Hugo-Reviews #21- _The Dispossessed_
Steve Parker
politics of the book, LeGuin was able to make me love the story.
The prose was excellent, the characters well drawn, and, except for
one brief 'John Galt's speech' moment towards the end, very
non-preachy, while still being evocative/provocative.
Shevek (the main character) is one of the best I've ever read. Fully
defined, three-dimensional. A great character! (I assume he doesn't
show up in any later stories?)
This book is an easy 4 out of 4 stars.
The plot:
There are twin worlds. The climate of one (Urras) is perfect, the
other (Annares) is a dry, arid world. About 700 years ago, a woman
(Odo) emigrated from Urras to Annares, with a band of like-minded
followers. She (and they) believed in a sort of communistic
libertarianism. Imagine having almost no government (libertarians),
but no property either (per communistic). Most enforcement is through
peer-pressure.
In any event, there's been almost no contact between Annares and Urras
during the last 700 year gap. There is trade several times a year,
Annares trading Urras metal for grain, but except for that there's
been almost negligible contact between the two planets.
The story is about a mathematician, Shevek who is close to discovering
a unified time theory which may allow FTL. Unfortunately, part of the
theory rests on non-"poliltically-correct" theory and the powers that
be don't think that publishing his theories are a good use of
resources. While they can't stop him from publishing, they also won't
contribute resources to his project.
The story is told in two tales. One follows Shevek as he grows up. It
gives a very good look at life on Annares. The other follows Shevek
later in his life as he decides to go to Urras in hopes that he'll
have more academic freedom there. The chapters alternate between the
two, a technique I usually don't care for, but it works well here.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Shevek finds that he does have more freedom in one sense on Urras, but
has trouble coping with a capitalistic society. He never really does
get the hang of money.
Shevek realizes that he's being used as propaganda and that the
Urssasans are just trying to get his unified time theory. He figures
out the theory (which'll mean instantaneous communication) and
escapes. He finds a bunch of like-minded people. He gives a brief
speech to them which touches off a mini-revolution. In the rioting, he
makes his way to the Earth embassy and has a conversation ("Hell is
Urras") with the Earth Ambassador (where the Galt-esqe moment (it's
only a few paragraphs, not a 85 page speech) occurs). The ambassador
decides to accompany Shevek back to Annares, leaving open the
questions of whether Shevek will be allowed to return and if Annares
will start accepting immigrants.
Some thoughts:
1) I was amused to see the term "Propertarian" used by LeGuin. I've
only seen the term used one other place (_The Probability Broach_ by
L. Neil Smith) and then as a compliment.
2) Her Annarean society gives me the creeps. I found it far more alien
than the hermaphrodite planet of Gethen in _The Left Hand of
Darkness_. On Annares, no one owns any property, everyone lives in
communal rooms, even marriage is frowned upon. One of the things that
the Annareans believe is that "egoism" is bad and do their best to
discourage it. I like having an ego. Frankly, the Annareans sound like
a group of people desperately trying to turn themselves into an
ant-colony. I'd far rather live in the feudalistic country on Gethen
from _LHoD_.
3) I thought that the little Galt-like rantlette ("Urras is Hell") at
the end made sense within the context of the story but was
distracting. I don't know how/if it could be changed, except that the
Ambassador's assumption that Shevek was right. It wouldn't have worked
in the context of the story, but I would have preferred her
questioning Shevek, rather than agreeing with him. This is one of two
chapters that felt preachy to me. (The other is the first)
4) The edition I read (Avon) has some of the worst proof-reading I've
ever seen in the first third of the book. Then it gets better.
Possibly the work of multiple proofreaders?
5) I wanted the story to go about three or four pages further. I
really wanted to see Shevek's reunion with his family.
6) What made this book so fascinating was LeGuin's ability to point
out the problems with Annares' society. This book would have been
intolerable if she'd been as nearsighted as L. Neil Smith in _The
Probability Broach_. I keep comparing the two as they both deal with
anarchist/libertarian societies, but while I'd rather live in Smith's
world, LeGuin's Annares is *far* more plausable, in that it has A)
Problems and B) people, rather than the paragons in Smith's world. The
main character, and possibly by extension LeGuin, prefers the ideals
of Annares, but she's also able to see some of the pitfalls that this
system would inevitably have.
7) One small thing that showed me LeGuin's skill occurred when I
noticed that every Annarean has a single 5 or 6 letter name. This
began to annoy me (they were hard to keep straight), and suddenly
Shevek (or his wife) commented on the fact that they didn't like the
(unique) name that the central computer had generated for their
new-born daughter. Somehow that comment made the naming thing click
into focus.
8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping Socialists
and Libertarians together. LeGuin seems to be using a different
referent for "socialist" than I am. I think of Socialism as big
government nanny-state, where the state has the power to
"nationalize"/steal any industry that it needs, but there's still
capitalism outside of those industries. LeGuin is using Socialism to
mean property-less near-anarchy.
9) She nearly lost me with the first chapter, which set me up with the
expectation that this was going to be one of those tedious utopian
"Person from Utopia comes here and pities us, while the author sneers"
novels. The second chapter was perfect as it showed Annares as a
realistic place with flaws as well as strengths.
Next up: _The Forever War_ by Joe Haldeman.
Steve
--
Hugo-Reviews Page (with cover scans) at
http://www.mindspring.com/~sparker9/home2.html
Eric M. Van
> This book is an easy 4 out of 4 stars.
I've had people complain to me that the novel's big flaw is that the
portrait of Annares is skewed so that it's made out to be unrealistically
utopian. And other people complain that the flaw is that the portrait is
skewed to make it unrealistically hellish!
To me, that's the ultimate compliment, in terms of the job Le Guin did
portraying the society.
It remains one of my favorite handful of sf novels.
Department of "if you loved X, you may love Y": "In Blue," John Crowley
(in _Novelties_).
--
Eric M. Van
em...@mediaone.net
Dwight Thieme
: other (Annares) is a dry, arid world. About 700 years ago, a woman
: (Odo) emigrated from Urras to Annares, with a band of like-minded
: followers. She (and they) believed in a sort of communistic
: libertarianism. Imagine having almost no government (libertarians),
: but no property either (per communistic). Most enforcement is through
: peer-pressure.
Odo, by the way, is Russian for 'one'. Was this a poke at Rand?
: 2) Her Annarean society gives me the creeps. I found it far more alien
: than the hermaphrodite planet of Gethen in _The Left Hand of
: Darkness_. On Annares, no one owns any property, everyone lives in
: communal rooms, even marriage is frowned upon. One of the things that
I didn't get the impression it was frowned upon, and people did
have private rooms (Desar, for one, the Bad Scientist, for another).
Do you have the passage referencing your comment about marriage.
Also, I believe that one reason for the (almost) lack of property
was that Anarres was resource poor. That's a subtext thing, though.
Ike
Jo Walton
spar...@mindspring.com "Steve Parker" writes:
> Shevek (the main character) is one of the best I've ever read. Fully
> defined, three-dimensional. A great character! (I assume he doesn't
> show up in any later stories?)
He doesn't. But you may want to seek out the collection :The Wind's
Twelve Quarters: which contains the short story "The Day Before
the Revolution" which is about Odo as a real person.
:The Dispossessed: is what I always cite when people say SF had no
characterisation and is all action adventure.
> This book is an easy 4 out of 4 stars.
I'm really glad you liked it, even disagreeing with the politics.
This is a beautifully honest series of reviews, I'm really enjoying
it and looking forward to what you think of things, even where I
really disagree with your reading.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ; etc.
Steve Parker
wrote:
>In article <itro4skhkqmt0ohhe...@4ax.com>
> spar...@mindspring.com "Steve Parker" writes:
>
>> Shevek (the main character) is one of the best I've ever read. Fully
>> defined, three-dimensional. A great character! (I assume he doesn't
>> show up in any later stories?)
>
>He doesn't. But you may want to seek out the collection :The Wind's
>Twelve Quarters: which contains the short story "The Day Before
>the Revolution" which is about Odo as a real person.
Every time I ask a question about one of LeGuin's works, people tell
me "Check out _The Wind's Twelve Quarters_". I get the hint! ; )
<snip>
>
>I'm really glad you liked it, even disagreeing with the politics.
>
>This is a beautifully honest series of reviews, I'm really enjoying
>it and looking forward to what you think of things, even where I
>really disagree with your reading.
Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it.
Steve Parker
Thieme) wrote:
>
>I didn't get the impression it was frowned upon, and people did
>have private rooms (Desar, for one, the Bad Scientist, for another).
>Do you have the passage referencing your comment about marriage.
>Also, I believe that one reason for the (almost) lack of property
>was that Anarres was resource poor. That's a subtext thing, though.
Yup, pg 40 of the Avon edition:
"Life partnership is really against the Odonian ethic, I think"
Shevek said, harsh and pedantic.
"Shit" Said Gilmer in her mild voice "Having's wrong, sharing's
right. What more can you share than your whole self, your whole
life, all your days and all your nights?"
So there's some disagreement on the issue. I really remember another
comment, by one of the Odonian extremists (maybe when his kid was sent
to the communal kid's dorms?), but I can't find it so I may be
misremembering. Also, at the point quoted above, Shevek's trying to
get Gilmer into the sack, so Shevek's motives are clearly in doubt.
Steve Parker
<f...@netspace.net.au> wrote:
>Anyway, I love this kind of high-concept political sf. You might like to try
>some of Ken MacLeod's books - he's a contemporary Scottish sf writer who has
>all kinds of anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-socialist societies evolving
>around each other in a near-future setting. "The Cassini Division" is a good
>example.
I *just* finished that! I read it as a break before starting on _The
Forever War_, Really liked it but it was *weird* to read right after
_The Dispossed_ because they were so similar in philosophy.. I found
Annares creepier and somehow more believable than McLeod's Earth
though. McLeod's Earth is somewhat more utopian than Annares. It was a
really good book and I'm looking forward to his other books being
reprinted in the US.
Normally I hate political SF because it tends to be shrill. Jerry
Pournelle, some of Ellison's '70s stuff and so on. I don't like being
shreiked at. The one exception until now has been Heinlein because A)
I generally agree with his politics and B) I enjoy reading his prose
even when I don't agree with his opinions. LeGuin, judging from
_TLHoD_ and _The Dispossed_ is rapidly creeping into the same
catagory.
Elisabeth Carey
>
> On Wed, 8 Dec 1999 03:05:10 +1100, "Folk, Rhythm & Life"
> <f...@netspace.net.au> wrote:
>
> >Anyway, I love this kind of high-concept political sf. You might like to try
> >some of Ken MacLeod's books - he's a contemporary Scottish sf writer who has
> >all kinds of anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-socialist societies evolving
> >around each other in a near-future setting. "The Cassini Division" is a good
> >example.
>
> I *just* finished that! I read it as a break before starting on _The
> Forever War_, Really liked it but it was *weird* to read right after
> _The Dispossed_ because they were so similar in philosophy.. I found
> Annares creepier and somehow more believable than McLeod's Earth
> though. McLeod's Earth is somewhat more utopian than Annares. It was a
> really good book and I'm looking forward to his other books being
> reprinted in the US.
What makes the dominant society of the Earth of _The Cassini Division_
implausible is that it's a society of true abundance--nanotechnology
can give you anything you want or need, and there are no scarce goods.
If populated by actual human beings, such a society would rapidly
develop a thriving market (black market, if necessary) in the
one-of-a-kind and the hand-made.
<snip>
Lis Carey
Phil Fraering
>What makes the dominant society of the Earth of _The Cassini Division_
>implausible is that it's a society of true abundance--nanotechnology
>can give you anything you want or need, and there are no scarce goods.
>If populated by actual human beings, such a society would rapidly
>develop a thriving market (black market, if necessary) in the
>one-of-a-kind and the hand-made.
You're forgetting services, too. Suppose you're an inventor, looking
up a sort-of widget to perform a function in your gadget... there's a
limit to what a computer can do in filtering this out, unless the
computer's of human intelligence, in which case it may be a functional
individual too, and the question of why it does things enters into
the matter.
Suppose that you need the services of a librarian. Now you might get
lucky and the librarian needs something done you can do better than
the nanomachinery, and be able to barter, but you might not, and may
wind up bartering through a third party... pretty soon, you're on
your way to the invention of money...
--
Phil Fraering "What are we going to do tonight, Miles?"
p...@globalreach.net "Same thing we do every night, Ivan,
/Will work for tape/ try to take over the Imperium!"
Folk, Rhythm & Life
Steve Parker wrote in message ...
>I'm incredibly impressed that, despite the fact that I don't like the
>politics of the book, LeGuin was able to make me love the story.
That's quite a compliment!
