of
characters from the trilogy, many of which discuss anarchist
issues. Recommended.
The Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1979) describes a parallel
universe in which the Libertarian Immortalist Party succeeds
in putting many of RAW's ideas into effect. Practically all
of RAW's work is relevant to anarchism. RAW is very popular
among the marginals milieu.
E. Winch. The Mountain of Gold (1928). Portrays a tribe of
Brazilian anarcho-communists. [unseen]
Ivan Yefremov. Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale (1957). ?
[unread]
Zeno of Cittium. The Republic (3rd century BCE). This
libertarian rival of Plato's magnum opus is no longer
extant.
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"It's a political statement -- or, rather, an
*anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!"
-- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in
_Detective Comics_ #608
DataPacRat
> You might find this work-in-progress of mine to be of use:
>
> Anarchist and Libertarian Socialist Societies Depicted in
> Utopian Works, Science Fiction, and Fantasy: An Incomplete
> Listing
Actually, I'm the fellow who started that recent 'Anarchism in SF' thread
in rec.arts.sf.science, which also ended up with a copy of your list. But
I thank you for it again anyway. :)
michael price
>
> Aldous Huxley. This author's novel Brave New World (1932)
> stands with Yevgeny Zamiatin's We (1924) and George Orwell's
> 1984 (1949) as one of the three greatest dystopian works.
> (By some strange coincidence, all three of these are by
> authors sympathetic to libertarian socialism.) Huxley states
> that it "started out as a parody of H.G. Wells' Men Like
> Gods, but gradually it got out of hand". In Brave New World
> Revisited (1958) he presents libertarian socialism as an
> antidote, mentioning anarcho-syndicalism as one possible
> model.
Ok, I love your list it's very comprehensive. But I have to
take issue with you here. How is 'Brave New World' a dystopia?
Everyone has enough to eat, all the sex they want, the government
actually cares if you happy (and in the good way) are you don't
even have to live in the society if you don't want.
<snip>
David Friedman
_Foreigner_ etc. The alien species there have a form of organization
that looks a little like monarchy, a little like democracy, a little
like feudalism, and a little like anarchy--in part because they are
somewhat different from us in how their social instincts are hardwired.
Interesting books.