>S
>
>P
>
>O
>
>I
>
>L
>
>E
>
>R
>
>S
>
>6) What made this book so fascinating was LeGuin's ability to point
>out the problems with Annares' society. This book would have been
>intolerable if she'd been as nearsighted as L. Neil Smith in _The
>Probability Broach_. I keep comparing the two as they both deal with
>anarchist/libertarian societies, but while I'd rather live in Smith's
>world, LeGuin's Annares is *far* more plausable, in that it has A)
>Problems and B) people, rather than the paragons in Smith's world. The
>main character, and possibly by extension LeGuin, prefers the ideals
>of Annares, but she's also able to see some of the pitfalls that this
>system would inevitably have.
The subtitle of the book is "An Ambiguous Utopia", so that's a pretty
explicit aim. Credit to Le Guin for taking an idealistic idea for a society
(with which she obviously has a deal of empathy) and thinking pragmatically
about what sort of problems that society would really have.
>8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping Socialists
>and Libertarians together. LeGuin seems to be using a different
>referent for "socialist" than I am.
Well "socialism" is a word that has many different meanings, probably too
many. But in the most general sense you can use it to describe any social
system where society as a whole is seen to have some obligation to ensure
the basic needs of all members of that society are met.
That's a very broad definition, which can embrace everything from European
"democratic socialism" to Soviet "totalitarian socialism" to the
"libertarian socialism" on Anarres.
>Her Annarean society gives me the creeps. I found it far more alien
>than the hermaphrodite planet of Gethen in _The Left Hand of
>Darkness_. On Annares, no one owns any property, everyone lives in
>communal rooms, even marriage is frowned upon. One of the things that
>the Annareans believe is that "egoism" is bad and do their best to
>discourage it. I like having an ego. Frankly, the Annareans sound like
>a group of people desperately trying to turn themselves into an
>ant-colony. I'd far rather live in the feudalistic country on Gethen
>from _LHoD_.
I think this is deliberate too. How ironic is it that a society as sterile
and impersonal as Anarres started out 700 years beforehand as a charismatic
personality cult?!
Odo had the freedom to mould a whole society around her ideas, but the end
product of her innovation is a society which stifles the innovation of
people like Shevek. I think Le Guin would consider Annares to be a culture
which has become way too obsessed with people's roles as "members of
society" at the expense of their roles as individuals. It's been too long
since I read the book, but I'd hazard a guess that communal living and
communal property were part of Anarres society from the outset, but things
like the discouragement of marriage and the computer-generated names came
later, symptoms of an obsession gone too far.
Probably Le Guin would say that this kind of corruption of initial good
intentions is inevitable in any society, or any other institution for that
matter. (If I mention the Communist movement, the US Congress and the
Christian Church, that should offend just about everybody :] )
Anyway, I love this kind of high-concept political sf. You might like to try
some of Ken MacLeod's books - he's a contemporary Scottish sf writer who has
all kinds of anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-socialist societies evolving
around each other in a near-future setting. "The Cassini Division" is a good
example.
cheers,
Marcus Ogden
reply_to: mog...@vcomcss1.telstra.com.au
Dwight Thieme
: On 7 Dec 1999 18:43:26 GMT, c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu (Dwight
: Thieme) wrote:
: >
: >I didn't get the impression it was frowned upon, and people did
: >have private rooms (Desar, for one, the Bad Scientist, for another).
: >Do you have the passage referencing your comment about marriage.
: >Also, I believe that one reason for the (almost) lack of property
: >was that Anarres was resource poor. That's a subtext thing, though.
: Yup, pg 40 of the Avon edition:
: "Life partnership is really against the Odonian ethic, I think"
: Shevek said, harsh and pedantic.
: "Shit" Said Gilmer in her mild voice "Having's wrong, sharing's
: right. What more can you share than your whole self, your whole
: life, all your days and all your nights?"
I believe it is also mentioned that Shevek's mindset at this time
is a rather priggish one, rather like a reformed smoker preaching
to his former brethren.
Ike
Pete McCutchen
<spar...@mindspring.com> wrote:
[I'm retaining spoiler space, but I've snipped rather liberally.]
>
>2) Her Annarean society gives me the creeps. I found it far more alien
>than the hermaphrodite planet of Gethen in _The Left Hand of
>Darkness_. On Annares, no one owns any property, everyone lives in
>communal rooms, even marriage is frowned upon. One of the things that
True story: when I first read the book, at maybe thirteen or so, I
thought it was a dystopia along the lines of _1984_. Only when I
reached the last chapter did I realize that she actually preferred
Annares. Perhaps it's a measure of the intrinsic honesty of the book
that I still find it amazing that anybody could _like_ that society.
>the Annareans believe is that "egoism" is bad and do their best to
>discourage it. I like having an ego. Frankly, the Annareans sound like
>a group of people desperately trying to turn themselves into an
>ant-colony. I'd far rather live in the feudalistic country on Gethen
>from _LHoD_.
I'd rather live just about anywhere else.
Again, I think this characteristic was a part of her intrinsic
honesty: a society without property and formal rules would need
elaborate and powerful social conventions in order to keep everything
moving. Hence the pressure against "egoizing," the petty bullying,
etc.
Even so, LeGuin really is an economic ignoramus. Annares may well
have been portrayed as poor and, in its own way, conformist, but I
find it unlikely that the society would have been able to so much as
put food on the table. My prediction: famine and a massive die-off,
or a dictatorship and de facto establishment of a state within the
second generation.
<snip>
>
>6) What made this book so fascinating was LeGuin's ability to point
>out the problems with Annares' society. This book would have been
>intolerable if she'd been as nearsighted as L. Neil Smith in _The
>Probability Broach_. I keep comparing the two as they both deal with
>anarchist/libertarian societies, but while I'd rather live in Smith's
>world, LeGuin's Annares is *far* more plausable, in that it has A)
>Problems and B) people, rather than the paragons in Smith's world. The
My own view is that either left anarchy or right anarchy would be
unworkable, but there is at least on living competent economist who
believes that anarcho-capitalism would work, while I don't believe
that any living competent economist would believe that
anarcho-socialism would work. So living in Smith's world would be
better, as one would at least have _some_ chance of survival.
But you're right; LeGuin is a far better writer than L. Neil Smith.
<snip>
>
>8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping Socialists
>and Libertarians together. LeGuin seems to be using a different
>referent for "socialist" than I am. I think of Socialism as big
>government nanny-state, where the state has the power to
>"nationalize"/steal any industry that it needs, but there's still
>capitalism outside of those industries. LeGuin is using Socialism to
>mean property-less near-anarchy.
Partly a terminological problem. You might want to look at Bryan
Caplan's anarchist theory FAQ which can be found at
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm.
But basically, the socialist movement had several strains. One strain
is the traditional Marxist strain, which basically led to what we know
as socialism: really big government, in which the state can run
everything it wants, as in the old Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
"really" socialist.)
A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist strain, which
includes thinkers like Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin. and Pierre
Proudhon advocates what you might call communism without government.
Often, left anarchists favor a sort of syndicalism, in which, for
example, the workers would own the factory and make decisions
"democratically." If you ever have the dubious pleasure of running
into a fellow named Dan Clore, this is the sort of socialist he is.
How all of this would actually work is typically left as an exercise
for the reader. Personally, I think that it would work about as well
as the Twentieth Century Motor Company worked in _Atlas Shrugged_, but
others are more sanguine about the whole idea. You're actually going
to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim Stanley
Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which inexplicably won
the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an economic ignoramus
than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and in possession
of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral rectitude.
--
Pete McCutchen
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Thieme) wrote:
>Odo, by the way, is Russian for 'one'. Was this a poke at Rand?
In what case? It's "odin" more often.
Odo is also a perfectly good old Germanic name -- there have been
various people named Odo who turn up in European history.
--
The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Last update 10/1/99
DRAGON WEATHER is now available -- ISBN 0-312-86978-9
Ian
wrote:
>Some thoughts:
>
>1) I was amused to see the term "Propertarian" used by LeGuin. I've
>only seen the term used one other place (_The Probability Broach_ by
>L. Neil Smith) and then as a compliment.
"Propertarian" has been advanced various times in philosophical/political
circles as a more accurate description of US-style
"Libertarianism"/anarcho-capitalism and variants. Ideologies which are
fundamentally based, in practice and usually in theory, on certain ideas
about primacy of private property rights. "Libertarianism" in the US isn't
about freedom, it's generally about private property, with advocates
claiming/assuming/defining that maximum freedom results from or is identical
to maximizing the strength of such property rights.
>7) One small thing that showed me LeGuin's skill occurred when I
>noticed that every Annarean has a single 5 or 6 letter name. This
>began to annoy me (they were hard to keep straight), and suddenly
>Shevek (or his wife) commented on the fact that they didn't like the
>(unique) name that the central computer had generated for their
>new-born daughter. Somehow that comment made the naming thing click
>into focus.
Hm. 26 letters times six characters allows only 300 million combinations
even if you allow any combination of letters. If you limit the search to
reasonably pronounceable names, you'd chop that by an order of magnitude or
more. Annares had better have a pretty small population if they want unique
names for everyone that are so short.
>8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping Socialists
>and Libertarians together. LeGuin seems to be using a different
>referent for "socialist" than I am. I think of Socialism as big
>government nanny-state, where the state has the power to
>"nationalize"/steal any industry that it needs, but there's still
>capitalism outside of those industries. LeGuin is using Socialism to
>mean property-less near-anarchy.
The problem here is that both definitions are overspecific, and partly wrong,
compared to what the actual technical definition of socialism is. (Well,
actually your definition is more wrong, but that's not the point). Socialism
is an economic system where resource allocation is done through collective
means. It's actually a very general term, and doesn't inherently relate to
anything specific on the technical scale.
What you describe that you think of as "socialism" sounds like what would
properly be described as a mixed economy with potential authoritarian
tendencies. It is assuredly _not_ pure socialist, nor even "mostly"
socialist (capitalism outside of nationalized industry), and the "sense" I
get from description is that you're referring mostly to a
powerful/authoritarian government. Remember, authoritarian government
control is not equivalent to socialism, though it can be one means used to
implement it.
LeGuin's characters' use of the term, OTOH, is much more consistent with
"socialism". If they don't have private property, then obviously their
economy runs on a community property system, which is quite "socialist".
After all, socialism is an economic system - if you have the collective
economic system, it doesn't matter whether you use mutual consensus or Big
Brother to achieve it.
Note that "libertarian" means VERY different things in the US and the rest of
the world. In the US, it has become near-synonymous with anarcho-capitalism
and related movements. Everywhere else, it means something much closer to
"general anarchist or anti-government ideology".
Ian
wrote:
>> I *just* finished that! I read it as a break before starting on _The
>> Forever War_, Really liked it but it was *weird* to read right after
>> _The Dispossed_ because they were so similar in philosophy.. I found
>> Annares creepier and somehow more believable than McLeod's Earth
>> though. McLeod's Earth is somewhat more utopian than Annares. It was a
>> really good book and I'm looking forward to his other books being
>> reprinted in the US.
>
>What makes the dominant society of the Earth of _The Cassini Division_
>implausible is that it's a society of true abundance--nanotechnology
>can give you anything you want or need, and there are no scarce goods.
>If populated by actual human beings, such a society would rapidly
>develop a thriving market (black market, if necessary) in the
>one-of-a-kind and the hand-made.
But most people wouldn't care about one-of-a-kind physical goods, because
after all they could make perfect replicas. Information could be held to be
quite valuable in such a society, but it might not be possible to convince
most people to produce it in return for a medium of exchange.
Jerry Friedman
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
...
> Even so, LeGuin really is an economic ignoramus. Annares may well
> have been portrayed as poor and, in its own way, conformist, but I
> find it unlikely that the society would have been able to so much as
> put food on the table. My prediction: famine and a massive die-off,
> or a dictatorship and de facto establishment of a state within the
> second generation.
Could you say a little more about why you think this famine would
occur? Or tell me where I can read the arguments? Is the idea just
that central planning can't work for millions of people?
Incidentally, I remember reading somewhere at some point that somebody
did a review of _The Dispossessed_ that really demolished it. Whoever
described the review implied that it was right on target. Does anyone
know where I can find this?
(Okay, the reviewer was probably John Clute. If it helps, I probably
read this in the late seventies, probably in Analog or F&SF.)
--
Jerry Friedman
jfrE...@nnm.cc.nm.us
i before e
and all the disclaimers
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Ian
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>6) What made this book so fascinating was LeGuin's ability to point
>>out the problems with Annares' society. This book would have been
>>intolerable if she'd been as nearsighted as L. Neil Smith in _The
>>Probability Broach_. I keep comparing the two as they both deal with
>>anarchist/libertarian societies, but while I'd rather live in Smith's
>>world, LeGuin's Annares is *far* more plausable, in that it has A)
>>Problems and B) people, rather than the paragons in Smith's world. The
>
>My own view is that either left anarchy or right anarchy would be
>unworkable, but there is at least on living competent economist who
>believes that anarcho-capitalism would work, while I don't believe
>that any living competent economist would believe that
>anarcho-socialism would work. So living in Smith's world would be
>better, as one would at least have _some_ chance of survival.
There is at least one "competent" economist who believes in just about every
conceivable system. I assume you're referring to David Friedman, and I would
say that in his case, any competence he may have definitely does not relate
to any correctness of his views, which are ridiculous. When examined with
seriousness and in depth for support, one finds that they are based on little
more than handwaving and wishful thinking, based around wild overapplication
of various economic principles (in ways that the average "competent"
economist will tell you are flagrantly against the standard economic
viewpoint and empirical knowledge), and conveniently ignoring unfortunate
facets of human nature.
His advocated "system", if it could ever by some miracle arise - unlike the
society of Annares, you can't meaningfully "grow" it out of a small founder
culture, which would be too small to have a truly diverse and complex market
at modern tech levels - would disintegrate in extremely short order due to,
among other things, extreme instabilities in the proposed security
arrangements.
There is one thing which is much more realistic about Annares than
anarcho-capitalism - social pressure. Social pressure is much more
effectively applied to produce conformity than to produce diversity. It
would be considerably easier to indoctrinate people into supporting an
"anarcho"-socialist system than an anarcho-capitalist system.
Anarcho-capitalist postulates tend to treat humanity as "Economic Man",
absent even the typical societal pressures mainstream economics tries to
account for.
>But basically, the socialist movement had several strains. One strain
>is the traditional Marxist strain, which basically led to what we know
>as socialism: really big government, in which the state can run
>everything it wants, as in the old Union of Soviet Socialist
>Republics.
"We" meaning Americans, I presume. Such a use of the word "socialism"
appears fairly common in the US (amongst the public - intellectual discussion
tends to use the technical definition), but is not common outside it, where
"socialism" is frequently used to refer to very democratic ideologies and
systems.
>A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist strain, which
>includes thinkers like Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin. and Pierre
>Proudhon advocates what you might call communism without government.
>Often, left anarchists favor a sort of syndicalism, in which, for
>example, the workers would own the factory and make decisions
>"democratically." If you ever have the dubious pleasure of running
>into a fellow named Dan Clore, this is the sort of socialist he is.
And then there is most of the usage of the term in the world, to refer to
"mainstream" socialism - the general view that collective ownership/control
of resources is often a good thing, implemented by democratic socialist
parties acting in mixed economies, and so on.
Ian
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>others are more sanguine about the whole idea. You're actually going
>to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim Stanley
>Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which inexplicably won
>the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an economic ignoramus
>than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and in possession
>of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral rectitude.
Oh and BTW, you are one of the LAST people on this newsgroup who is in a
position to take anyone to task for ignorance of economics, pomposity,
preachiness, and sanctimonious certainty of your own moral rectitude.
Eric M. Van
> I'd rather live just about anywhere else.
> <snip>
> Even so, LeGuin really is an economic ignoramus. Annares may well
> have been portrayed as poor and, in its own way, conformist, but I
> find it unlikely that the society would have been able to so much as
> put food on the table. My prediction: famine and a massive die-off,
> or a dictatorship and de facto establishment of a state within the
> second generation.
Well, obviously, if it were settled by people like you who hate the whole
idea! But recall that it was essentially founded by a small group of
fanatics. And you cannot underestimate the ability of people to
indoctrinate a mindset in their children. Le Guin makes it perfectly clear
that just getting the whole society to run requires a massive effort. In
fact, one of the points I believe she is making that such a social
structure will *only* work when conditions are so difficult.
Steve Parker
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>You're actually going
>to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim Stanley
>Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which inexplicably won
>the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an economic ignoramus
>than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and in possession
>of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral rectitude.
I keep hearing this about Robinson. Like I said earlier, I'm not
looking forward to the Mars trilogy,
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>> This book is an easy 4 out of 4 stars.
>
>I've had people complain to me that the novel's big flaw is that the
>portrait of Annares is skewed so that it's made out to be unrealistically
>utopian. And other people complain that the flaw is that the portrait is
>skewed to make it unrealistically hellish!
I think it's unrealistically utopian in the sense that I find it
extremely unlikely that such a society would work _at all_ for more
than a generation, and so find it utopian to think that they're alive.
However, that said, I think it's a remarkable honest work.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
(Ian) wrote:
>
>Oh and BTW, you are one of the LAST people on this newsgroup who is in a
>position to take anyone to task for ignorance of economics, pomposity,
>preachiness, and sanctimonious certainty of your own moral rectitude.
But I can laugh at myself. And my posts tend to be less than six
hundred pages long, if only barely.
--
Pete McCutchen
P.D. TILLMAN
In a previous article, spar...@mindspring.com (Steve Parker) says:
>On Wed, 08 Dec 1999 00:27:56 -0500, Pete McCutchen
><p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>>You're actually going
>>to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim Stanley
>>Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which inexplicably won
>>the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an economic ignoramus
>>than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and in possession
>>of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral rectitude.
>
>I keep hearing this about Robinson. Like I said earlier, I'm not
>looking forward to the Mars trilogy,
Well, keep an open mind -- KSR's an impressive writer, no
matter what you may think of his political beliefs. I'll
be interested to read what you think of _Red Mars_.
And I guess it's about time for a reread of _The Dispossessed_.
Thanks for another fine review, which has sparked a very
interesting discussion.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Book Reviews: http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman
--
Simon van Dongen
>
>The plot:
>There are twin worlds. The climate of one (Urras) is perfect, the
>other (Annares) is a dry, arid world. About 700 years ago, a woman
>(Odo) emigrated from Urras to Annares, with a band of like-minded
>followers. She (and they) believed in a sort of communistic
>libertarianism. Imagine having almost no government (libertarians),
>but no property either (per communistic). Most enforcement is through
>peer-pressure.
>
The word you're looking for is 'anarchism'.
>
<snip>
>
>2) Her Annarean society gives me the creeps. I found it far more alien
>than the hermaphrodite planet of Gethen in _The Left Hand of
>Darkness_. On Annares, no one owns any property, everyone lives in
>communal rooms, even marriage is frowned upon. One of the things that
>the Annareans believe is that "egoism" is bad and do their best to
>discourage it. I like having an ego. Frankly, the Annareans sound like
>a group of people desperately trying to turn themselves into an
>ant-colony. I'd far rather live in the feudalistic country on Gethen
>from _LHoD_.
>
You seem to be making the common mistake of confusing individualism
with egoism/selfishness. There are two opposites: egoism <-> altruism
and individualism <-> communitarianism. You can be an individualistic
altruist or a selfish communitarian. Of course, this is a mistake the
Annarans seem to make a lot, too. But you have to keep in mind that a
lot of what LeGuin describes is a *perversion* of an anarchic society.
Like people starving in the street and being forcably sent of to die
in useless wars, or living a life of boring sexual predatry might be
considered by some a *perversion* of a capitalist society.
(BTW, I'm not sure communitarianism is the word I'm looking for here.
Seeing the group as more basic, more important, more moral if you
like, than the individual, is what I mean.)
>8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping Socialists
>and Libertarians together. LeGuin seems to be using a different
>referent for "socialist" than I am. I think of Socialism as big
>government nanny-state, where the state has the power to
>"nationalize"/steal any industry that it needs, but there's still
>capitalism outside of those industries. LeGuin is using Socialism to
>mean property-less near-anarchy.
>
If you read Marx, or about Marx, you'll find he saw 'communism' as an
intermediate step towards 'socialism', the final stage where 'the
state will wither away'.
And the terminology has become a lot more confused since then.
--
Simon van Dongen <sg...@xs4all.nl> Rotterdam, The Netherlands
'My doctor says I have a malformed public duty gland and a
natural deficiency in moral fibre,' he muttered to himself,
and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes.'
Life, the universe and everything
Martin Soederstroem
>And then there is most of the usage of the term in the world, to refer to
>"mainstream" socialism - the general view that collective ownership/control
>of resources is often a good thing, implemented by democratic socialist
>parties acting in mixed economies, and so on.
Over here it's the former communists who refer to themselves as
"socialists" ("socialister"). The social democrats are called "social
democrats" ("socialdemokrater"), never "socialists".
--
Martin
Remove NOSPAM to email me.
"I hate quotes" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dwight Thieme
: Pete McCutchen wrote:
: > I'd rather live just about anywhere else.
: > <snip>
: > Even so, LeGuin really is an economic ignoramus. Annares may well
: > have been portrayed as poor and, in its own way, conformist, but I
: > find it unlikely that the society would have been able to so much as
: > put food on the table. My prediction: famine and a massive die-off,
: > or a dictatorship and de facto establishment of a state within the
: > second generation.
: Well, obviously, if it were settled by people like you who hate the whole
: idea! But recall that it was essentially founded by a small group of
: fanatics. And you cannot underestimate the ability of people to
: indoctrinate a mindset in their children. Le Guin makes it perfectly clear
: that just getting the whole society to run requires a massive effort. In
: fact, one of the points I believe she is making that such a social
: structure will *only* work when conditions are so difficult.
Is this anything like the kibbutzim model of organization, and did
LeGuin use them as a model? If so, from what I hear these days,
a big question in Isreal is 'How do you keep them down on the kibbutz?'
Ike
James Nicoll
Ian <iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
>>7) One small thing that showed me LeGuin's skill occurred when I
>>noticed that every Annarean has a single 5 or 6 letter name. This
>>began to annoy me (they were hard to keep straight), and suddenly
>>Shevek (or his wife) commented on the fact that they didn't like the
>>(unique) name that the central computer had generated for their
>>new-born daughter. Somehow that comment made the naming thing click
>>into focus.
>
>Hm. 26 letters times six characters allows only 300 million combinations
>even if you allow any combination of letters. If you limit the search to
>reasonably pronounceable names, you'd chop that by an order of magnitude or
>more. Annares had better have a pretty small population if they want unique
>names for everyone that are so short.
Well, they -could- adopt UW's 31 digit ordering code system for
names :).
Is it possible the goal is not to give people unique names but
to deny the parents "ownership" of the kid's name by being the ones to
choose it?
James Nicoll
--
Dwight Thieme
: On 7 Dec 1999 18:43:26 GMT, c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu (Dwight
: Thieme) wrote:
: >Odo, by the way, is Russian for 'one'. Was this a poke at Rand?
: In what case? It's "odin" more often.
: Odo is also a perfectly good old Germanic name -- there have been
: various people named Odo who turn up in European history.
For example, Sto-Odo is one-hundrend and one. It may only take
this form when used in combinatrial. In any case, my question
stands.
Ike
Mike Schilling
> On 7 Dec 1999 18:43:26 GMT, c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu (Dwight
> Thieme) wrote:
>
> >Odo, by the way, is Russian for 'one'. Was this a poke at Rand?
>
> In what case? It's "odin" more often.
>
> Odo is also a perfectly good old Germanic name -- there have been
> various people named Odo who turn up in European history.
Hobbits too, IIRC (though not in European history).
Dwight Thieme
: Simon van Dongen wrote:
: > >
: > If you read Marx, or about Marx, you'll find he saw 'communism' as an
: > intermediate step towards 'socialism', the final stage where 'the
: > state will wither away'.
: Other way 'round, actually.
And actually considered true by some computer models. Take this with
a block of salt - these models assume essentially infinite resources
at essentially zero cost. Well, yeah, if were offered my own stable of
luxury yachts, luxury cars, a stable of fembots, twelve different homes,
etc. I could probably be enticed into becoming a classical communist.
Good question - would you rather live in a society in which the upper
30% owned 50% of the wealth, or in one with three times the resources
but the upper 5% owned 90% of everything?
Ike
Stu Dent
Steve Parker (spar...@mindspring.com) wrote:
> Like I said earlier, I'm not looking forward to the Mars trilogy
I am. Just ordered Red, Green and Blue Mars from SFBC earlier this
week. <http://www.sfbc.com/>
I'm wondering if I should have ordered _The Martians_, too. Does
anyone recommend that particular book?
--
Warning: This novel contains the keyword anarchy. Er, anarchism.
Del Cotter
Ian <iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>others are more sanguine about the whole idea. You're actually going
>>to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim Stanley
>>Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which inexplicably won
>>the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an economic ignoramus
>>than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and in possession
>>of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral rectitude.
>
>Oh and BTW, you are one of the LAST people on this newsgroup who is in a
>position to take anyone to task for ignorance of economics, pomposity,
>preachiness, and sanctimonious certainty of your own moral rectitude.
To be fair, Pete does have, as far as I can see, a good grounding in one
flavour of economic theory, which is one more than most people have.
His besetting sin, IMO, is the tendency to treat that particular theory
as the True Knowledge (© Ken MacLeod).
--
Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk
"Choose the Dark Side... now why would I do a thing like that?"
--Obi-Wan Renton
R. Byers
On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> Incidentally, I remember reading somewhere at some point that somebody
> did a review of _The Dispossessed_ that really demolished it. Whoever
> described the review implied that it was right on target. Does anyone
> know where I can find this?
Might've been a reference to Samuel Delany's review, which was
collected in THE JEWEL-HINGED JAW, IIRC.
--
Randy Byers <rby...@u.washington.edu>
'Mibix,' said a gutteral, insinuating voice.
'Ferkit,' replied another.
-- Michael Moorcock, THE END OF ALL SONGS
Heather & Richard Fitzpatrick
>On Wed, 08 Dec 1999 00:27:56 -0500, Pete McCutchen wrote:
>
>>You're actually going
>>to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim Stanley
>>Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which inexplicably won
>>the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an economic ignoramus
>>than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and in possession
>>of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral rectitude.
>
>looking forward to the Mars trilogy.
Recently finished _Red_Mars_ (my first KSR) and, overall, enjoyed it. A
quibble with the time he spends on describing the landscape, but I usually
enjoy that if it contributes to the SoW. My main problem was with his
depictions of the political and cultural interactions. They just didn't gel
for me. More often than usually, I stopped to think "people just
don't/wouldn't *do* that". Mebbe in 2063 (or whenever it was set) people
will, but there was nothing to indicate why people became... well, the way I
feel KSR described them.
A trusted fellow reader says Blue and Green are much the same. I'm still
vacillating about whether I will bother spending $35.00[1] finding out.
Richard.
[1] Yes, I live in Straya.
Gareth Wilson
Simon van Dongen wrote:
> >
> If you read Marx, or about Marx, you'll find he saw 'communism' as an
> intermediate step towards 'socialism', the final stage where 'the
> state will wither away'.
Other way 'round, actually.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gareth Wilson
Christchurch
New Zealand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mmcdon
<itro4skhkqmt0ohhe...@4ax.com>...
> She (and they) believed in a sort of communistic
> libertarianism. Imagine having almost no government > (libertarians),
> but no property either (per communistic).
Such a society is the end goal of most coherent left political groupings,
communist\socialist or anarchist.
> 8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping > Socialists
> and Libertarians together.
You shouldn't. For the bulk of the last two centuries most libertarians (ie
the anarchists) have also been socialists (and revolutionary socialists at
that). The form of libertarianism (right libertarianism, the idiocy of Ayn
Rand) found in the present day USA (and on the internet, interestingly) is
quite anomolous.
> LeGuin seems to be using a > different
> referent for "socialist" than I am.
She is using a more accurate referent.
> I think of Socialism as big
> government nanny-state, where the state has the power to
> "nationalize"/steal any industry that it needs, but there's > still
> capitalism outside of those industries.
Social Democracy, is the general term for such a system, leaving aside your
caricature.
> LeGuin is using Socialism to
> mean property-less near-anarchy.
As most socialist thinkers have.
Is mise le meas,
Brian Cahill
mmcdon
<sbpr4so87qf444kp6...@4ax.com>...
> On Mon, 06 Dec 1999 20:15:26 -0700, Steve Parker
> <spar...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> [I'm retaining spoiler space, but I've snipped rather liberally.]
[I'm not because I'm snipping the spoilers]
> Partly a terminological problem. You might want to look at Bryan
> Caplan's anarchist theory FAQ which can be found at
> http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm.
>
> But basically, the socialist movement had several strains. One strain
> is the traditional Marxist strain, which basically led to what we know
> as socialism: really big government, in which the state can run
> everything it wants, as in the old Union of Soviet Socialist
> Republics.
Hardly a Marxist strain, more a bastard child of Marxism. Marx, of course,
was libertarian in his end-goal.
> (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
> "really" socialist.)
Hardly "present-day" Marxists. The "Marxists" of 15 years ago might have
argued about it, but since then the Stalinists have picked up their ball
and gone home with it. No present day Marxist I have met (and given that I
am a Marxist, and that I am a member of a Marxist political party, I've met
a large number) holds that the Soviet Union was socialist.
> A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist > strain,
Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
libertarians perhaps.
> which
> includes thinkers like Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin. > and Pierre
> Proudhon advocates what you might call communism
> without government.
Well, yes, but that's not what differentiates them from Marx.
> Often, left anarchists favor a sort of syndicalism, in which, for
> example, the workers would own the factory and make decisions
> "democratically."
The best example for an American of anarcho-syndicalism is probably the
Industrial Workers of the World trade union, which briefly became
significant during the depression. It's still about somewhere and has a web
page.
> You're actually going
> to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim > Stanley
> Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which > inexplicably won
> the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an > economic ignoramus
> than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and > in possession
> of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral > rectitude.
Well, at least we're agreed on something. I think we may have had this bit
of the discussion before... astonishment at the possibility that anybody
without a vested interest in the matter could possibly entertain the
arguments of the Martian "Reds".
Richard Horton
On Wed, 08 Dec 1999 13:26:07 -0800, Stu Dent <si...@well.com> wrote:
>In message <68ks4sklskrb61b8p...@4ax.com>,
>Steve Parker (spar...@mindspring.com) wrote:
>
>> Like I said earlier, I'm not looking forward to the Mars trilogy
>
>I am. Just ordered Red, Green and Blue Mars from SFBC earlier this
>week. <http://www.sfbc.com/>
>
>I'm wondering if I should have ordered _The Martians_, too. Does
>anyone recommend that particular book?
Certainly some of the stories are very good.
In particular "Green Mars", one of the earliest stories KSR wrote in a
version of that future, is magnificent. Pete might even like it.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
mmcdon
<82mc8p$aou$1...@dipsy.missouri.edu>...
> Gareth Wilson (gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz) wrote:
> Good question - would you rather live in a society in which the upper
> 30% owned 50% of the wealth, or in one with three times the resources
> but the upper 5% owned 90% of everything?
Not that good a question. Leaving all morality aside, the odds are very
much better of having a reasonable amount of wealth in the first option.
Joe Slater
>>Hm. 26 letters times six characters allows only 300 million combinations
>>even if you allow any combination of letters. If you limit the search to
>>reasonably pronounceable names, you'd chop that by an order of magnitude or
>>more. Annares had better have a pretty small population if they want unique
>>names for everyone that are so short.
They almost certainly don't use our alphabet. If I were doing it, I'd
use lists of syllables instead of letters, but you could do it with
consonantal letters if the vowels are implied, as with Hebrew.
How many consonants do we have, including things like "th" and "sh"?
Add on those of other languages like "ng" and "mb" and you probably
get to thirty or so. We have lots of different vowels, but let's
suppose that we have ten that are really distinct.
Suppose we use the following system: three consonants and three vowels
interwoven: CVCVCV or VCVCVC
This gives you only 54 million names - not nearly enough. We want a
hundred times more. Add on another consonant-vowel pair and we have
16.2 billion - probably more unique names than our race has ever
needed. And, we can increase that number to around 27 billion by
allowing names shorter than four syllables.
jds
James Battista
: Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> writes:
:>What makes the dominant society of the Earth of _The Cassini Division_
:>implausible is that it's a society of true abundance--nanotechnology
:>can give you anything you want or need, and there are no scarce goods.
:>If populated by actual human beings, such a society would rapidly
:>develop a thriving market (black market, if necessary) in the
:>one-of-a-kind and the hand-made.
ISTR dear little Ellen getting rather property-like attachments
to a Swiss Army knife. So you could argue that this is there, but
we're not seeing it because we see through Ellen's eyes.
And of course with the nano style in the Solar Union, smartmatter
assemblers could zap you up an exact (to the atomic level) duplicate
of that one-of-a-kind or hand-made thing.
: Suppose that you need the services of a librarian. Now you might get
: lucky and the librarian needs something done you can do better than
: the nanomachinery, and be able to barter, but you might not, and may
: wind up bartering through a third party... pretty soon, you're on
: your way to the invention of money...
You happened to hit upon a bad example. There's an obviously large
psychic income associated with being a librarian, as evidenced by
the low salaries that highly skilled people are willing to tolerate.
A better example would be that your septic tank is backed up, and
the smell is starting to kill the vultures flying overhead, and
*gosh* if you couldn't use the services of a honey-pumper.
Jim
--
James S. Coleman Battista
PhD candidate, Dept of Political Science, Duke Univ.
james.b...@duke.edu
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man -- J. Springfield
Jordan S. Bassior
>Could you say a little more about why you think this famine would occur?
The essential problem with a command economy is that by dispensing with the
market, it dispenses with the cheapest and easiest signalling system to let
producers know how much the consumers need and consumers how much the economy
can provide. Producers also have no real incentive to produce any more than the
minimum needed to avoid punishment; consumers have no incentive not to consume
as much as they can grab without being punished either.
Essentially, a command economy has to set quotas for production and ration
consumption. But to do this from the top down is very difficult, since there
are incentives at every level ot cheat, requiring some sort of secret police
organization to enforce the quotas and rationing (and prevent the formation of
a black market).
Furthermore, the command economy is very cumbersome; it cannot react quickly to
changing circumstances. If there is a natural event altering production; a
technological advance; or a change in consumer preferences; it has no way of
responding to this until the making of the next Plan.
Ludwig von Mises, in his books, goes into great detail about why a pure command
economy is outright impossible, and why a mixed command / market economy is
less efficient than a (mostly) pure market economy (some services must be
provided by the government even in a market-based system.
David Friedman (Milton Friedman's son) claims that even military, police, and
judicial services can be provided by the market, but there are flaws in his
reasoning; particularly he does not deal with the obvious tendency towards
civil war in any such system.
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
"Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; but he is halfway between an ape and
a god and he is travelling in the right direction." (Dean William R. Inge)
Eryk Remiezowicz
>
> : Odo is also a perfectly good old Germanic name -- there have been
> : various people named Odo who turn up in European history.
>
> this form when used in combinatrial. In any case, my question
> stands.
>
> Ike
Probably you've meant "sto odno". It's nominativus from the neutral
form
(masculine is sto odin - I think one of Cordwainer Smiths' Lords of
Instrumentality was called so).
Eryk Remiezowicz
Niall McAuley
Let us know how you get on. I managed to finish _Red Mars_,
but _Green Mars_ defeated me inside a hundred pages.
--
Niall [real address ends in se, not es]
Jerry Friedman
Joe Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
> >Ian <iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> >>Hm. 26 letters times six characters allows only 300 million
combinations
> >>even if you allow any combination of letters. If you limit the
search to
> >>reasonably pronounceable names, you'd chop that by an order of
magnitude or
> >>more. Annares had better have a pretty small population if they
want unique
> >>names for everyone that are so short.
The population is 20 million. (It's not a very fertile planet.) Also,
names can be re-used. Allowing seven-letter names might still be a
good idea.
>
> They almost certainly don't use our alphabet. If I were doing it, I'd
> use lists of syllables instead of letters, but you could do it with
> consonantal letters if the vowels are implied, as with Hebrew.
The alphabet is very much like ours. The five- and six-letter names
are like Shevek, Bedap, Gvarab, Takver.
...
--
Jerry Friedman
jfrE...@nnm.cc.nm.us
i before e
and all the disclaimers
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Paul Clarke
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <384dfd7c...@news.math.uwaterloo.ca>,
>Ian <iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>7) One small thing that showed me LeGuin's skill occurred when I
>>>noticed that every Annarean has a single 5 or 6 letter name. This
>>>began to annoy me (they were hard to keep straight), and suddenly
>>>Shevek (or his wife) commented on the fact that they didn't like the
>>>(unique) name that the central computer had generated for their
>>>new-born daughter. Somehow that comment made the naming thing click
>>>into focus.
>>
>>Hm. 26 letters times six characters allows only 300 million combinations
>>even if you allow any combination of letters. If you limit the search to
>>reasonably pronounceable names, you'd chop that by an order of magnitude or
>>more. Annares had better have a pretty small population if they want unique
>>names for everyone that are so short.
ISTR that Annares does have a pretty small population, but I don't
remember a specific figure. I suppose it's also possible that their
alphabet has more letters.
> Well, they -could- adopt UW's 31 digit ordering code system for
>names :).
>
> Is it possible the goal is not to give people unique names but
>to deny the parents "ownership" of the kid's name by being the ones to
>choose it?
The stated reason is that it's to avoid people having to have some
sort of identification number in addition to their names. Your idea
does seem to fit with the Odonian mind set though.
Dan Clore
from Deja.com]
Peter McCutchen wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Dec 1999 20:15:26 -0700, Steve Parker
> <spar...@mindspring.com> wrote:
[snip]
> >8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping Socialists
> >and Libertarians together. LeGuin seems to be using a different
> >referent for "socialist" than I am. I think of Socialism as big
> >government nanny-state, where the state has the power to
> >"nationalize"/steal any industry that it needs, but there's still
> >capitalism outside of those industries. LeGuin is using Socialism to
> >mean property-less near-anarchy.
>
> Partly a terminological problem. You might want to look at Bryan
> Caplan's anarchist theory FAQ which can be found at
> http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm.
From a decidedly right-libertarian viewpoint; see also:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/
> But basically, the socialist movement had several strains. One strain
> is the traditional Marxist strain, which basically led to what we know
> as socialism: really big government, in which the state can run
> everything it wants, as in the old Union of Soviet Socialist
> Republics. (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
> "really" socialist.)
Actually the "Marxist" strain would comprise at least three strains, one
of which is the Bolshevik you mention; a second is the Social-Democrat
or democratic socialist strain (these types favor a large welfare state
but also do things like legalize pot and XTC, live fucking shows, and
prostitution; and a third left-Marxist strain following from Council
Communists like Pannekoek and Luxemburg, going down through the
Situationists and Autonomists. The last merges into some kinds of
anarchism.
> A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist strain, which
> includes thinkers like Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin. and Pierre
> Proudhon advocates what you might call communism without government.
> Often, left anarchists favor a sort of syndicalism, in which, for
> example, the workers would own the factory and make decisions
> "democratically." If you ever have the dubious pleasure of running
> into a fellow named Dan Clore, this is the sort of socialist he is.
Why thanks. Your statement is not very accurate, however: Proudhon was a
mutualist and virulently anti-communist; Bakunin was not communist but
collectivist; Kropotkin was in fact an anarcho-communist. None of these
three were syndicalists (syndicalism hadn't even been dreamed up yet in
Proudhon and Bakunin's lifetimes; Kropotkin argued against syndicalism).
Most anarchists now are content to let individuals choose for themselves
which non-coercive system they want to implement, whether individualist,
mutualist, collectivist, communist, syndicalist, or whatever. (In older
terms this was called "anarchism without adjectives".)
> How all of this would actually work is typically left as an exercise
> for the reader.
I.e., you get referred to the great wealth of blueprints out there and
then complain that they don't exist.
> Personally, I think that it would work about as well
> as the Twentieth Century Motor Company worked in _Atlas Shrugged_, but
> others are more sanguine about the whole idea.
Citing Rand's attempt at the ultimate straw man argument probably
doesn't help your argument much.
> You're actually going
> to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim Stanley
> Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which inexplicably won
> the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an economic ignoramus
> than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and in possession
> of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral rectitude.
The simple fact is that there have been historical attempts to put
various left-libertarian socialisms into practice. Most have worked
fairly well, aside from a tendency to get slaughtered by Reds and
Whites.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
Dan Clore
> Simon van Dongen wrote:
>
> > If you read Marx, or about Marx, you'll find he saw 'communism' as an
> > intermediate step towards 'socialism', the final stage where 'the
> > state will wither away'.
>
> Other way 'round, actually.
It was Lenin who claimed that "socialism" (i.e., state capitalism)
preceded "communism". Marx referred to them both as communism, the
latter being "mature communism". I forget exactly what he called the
first, "raw communism" or something like that.
Dan Clore
> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
> <sbpr4so87qf444kp6...@4ax.com>...
> > <spar...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
> > "really" socialist.)
>
> Hardly "present-day" Marxists. The "Marxists" of 15 years ago might have
> argued about it, but since then the Stalinists have picked up their ball
> and gone home with it. No present day Marxist I have met (and given that I
> am a Marxist, and that I am a member of a Marxist political party, I've met
> a large number) holds that the Soviet Union was socialist.
That's good news.
> > A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist > strain,
>
> Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
> libertarians perhaps.
Now called "left-anarchist" or "left-libertarianism" to differentiate
them from anarcho-capitalists and (minarchist) right-libertarians. It
bears pointing out that the latter have no historical connection with
left-libertarianism, and in fact are an offshoot of classical liberalism
& conservativism.
> > Often, left anarchists favor a sort of syndicalism, in which, for
> > example, the workers would own the factory and make decisions
> > "democratically."
>
> The best example for an American of anarcho-syndicalism is probably the
> Industrial Workers of the World trade union, which briefly became
> significant during the depression. It's still about somewhere and has a web
> page.
http://www.iww.org/
to be precise. The IWW, BTW, is growing by leaps and bounds these days.
Evelyn C. Leeper
Stu Dent <si...@well.com> wrote:
> In message <384D32D7...@mediaone.net>,
> Eric M. Van <em...@mediaone.net> wrote:
>
> > It remains one of my favorite handful of sf novels.
>
> Warning: This novel contains the keyword anarchy.
>
There are several listed in bookfinder.com.
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
In times of great stress, it is a relief to have the assurance that I can
never falsely believe that I exist.
Dwight Thieme
: > : In what case? It's "odin" more often.
Ah, thank you.
Ike
Dwight Thieme
: Dwight Thieme <c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote in article
Ah, yes, but it's been my experience that most people think they're
in the top 10 - 20% in the category of various competencies. For
example, most motorists identify themeselves as 'above average' in
driving ability. This is also analogous to those who think they
were nobility in past lives.
Ike
Evelyn C. Leeper
Dwight Thieme <c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote:
> mmcdon (mmm...@iol.ie) wrote:
>
> : Dwight Thieme <c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote in article
> : <82mc8p$aou$1...@dipsy.missouri.edu>...
> : > Gareth Wilson (gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz) wrote:
>
> : > Good question - would you rather live in a society in which the upper
> : > 30% owned 50% of the wealth, or in one with three times the resources
> : > but the upper 5% owned 90% of everything?
>
> : Not that good a question. Leaving all morality aside, the odds are very
> : much better of having a reasonable amount of wealth in the first option.
> : Is mise le meas,
>
> Ah, yes, but it's been my experience that most people think they're
> in the top 10 - 20% in the category of various competencies.
Lake Wobegon, anyone?
Evelyn C. Leeper
Ian <iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> There is one thing which is much more realistic about Annares than
> anarcho-capitalism - social pressure. Social pressure is much more
> effectively applied to produce conformity than to produce diversity.
Mark's group at work once had a diversity meeting in which someone was
explaining that the purpose was to get everyone "singing from the same
song sheet" (or some such) about diversity. Mark said, "You mean, you
want us to all think the same about how we're all individuals?" Only
one person caught the irony in this.
Ob SF: Monty Python's LIFE OF BRIAN
Pete McCutchen
>> (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
>> "really" socialist.)
>
>Hardly "present-day" Marxists. The "Marxists" of 15 years ago might have
>argued about it, but since then the Stalinists have picked up their ball
>and gone home with it. No present day Marxist I have met (and given that I
>am a Marxist, and that I am a member of a Marxist political party, I've met
>a large number) holds that the Soviet Union was socialist.
Of course they don't. It failed! Nor do any _present day_ Marxists
embrace Pol Pot and the government of Cambodia, or North Vietnam, or
North Korea. Because it's quite obvious that those regimes,
particularly Cambodia's, were, or are, as the case may be, murderous
dictatorships. But at the time, quite a few Marxists seemed to think
that they were, indeed, faithful to Marx's vision.
If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd like to know, _in advance_,
whether a particular self-styled Marxist is, in fact, a "true
socialist," so that we can then evaluate socialism based on how the
experiment works out.
In any case, I think that the theoretical, and practical, arguments
against Marxism, however it's conceptualized, are well-nigh
overwhelming.
>
>> A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist > strain,
>
>Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
>libertarians perhaps.
Lysander Spooner? David Friedman?
--
Pete McCutchen
Tom Womack
> Producers also have no real incentive to produce any more than the
> minimum needed to avoid punishment; consumers have no incentive not to
> consume as much as they can grab without being punished either.
Er, from what I remember of _The Dispossessed_, both producers and consumers
had enormous *social pressure* not to do the above - that was how the thing
managed to be stable at all. I think it helped that the environment of the
entire planet was roughly as pleasant as the middle of the Negev desert ...
there's a constant reminder of how tough it is to keep the thing working
even with everyone co-operating.
Tom
Scott Fluhrer
c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu (Dwight Thieme) wrote:
>mmcdon (mmm...@iol.ie) wrote:
>
>: Dwight Thieme <c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote in article
>: <82mc8p$aou$1...@dipsy.missouri.edu>...
>: > Gareth Wilson (gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz) wrote:
>
>: > Good question - would you rather live in a society in which the upper
>: > 30% owned 50% of the wealth, or in one with three times the resources
>: > but the upper 5% owned 90% of everything?
>
>: Not that good a question. Leaving all morality aside, the odds are very
>: much better of having a reasonable amount of wealth in the first option.
>: Is mise le meas,
>
>Ah, yes, but it's been my experience that most people think they're
>example, most motorists identify themeselves as 'above average' in
>driving ability.
different defintions of driving ability, and grading themselves correctly
on the basis of their chosen notion. Person A might consider himself a
superior driver because he is able to swerve through traffic at insanely
high speeds without causing an accident (most of the time), while person B
might consider herself a superior driver because she has enough sense not
to.
--
poncho
Michael Brazier
>
> > 8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping > Socialists
> > and Libertarians together.
>
> the anarchists) have also been socialists (and revolutionary socialists at
> that). The form of libertarianism (right libertarianism, the idiocy of Ayn
> Rand) found in the present day USA (and on the internet, interestingly) is
> quite anomolous.
And to digress even further, there's very little relationship between
Ayn Rand's school of thought and what Americans call "libertarian"; the
real doctors of the latter school are economists like von Mises, von
Hayek, Rothbard, and Friedman. They picked the label because nobody
else (in America) was using it, and it resembles the word "liberal", the
name they ought to have; in America "liberal" is taken by what you call
"social democracy".
--
Michael Brazier But what are all these vanities to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?
X^2 + 7X + 53 = 11/3
-- Lewis Carroll
Joe Slater
>And of course with the nano style in the Solar Union, smartmatter
>assemblers could zap you up an exact (to the atomic level) duplicate
>of that one-of-a-kind or hand-made thing.
Yes, that would be good ... but an exact duplicate of a suit tailored
to my body is useful only to me; an exact duplicate of a legal
document drawn up between two particular parties is useful to nobody.
jds
Joe Slater
>If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd like to know, _in advance_,
>whether a particular self-styled Marxist is, in fact, a "true
>socialist," so that we can then evaluate socialism based on how the
>experiment works out.
Revolution doth never fail, what's the reason? For if it fail, then it
was never revolution.
- with apologies to Sir John Harrington
jds
mmcdon
> On Thu, 09 Dec 1999 03:06:58 GMT, "mmcdon" <mmm...@iol.ie> wrote:
>
> >> (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
> >> "really" socialist.)
> >
> >Hardly "present-day" Marxists. The "Marxists" of 15 years ago might have
> >argued about it, but since then the Stalinists have picked up their ball
> >and gone home with it. No present day Marxist I have met (and given that
I
> >am a Marxist, and that I am a member of a Marxist political party, I've
met
> >a large number) holds that the Soviet Union was socialist.
>
> Of course they don't.
Directly contradicting your earlier claim.
> It failed!
Hasn't stopped most present day Marxists from viewing Lenin as a socialist.
I think you'll find that the bulk of present day Marxists belong to
traditions which always held that Stalinism was anti-socialist.
> Nor do any _present day_ Marxists
> embrace Pol Pot and the government of Cambodia, or North > Vietnam, or
> North Korea. Because it's quite obvious that those > regimes,
> particularly Cambodia's, were, or are, as the case may be, > murderous
> dictatorships.
Not quite. No Marxist is willing to view a hereditary monarchy (and a
fairly lunatic one at that) like North Korea as Socialist. Equally, few
Marxists *ever* embraced the Khmer Rouge (although the United States helped
them).
> >> A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist > strain,
> >
> >Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
> >libertarians perhaps.
>
> Lysander Spooner? David Friedman?
Right Libertarians. Anarchism is the tradition of Bakunin, Proudhon et al,
let's try and keep our terminology straight.
mmcdon
> mmcdon (mmm...@iol.ie) wrote:
>
> : Dwight Thieme <c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote in article
> : <82mc8p$aou$1...@dipsy.missouri.edu>...
> : > Gareth Wilson (gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz) wrote:
>
> : > Good question - would you rather live in a society in which the upper
> : > 30% owned 50% of the wealth, or in one with three times the resources
> : > but the upper 5% owned 90% of everything?
>
> : Not that good a question. Leaving all morality aside, the odds are very
> : much better of having a reasonable amount of wealth in the first
option.
> : Is mise le meas,
>
> Ah, yes, but it's been my experience that most people think they're
> in the top 10 - 20% in the category of various competencies.
What makes you think that the wealthiest 5% of the population are in the
top 5% "in the category of various competencies"?
mmcdon
<384FBF...@columbia-center.org>...
> > > On Mon, 06 Dec 1999 20:15:26 -0700, Steve Parker
> > > <spar...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
> > libertarians perhaps.
>
> Now called "left-anarchist" or "left-libertarianism" to differentiate
> them from anarcho-capitalists and (minarchist) right-libertarians.
This strikes me as an Americanism. Nobody in the rest of the world is
likely to think of right-libertarians as anarchists.
Martin Ripa
"mmcdon" <mmm...@iol.ie> wrote:
>Steve Parker <spar...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
>> 8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping > Socialists
>> and Libertarians together.
>
>You shouldn't. For the bulk of the last two centuries most libertarians (ie
>the anarchists) have also been socialists
For the bulk of the last three centuries most liberals have
been pro-capitalist.
Now this word means something absolutely different in US and
Europe.
IOW, you leftists started it.
Give back liberalism and we will return libertarianism.
>(and revolutionary socialists at
>that). The form of libertarianism (right libertarianism, the idiocy of Ayn
>Rand)
I disagree with Marxism, but I would never call it an
idiocy.
One could be very intelligent (like Ayn Rand or Karl Marx)
and still wrong.
>found in the present day USA (and on the internet, interestingly)
Absolutely logically. In 1888, you would not find the
typical Marxist/socialist intellectual in a factory, but in
a coffee house.
In 1999, you will not find the typical
Objectivist/libertarian intellectual in a business, but on
Usenet newsgroups and discussion forums.
For the same reasons.
>is quite anomolous.
It is here to stay. Get over it.
It is generally not a good idea to start a discussion by
denying your opponent's name and right to existence. This is
tactics fit for talk.politics.mideast:
"You are not Jews! You are Khazaro-Tataro-Mongol dirty
hordes! We are descendants of true Jews!"
"Palestinians never existed! You are just filthy Arab
squatters! We are true Palestinians!"
"We will drive you to the sea, Jew pigs! Learn to swim!"
"No! We will drive you to the desert, Arab swine! Learn to
eat sand!"
>> LeGuin seems to be using a > different
>> referent for "socialist" than I am.
>
>She is using a more accurate referent.
>
>> I think of Socialism as big
>> government nanny-state, where the state has the power to
>> "nationalize"/steal any industry that it needs, but there's > still
>> capitalism outside of those industries.
>
>Social Democracy, is the general term for such a system, leaving aside your
>caricature.
>
>> LeGuin is using Socialism to
>> mean property-less near-anarchy.
>
>As most socialist thinkers have.
No property, no government .. it sounds like Somalia had
achieved true socialism :-)
Best wishes
Martin
--
"I wouldn't want to be a member of any
club that would allow *me* to join."
Groucho Marx
Martin Ripa
"mmcdon" <mmm...@iol.ie> wrote:
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
><sbpr4so87qf444kp6...@4ax.com>...
>> Partly a terminological problem. You might want to look at Bryan
>> Caplan's anarchist theory FAQ which can be found at
>> http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm.
>>
>> But basically, the socialist movement had several strains. One strain
>> is the traditional Marxist strain, which basically led to what we know
>> as socialism: really big government, in which the state can run
>> everything it wants, as in the old Union of Soviet Socialist
>> Republics.
>
>Hardly a Marxist strain, more a bastard child of Marxism. Marx, of course,
>was libertarian in his end-goal.
>
>> (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
>> "really" socialist.)
>
>Hardly "present-day" Marxists. The "Marxists" of 15 years ago might have
>argued about it, but since then the Stalinists have picked up their ball
>and gone home with it. No present day Marxist I have met (and given that I
>am a Marxist, and that I am a member of a Marxist political party, I've met
>a large number) holds that the Soviet Union was socialist.
Better late than never.
>> A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist > strain,
>
>Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
>libertarians perhaps.
anarchy: 1/ absence of government or control in society
2/ disorder, confusion
anarchism: political theory that laws and government should
be abolished
(Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary, 1991)
Anarchist, by definition, is one who wants to abolish the
government. This means yours anarcho-socialists, Pete's
anarcho-capitalists or, for example, religious nuts who want
to restore ancient Israel from the time of Judges.
Or radical greens who want return to the Stone Age.
>> which
>> includes thinkers like Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin. > and Pierre
>> Proudhon advocates what you might call communism
>> without government.
>
>Well, yes, but that's not what differentiates them from Marx.
>
>> Often, left anarchists favor a sort of syndicalism, in which, for
>> example, the workers would own the factory and make decisions
>> "democratically."
>
>The best example for an American of anarcho-syndicalism is probably the
>Industrial Workers of the World trade union, which briefly became
>significant during the depression. It's still about somewhere and has a web
>page.
>
>> You're actually going
>> to get some more of this basic idea in when you read Kim > Stanley
>> Robinson's _Mars_ books, or at least the ones which > inexplicably won
>> the Hugo. Except that Robinson is even more of an > economic ignoramus
>> than LeGuin, in addition to being pompous, preachy, and > in possession
>> of a certain sanctimonious certainty of his own moral > rectitude.
>
>Well, at least we're agreed on something. I think we may have had this bit
>of the discussion before... astonishment at the possibility that anybody
>without a vested interest in the matter could possibly entertain the
>arguments of the Martian "Reds".
This is my problem (one of many) with Marxists and
Objectivists. They could not stomach that someone could be
wrong (ie. to disagree with them) without being bribed,
brainwashed, absolutely depraved or just hopelessly stupid.
Mark A Mandel
: 2) Her Annarean society gives me the creeps. I found it far more alien
: than the hermaphrodite planet of Gethen in _The Left Hand of
: Darkness_. On Annares, no one owns any property, everyone lives in
: communal rooms, even marriage is frowned upon. One of the things that
: the Annareans believe is that "egoism" is bad and do their best to
: discourage it. I like having an ego. Frankly, the Annareans sound like
: a group of people desperately trying to turn themselves into an
: ant-colony. I'd far rather live in the feudalistic country on Gethen
: from _LHoD_.
Go back to the title:
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
(or is it "Ambivalent"?). She's not plugging Anarres (one N, two R's) as
Heaven.
-- Mark A. Mandel
--
If you're reading this in a newsgroup: to reply by mail,
remove the obvious spam-blocker from my edress.
Mark A Mandel
* * * WARNING! NITPICK ALERT * * *
Ah, I've pinpointed the teeny bit that's been niggling at me as I read
this thread. LeGuin's adjective for "Anarres" is not "Annarian" or
anything like it, but "Anarresti".
-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
Philological Busybody
a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
Mark A Mandel
: Odo, by the way, is Russian for 'one'. Was this a poke at Rand?
The Russian word for 'one' is "odin" (pronounced roughly "ah-DEEN", not at
all like the name of the Norse god that it looks like). Feminine "odna",
neuter "odno" IIRC. Not "odo".
-- Mark
Mark A Mandel
: Is it possible the goal is not to give people unique names but
: to deny the parents "ownership" of the kid's name by being the ones to
: choose it?
But one effect is to give people unique names. Shevek's mother (who
left him and his father in Shevek's childhood or infancy), on hearing
of his achievements, realizes that unlikely though it is that this is her
son (because of his age, at least), if it's not him it's someone even
younger. This makes sense only assuming at least that there were no other
Sheveks when he was born.
Besides, LeGuin states explicitly that unique names were the answer to ID
that didn't involve the repugnant idea of ID numbers.
-- Mark A. Mandel
Mark A Mandel
: >Ian <iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
: >>Hm. 26 letters times six characters allows only 300 million combinations
: >>even if you allow any combination of letters. If you limit the search to
: >>reasonably pronounceable names, you'd chop that by an order of magnitude or
: >>more. Annares had better have a pretty small population if they want unique
: >>names for everyone that are so short.
: They almost certainly don't use our alphabet. If I were doing it, I'd
: use lists of syllables instead of letters, but you could do it with
: consonantal letters if the vowels are implied, as with Hebrew.
: How many consonants do we have, including things like "th" and "sh"?
: Add on those of other languages like "ng" and "mb" and you probably
: get to thirty or so. We have lots of different vowels, but let's
: suppose that we have ten that are really distinct.
: Suppose we use the following system: three consonants and three vowels
: interwoven: CVCVCV or VCVCVC
: This gives you only 54 million names - not nearly enough. We want a
: hundred times more. Add on another consonant-vowel pair and we have
: 16.2 billion - probably more unique names than our race has ever
: needed. And, we can increase that number to around 27 billion by
: allowing names shorter than four syllables.
The Anarresti population is VERY small compared to Earth's. Look how
scattered they are. The biggest city -- only city -- is still very small.
Their names are CVCVC (Shevek), CVCCVC (Takver), CVCVCC (Badagv), and
probably CCVCVC. Most CC combinations are unsustainable at the beginning
or end of the word, so the count is even smaller.
Even so, they have enough for the present and at least the near future.
When they start running out, they will have to add another pattern, or add
ID numbers (ugly), e.g., Tkopel 1 vs. Tkopel 2.
-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
Philological Busybody
a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
Mark A Mandel
: Lawrence Watt-Evans (lawr...@clark.net) wrote:
: : On 7 Dec 1999 18:43:26 GMT, c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu (Dwight
: : Thieme) wrote:
: : >Odo, by the way, is Russian for 'one'. Was this a poke at Rand?
: : In what case? It's "odin" more often.
: : Odo is also a perfectly good old Germanic name -- there have been
: : various people named Odo who turn up in European history.
: For example, Sto-Odo is one-hundrend and one. It may only take
: this form when used in combinatrial. In any case, my question
: stands.
No, it's "sto odin", as in Cordwainer Smith's story "Under Old Earth", in
which it is the number-name of a lord of the Instrumentality (with, no
doubt, a pun on the Norse god Odin).
Gareth Wilson
Joe Slater wrote:
"But I know not how a genuine may be distinguished from a spurious
Prophet, except by measure of his success."
-Winston Churchill.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gareth Wilson
Christchurch
New Zealand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Horton
On Thu, 09 Dec 1999 17:20:46 -0500, Pete McCutchen
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Of course they don't. It failed! Nor do any _present day_ Marxists
>embrace Pol Pot and the government of Cambodia, or North Vietnam, or
>North Korea. Because it's quite obvious that those regimes,
>particularly Cambodia's, were, or are, as the case may be, murderous
>dictatorships. But at the time, quite a few Marxists seemed to think
>that they were, indeed, faithful to Marx's vision.
I haven't read _The Black Book of Communism_, but I have read several
long articles (or reviews) of it. It seems to be quite a damning
indictment of basically every single attempt to implement any variety
of communism at a country-size scale.
Among the points made are that for instance Lenin was quite as
efficient a mass-murderer as Stalin, he just didn't live long enough
to match Stalin's absolute numbers, and that even cuddly communists
like Daniel Ortega have atrocities to live down.
The point about Lenin seems interesting to me, because it seems to me,
at any rate, that lots of people still buy the notion that Soviet
Communism was just peachy until that nasty old Stalin ruined things.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Joe Slater
>LeGuin states explicitly that unique names were the answer to ID
>that didn't involve the repugnant idea of ID numbers.
I think we find ID numbers repugnant because they are used to *take
away* people's names. If we all had names instead of numbers we might
find some combinations of digits to be quite beautiful.
jds
Jerry Friedman
jsba...@aol.com (Jordan S. Bassior) wrote:
> Jerry Friedman said:
>
> >Could you say a little more about why you think this famine would
occur?
>
> The essential problem with a command economy is that by dispensing
with the
> market, it dispenses with the cheapest and easiest signalling system
to let
> producers know how much the consumers need and consumers how much the
economy
> can provide
Well, food seems like a fairly simple one. I think the problem of how
much land to plant with what crops has been solved, and the solution is
just as accessible to governments as to agribusinesses. (Anarres has
crops and fishing, apparently including fish farming, but no
land livestock.) No doubt distribution is the harder problem. But
still, in a market system, if you own a store that's running low on
food, you order it from a giant agribusiness or food-processing
conglomerate. On Anarres, you order it from the government. I don't
see a big difference. Maybe I need to read von Mises.
> Producers also have no real incentive to produce any more
than the
> minimum needed to avoid punishment; consumers have no incentive not to
consume
> as much as they can grab without being punished either.
This is where Le Guin differs from market economists. Shevek tries to
read capitalistic economics and finds it very depressing (and
frightening, though he won't admit that to himself). The depressing
part is that people assumed to act out of nothing but greed, laziness,
and (something else--fear?). To him people work because of the human
impulse to do productive work.
I don't know whether this claim can be empirically verified. However,
there is some evidence--the tremendous amount of volunteer and hobby
work that goes on (and since we're talking about agriculture, I might
point out that the most popular hobby in the U.S. is gardening).
A real test would have to be in a system where people don't think pay is
the reason to work. On Anarres, as people have pointed out elsewhere in
this thread, there's a lot of indoctrination and social pressure for
work and especially against hoarding and production and consumption of
luxuries (which are called "excremental").
>
> Essentially, a command economy has to set quotas for production and
ration
> consumption. But to do this from the top down is very difficult, since
there
> are incentives at every level ot cheat, requiring some sort of secret
police
> organization to enforce the quotas and rationing (and prevent the
formation of
> a black market).
I don't see why the police need to be secret. Companies have to prevent
their employees from cheating (goofing off), but their methods aren't
secret.
On Anarres, there are no punishments except public opinion. A
particularly harsh example is that somebody who's pissing everyone off
may be barred from the refectory, which means he or she has the
inconvenience and humiliation of having to cook and having to eat alone.
Again, the effectiveness of methods like this would have to be tested
in a society with the appropriate expectations.
>
> Furthermore, the command economy is very cumbersome; it cannot react
quickly to
> changing circumstances. If there is a natural event altering
production; a
> technological advance; or a change in consumer preferences; it has no
way of
> responding to this until the making of the next Plan.
This makes sense to me for a lot of commodities, but food already has
built-in delays; you can't respond to changes till the next planting
season. The Anarreans do without a lot of those other commodities.
>
> Ludwig von Mises, in his books, goes into great detail about why a
pure command
> economy is outright impossible, and why a mixed command / market
economy is
> less efficient than a (mostly) pure market economy (some services must
be
> provided by the government even in a market-based system.
I'll have to find out what his definition of efficiency is. Is the goal
to maximize GDP? To minimize starvation and homelessness?
>
> David Friedman (Milton Friedman's son) claims that even military,
police, and
> judicial services can be provided by the market, but there are flaws
in his
> reasoning; particularly he does not deal with the obvious tendency
towards
> civil war in any such system.
(No relation.)
--
Jerry Friedman
jfrE...@nnm.cc.nm.us
i before e
and all the disclaimers
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Ken MacLeod
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> writes
>Of course they don't. It failed! Nor do any _present day_ Marxists
>embrace Pol Pot and the government of Cambodia, or North Vietnam, or
>North Korea. Because it's quite obvious that those regimes,
>particularly Cambodia's, were, or are, as the case may be, murderous
>dictatorships. But at the time, quite a few Marxists seemed to think
>that they were, indeed, faithful to Marx's vision.
>
>If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd like to know, _in advance_,
>whether a particular self-styled Marxist is, in fact, a "true
>socialist," so that we can then evaluate socialism based on how the
>experiment works out.
Well, the people who introduced me to Marxism in 1972 had been calling
the Soviet Union and its clones 'state capitalist' since 1948, and
something less complimentary before then.
As I've said before, most people who regarded the SU et al as socialist
back then still regard them as having been socialist, and most of the
people who now say they were never socialist have been saying that all
along.
--
Ken MacLeod
Ken MacLeod
<sg...@xs4all.nl> writes
>If you read Marx, or about Marx, you'll find he saw 'communism' as an
>intermediate step towards 'socialism', the final stage where 'the
>state will wither away'.
>And the terminology has become a lot more confused since then.
Your use of it is a case in point.
If you read Marx, rather than most of what has been written *about*
Marx, you'll find that he used the words 'communism' and 'socialism'
(when referring to a possible future society, rather than to political
ideologies) interchangeably.
He distinguished between 'the lower stage of communism' and the 'higher
stage of communism' on the basis how consumer goods would be allocated.
In the lower stage it would be by some non-monetary equivalent of wages,
in the higher stage it would be by free access.
--
Ken MacLeod
Ken MacLeod
<lis....@mediaone.net> writes
>
>What makes the dominant society of the Earth of _The Cassini Division_
>implausible is that it's a society of true abundance--nanotechnology
>can give you anything you want or need, and there are no scarce goods.
I understand that any economist can find any amount of scarcity in any
situation. Hans-Herman Hoppe somewhere discusses a paradise where you
can get anything you want just by snapping your fingers. *Finger-
snapping effort* then becomes the scarce resource, and before you know
it you're trading shares on that big stock market in the sky.
>If populated by actual human beings, such a society would rapidly
>develop a thriving market (black market, if necessary) in the
>one-of-a-kind and the hand-made.
>
Would these be different from those shown in Chapter 2, 'After London'?
Even if such markets were more widespread, why should they be any big
deal?
The course of production in the present world economy isn't
significantly affected by the markets in antiques and curios.
At the end of the book, there's a situation where more significant
markets would emerge, and nothing can be done to stop it.
--
Ken MacLeod
Jerry Friedman
c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu (Dwight Thieme) wrote:
> Eric M. Van (em...@mediaone.net) wrote:
> : Pete McCutchen wrote:
>
> : > I'd rather live just about anywhere else.
> : > <snip>
>
> : > Even so, LeGuin really is an economic ignoramus. Annares may well
>
> : > have been portrayed as poor and, in its own way, conformist, but I
> : > find it unlikely that the society would have been able to so much
as
> : > put food on the table. My prediction: famine and a massive
die-off,
> : > or a dictatorship and de facto establishment of a state within the
> : > second generation.
>
> : Well, obviously, if it were settled by people like you who hate the
whole
> : idea! But recall that it was essentially founded by a small group
of
> : fanatics. And you cannot underestimate the ability of people to
> : indoctrinate a mindset in their children. Le Guin makes it
perfectly clear
> : that just getting the whole society to run requires a massive
effort. In
> : fact, one of the points I believe she is making that such a social
> : structure will *only* work when conditions are so difficult.
>
> Is this anything like the kibbutzim model of organization, and did
> LeGuin use them as a model? If so, from what I hear these days,
> a big question in Isreal is 'How do you keep them down on the
kibbutz?'
This one's solved very conveniently on Anarres--there's no other place
to go. Pressure against going to Urras is extremely strong (much too
strong in the opinion of our hero).
Pete McCutchen
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
><72a05ssh9com6g1je...@4ax.com>...
>> On Thu, 09 Dec 1999 03:06:58 GMT, "mmcdon" <mmm...@iol.ie> wrote:
>>
>> >> (Present-day Marxists argue about whether this strain was
>> >> "really" socialist.)
>> >
>> >Hardly "present-day" Marxists. The "Marxists" of 15 years ago might have
>> >argued about it, but since then the Stalinists have picked up their ball
>> >and gone home with it. No present day Marxist I have met (and given that
>I
>> >am a Marxist, and that I am a member of a Marxist political party, I've
>met
>> >a large number) holds that the Soviet Union was socialist.
>>
>> Of course they don't.
>
>Directly contradicting your earlier claim.
Perhaps my wording was unclear. I meant to make the point that
today's Marxist generally don't embrace the Soviet Union, but that
Marxists in the past were much more enthused about the whole thing.
>
>> It failed!
>
>Hasn't stopped most present day Marxists from viewing Lenin as a socialist.
If you're willing to take "credit" for Lenin, but not Stalin, that I
can live with.
Problem is, though, even under Lenin, the USSR was a brutal
dictatorship and an economic failure, leavened by the introduction of
market-based reforms (the NEP).
>I think you'll find that the bulk of present day Marxists belong to
>traditions which always held that Stalinism was anti-socialist.
Because the traditions which, at the time, held that Stalinism was
socialist have died off.
>
>> Nor do any _present day_ Marxists
>> embrace Pol Pot and the government of Cambodia, or North > Vietnam, or
>> North Korea. Because it's quite obvious that those > regimes,
>> particularly Cambodia's, were, or are, as the case may be, > murderous
>> dictatorships.
>
>Not quite. No Marxist is willing to view a hereditary monarchy (and a
>fairly lunatic one at that) like North Korea as Socialist. Equally, few
>Marxists *ever* embraced the Khmer Rouge (although the United States helped
>them).
Quite a few American "New Leftists" like Angela Davis _did_ embrace
Khmer Rouge.
>
>> >> A second strain, which you might call the left-anarchist > strain,
>> >
>> >Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
>> >libertarians perhaps.
>>
>> Lysander Spooner? David Friedman?
>
>Right Libertarians. Anarchism is the tradition of Bakunin, Proudhon et al,
>let's try and keep our terminology straight.
In political discourse, terminology never remains straight.
Besides, both Lysander Spooner and David Friedman claim to oppose the
existence of the state. Which makes them, literally, anarchists, no
matter how you slice it. (Though I've argued to David Friedman that
the network of Protective Agencies which he envisions is a de facto
state.)
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
>>Why "left anarchist"? All anarchists are by definition left. Left
>>libertarians perhaps.
>
>anarchy: 1/ absence of government or control in society
> 2/ disorder, confusion
>
>anarchism: political theory that laws and government should
>be abolished
>
>(Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary, 1991)
>
>Anarchist, by definition, is one who wants to abolish the
>government. This means yours anarcho-socialists, Pete's
>anarcho-capitalists or, for example, religious nuts who want
>to restore ancient Israel from the time of Judges.
>Or radical greens who want return to the Stone Age.
Why do the anarcho-capitalist belong to me? And has anybody mentioned
to David Friedman that he's now my serf?
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
>> Ah, yes, but it's been my experience that most people think they're
>> in the top 10 - 20% in the category of various competencies.
>
>What makes you think that the wealthiest 5% of the population are in the
>top 5% "in the category of various competencies"?
Well, according to the book _The Millionaire Next Door_ (great book,
though Clore would hate it), about 80% of American millionaires are
self-made. Which likely means that they're in the top 5% of at least
one competency: wealth accumulation.
The remaining 20% also seem to be near the very top of another
competency: spending money. Which is one reason why dynasties tend to
fade over the years, even if the attempt is made to keep them whole.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
>Steve Parker <spar...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
><itro4skhkqmt0ohhe...@4ax.com>...
>> She (and they) believed in a sort of communistic
>> libertarianism. Imagine having almost no government > (libertarians),
>> but no property either (per communistic).
>
>Such a society is the end goal of most coherent left political groupings,
>communist\socialist or anarchist.
>
Might this not tell us something?
>
>
>
>> 8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping > Socialists
>> and Libertarians together.
>
>You shouldn't. For the bulk of the last two centuries most libertarians (ie
>the anarchists) have also been socialists (and revolutionary socialists at
>that). The form of libertarianism (right libertarianism, the idiocy of Ayn
>Rand) found in the present day USA (and on the internet, interestingly) is
>quite anomolous.
Ayn Rand may well have been nuts in many ways, though her political
and economic views are not, in my opinion, as nuts as, say, the views
of socialist libertarians. But it's simply absurd to suggest that the
American free-market libertarian movement is wholly derived from her.
American free-market libertarianism is, as Dan Clore, in one of his
few instances of being correct, noted, a rather straightforward
extension of the classic liberal tradition.
If you read an issue of, say, _Reason_ magazine, you will find quite a
few arguments which can be derived from similar arguments from people
like John Locke and Adam Smith. Very few modern mainstream
libertarian (if that's not any oxymoron) owe much to Ayn Rand.
Indeed, Chicago School and Austrian economics are far more influential
on most libertarians.
Most libertarians have _read_ Ayn Rand, and nearly all know who she
is. But she's hardly the seminal intellectual figure that many of her
acolytes (and, strangely enough, you) seem to believe that she is.
--
Pete McCutchen
Dan Clore
> mmcdon wrote:
> > > 8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping > Socialists
> > > and Libertarians together.
> >
> > You shouldn't. For the bulk of the last two centuries most libertarians (ie
> > the anarchists) have also been socialists (and revolutionary socialists at
> > that). The form of libertarianism (right libertarianism, the idiocy of Ayn
> > Rand) found in the present day USA (and on the internet, interestingly) is
> > quite anomolous.
>
> And to digress even further, there's very little relationship between
> Ayn Rand's school of thought and what Americans call "libertarian"; the
> real doctors of the latter school are economists like von Mises, von
> Hayek, Rothbard, and Friedman. They picked the label because nobody
> else (in America) was using it, and it resembles the word "liberal", the
> name they ought to have; in America "liberal" is taken by what you call
> "social democracy".
In America the label "libertarian" was still being used by anarchists at
the time that pro-capts decided to appropriate it. While anarchists were
a small group at the time (the absolute nadir in terms of numbers,
probably), they did in fact exist. The term "liberal" changed its
meaning in America because those called "liberals" changed their
opinions.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
Jerry Friedman
"mmcdon" <mmm...@iol.ie> wrote:
> Dwight Thieme <c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote in article
> <82omu7$pu0$2...@dipsy.missouri.edu>...
> > mmcdon (mmm...@iol.ie) wrote:
> >
> > : Dwight Thieme <c36...@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote in article
> > : <82mc8p$aou$1...@dipsy.missouri.edu>...
> > : > Gareth Wilson (gr...@student.canterbury.ac.nz) wrote:
> >
> > : > Good question - would you rather live in a society in which the
upper
> > : > 30% owned 50% of the wealth, or in one with three times the
resources
> > : > but the upper 5% owned 90% of everything?
> >
> > : Not that good a question. Leaving all morality aside, the odds are
very
> > : much better of having a reasonable amount of wealth in the first
> option.
To me, the question is worth asking only if the society with inequality
has far more resources than that.
> > Ah, yes, but it's been my experience that most people think they're
> > in the top 10 - 20% in the category of various competencies.
Except for music and public speaking. Also, I wonder whether that's
true when you're talking about money rather than competencies. I've
known some very rich people who called themselves "middle-class".
>
> What makes you think that the wealthiest 5% of the population are in
the
> top 5% "in the category of various competencies"?
What makes you think he thought that?
Matt Austern
> Well, the people who introduced me to Marxism in 1972 had been calling
> the Soviet Union and its clones 'state capitalist' since 1948, and
> something less complimentary before then.
>
> As I've said before, most people who regarded the SU et al as socialist
> back then still regard them as having been socialist, and most of the
> people who now say they were never socialist have been saying that all
> along.
What about people who think that the USSR was once socialist but that
it ceased to be socialist at some point? I don't think I've ever met
anyone like that, but it's a logically consistent position. I can
even think of various events you could point to for the magic cutoff:
Lenin's New Economic Policy, the doctrine of "Socialism in One
Country", and so on.
mmcdon
> On Thu, 09 Dec 1999 02:50:15 GMT, "mmcdon" <mmm...@iol.ie> wrote:
>
> >Steve Parker <spar...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
> ><itro4skhkqmt0ohhe...@4ax.com>...
> >> 8) I find it weird that LeGuin's characters kept lumping > Socialists
> >> and Libertarians together.
> >
> >You shouldn't. For the bulk of the last two centuries most libertarians
(ie
> >the anarchists) have also been socialists (and revolutionary socialists
at
> >that). The form of libertarianism (right libertarianism, the idiocy of
Ayn
> >Rand) found in the present day USA (and on the internet, interestingly)
is
> >quite anomolous.
>
> Ayn Rand may well have been nuts in many ways, though her political
> and economic views are not, in my opinion, as nuts as, say, the views
> of socialist libertarians. But it's simply absurd to suggest that the
> American free-market libertarian movement is wholly derived from her.
And I don't suggest any such thing. The piece above "(Right Libertarianism,
the idiocy of Ayn Rand)" should be read as "(Right Libertarianism AND the
Idiocy of Ayn Rand)" not "(Right Libertarianism OTHERWISE KNOWN AS the
idiocy of Ayn Rand)". Sorry about the unclearness.
mmcdon
<3859828a...@news.prodigy.net>...> >Of course they don't. It failed! Nor do any _present day_ Marxists
> >embrace Pol Pot and the government of Cambodia, or North Vietnam, or
> >North Korea. Because it's quite obvious that those regimes,
> >particularly Cambodia's, were, or are, as the case may be, murderous
> >that they were, indeed, faithful to Marx's vision.
>
> long articles (or reviews) of it. It seems to be quite a damning
> indictment of basically every single attempt to implement any variety
> of communism at a country-size scale.
The Black Book is merely a Cold Warrior hangover, with a bit of academic
money grabbing and career building thrown in for good measure. Read it
(rather than reviews). Then read how some of it's authors disagree with
it's editorial line. Then read some rather more serious histories of the
places involved. Then check how many of it's claims don't check out when
someone follows the footnotes to their sources. The Black Book *could* have
been interesting and useful, instead it is a pointless and inaccurate
attempt to find 100 million victims of "communism".
mmcdon
Martin Ripa <ar...@iol.cz> wrote in article
<3850618...@news.informatik.uni-bremen.de>...
> On Thu, 09 Dec 1999 02:50:15 GMT, in rec.arts.sf.written
> >> and Libertarians together.
> >
> >You shouldn't. For the bulk of the last two centuries most libertarians
(ie
> >the anarchists) have also been socialists
>
> been pro-capitalist.
All liberals still are pro-capitalist. American liberals want "capitalism
with a friendly face", classic liberals want straightforward capitalism.
> Now this word means something absolutely different in US > and
> Europe.
> IOW, you leftists started it.
> Give back liberalism and we will return libertarianism.
I don't *have* liberalism, and I sure as hell don't *want* libertarianism.
:-)
> >(and revolutionary socialists at
> >that). The form of libertarianism (right libertarianism, the idiocy of
Ayn
> >Rand)
>
> I disagree with Marxism, but I would never call it an
> idiocy.
> One could be very intelligent (like Ayn Rand or Karl Marx)
> and still wrong.
I know, but I would still argue that Ayn Rand's thought was "an idiocy".
There have been superior thinkers within the right libertarian tradition.
mmcdon
> "mmcdon" <mmm...@iol.ie> wrote:
> >Well, at least we're agreed on something. I think we may have had this
bit
> >of the discussion before... astonishment at the possibility that anybody
> >without a vested interest in the matter could possibly entertain the
> >arguments of the Martian "Reds".
>
> This is my problem (one of many) with Marxists and
> Objectivists. They could not stomach that someone could be
> wrong (ie. to disagree with them) without being bribed,
> brainwashed, absolutely depraved or just hopelessly stupid.
Not quite. I can accept that many people disagree with me without being any
of the above. I find it much harder to accept that many people hold to a
*plainly stupid* viewpoint without being one of the above. I would place
the Martian "Reds" in the above category.
Pete McCutchen
<k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The course of production in the present world economy isn't
>significantly affected by the markets in antiques and curios.
Have you ever heard of "Restoration Hardware" stores? It's a
relatively new chain here in the US, but basically they sell furniture
and other doodads with an old-fashioned antique "feel" to them. Maybe
jars and door knockers and even chairs, tables, and chests aren't a
huge part of the "world economy." But the market in these goods have
clearly been affected by the craze for antiques and curios.
At least in the US, that is.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
>> Ayn Rand may well have been nuts in many ways, though her political
>> and economic views are not, in my opinion, as nuts as, say, the views
>> of socialist libertarians. But it's simply absurd to suggest that the
>> American free-market libertarian movement is wholly derived from her.
>
>And I don't suggest any such thing. The piece above "(Right Libertarianism,
>the idiocy of Ayn Rand)" should be read as "(Right Libertarianism AND the
>Idiocy of Ayn Rand)" not "(Right Libertarianism OTHERWISE KNOWN AS the
>idiocy of Ayn Rand)". Sorry about the unclearness.
OK.
--
Pete McCutchen
Dwight Thieme
: Jerry Friedman said:
: >Could you say a little more about why you think this famine would occur?
: The essential problem with a command economy is that by dispensing with the
: market, it dispenses with the cheapest and easiest signalling system to let
: producers know how much the consumers need and consumers how much the economy
: can provide. Producers also have no real incentive to produce any more than the
: minimum needed to avoid punishment; consumers have no incentive not to consume
: as much as they can grab without being punished either.
: Essentially, a command economy has to set quotas for production and ration
: consumption. But to do this from the top down is very difficult, since there
: are incentives at every level ot cheat, requiring some sort of secret police
: organization to enforce the quotas and rationing (and prevent the formation of
: a black market).
Your essential problem is significant only inasmuch as you seem to place
a primary importance on being on the production frontier. There are
good reasons for not wanting to be there, though ymmv. For example, if
lazy old me suddenly hasd my salary rasied to 100K/yr based on a fifty-
week hourly wage, I'd probably cut my hours to half-time :-) I have a
brother who grosses 120K a year (he owns his own print shop), but he puts
in 60+ hours/wk, complains bitterly about poor people, and treats his
employees badly. Still, he is on the cutting edge.
Ike
K. Laisathit
Ken MacLeod <k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>He distinguished between 'the lower stage of communism' and the 'higher
>stage of communism' on the basis how consumer goods would be allocated.
>In the lower stage it would be by some non-monetary equivalent of wages,
>in the higher stage it would be by free access.
Heh, Iain Bank's post-scarcity Culture, perhaps? Sounds like Marx
was writing a serious science fiction back then, eh? =)
Later...
Dan Clore
I've come across exactly such. Some Stalinists who believe that
Khrushchev sold out socialism (Stalin's real socialism "in one country"
-- which happened to be an empire, of course) in favor of state
capitalism. Not only that, but some of the group are either former
inhabitants of the old USSR or descendents of such. I have to add that
they're also the wackiest bunch of nuts I've ever come across.
Pete McCutchen
<jfried...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> Is this anything like the kibbutzim model of organization, and did
>> LeGuin use them as a model? If so, from what I hear these days,
>> a big question in Isreal is 'How do you keep them down on the
>kibbutz?'
>
>This one's solved very conveniently on Anarres--there's no other place
>to go. Pressure against going to Urras is extremely strong (much too
>strong in the opinion of our hero).
But that makes it even worse. Free entry and exit means that those
who don't find the communitarian life bearable can leave. Barriers to
exit mean that those who find communitarianism unpalatable are forced
to stay.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<jfried...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <19991209020615...@ng-xa1.aol.com>,
> jsba...@aol.com (Jordan S. Bassior) wrote:
>> Jerry Friedman said:
>>
>> >Could you say a little more about why you think this famine would
>occur?
>>
>> The essential problem with a command economy is that by dispensing
>with the
>> market, it dispenses with the cheapest and easiest signalling system
>to let
>> producers know how much the consumers need and consumers how much the
>economy
>> can provide
>
>Well, food seems like a fairly simple one. I think the problem of how
>much land to plant with what crops has been solved, and the solution is
>just as accessible to governments as to agribusinesses. (Anarres has
>crops and fishing, apparently including fish farming, but no
>land livestock.) No doubt distribution is the harder problem. But
>still, in a market system, if you own a store that's running low on
>food, you order it from a giant agribusiness or food-processing
>conglomerate. On Anarres, you order it from the government. I don't
But Jerry, Annares is an anarchy. There is no government from whom to
order.
It's possible to make decisions and to distribute goods via either a
market or a command economy. As an empirical matter, I think that a
market economy works a lot better, but, even so, a command economy
does get something done. But LeGuin claims that Annarres has neither
a command economy nor a market economy. Which I don't believe is
possible, unless you're talking about a kibbutz or similar small-scale
outfit where everybody can just sit around in a room and make
decisions together. (In which case, it's a command economy in which
"the government" and 'the citizenry" are the same group.)
>see a big difference. Maybe I need to read von Mises.
Always a good idea. He's pretty dense, but well worth it.
>
>> Producers also have no real incentive to produce any more
>than the
>> minimum needed to avoid punishment; consumers have no incentive not to
>consume
>> as much as they can grab without being punished either.
>
>This is where Le Guin differs from market economists. Shevek tries to
>read capitalistic economics and finds it very depressing (and
>frightening, though he won't admit that to himself). The depressing
>part is that people assumed to act out of nothing but greed, laziness,
>and (something else--fear?). To him people work because of the human
>impulse to do productive work.
One of the more amusing parts of the book is when he discovers that
profit really is sufficient motive to get people to work.
>
>I don't know whether this claim can be empirically verified. However,
>there is some evidence--the tremendous amount of volunteer and hobby
>work that goes on (and since we're talking about agriculture, I might
>point out that the most popular hobby in the U.S. is gardening).
Sure. People do stuff for fun, or for the satisfaction it brings
them.
But I don't think that gardening is the best example of your case,
since gardening in the US, and, I assume, the UK, is a thoroughly
propertarian enterprise. I have to wonder whether all those gardeners
would work quite so hard if all their food were tossed into a common
pot and then distributed equally. If I grow tomatoes in my backyard
garden, I get to eat the profits, or at least give them away to
friends.
In fact, during the last stages of late-USSR, some people estimated
that 80-90% of the food was grown on the small private plots that
everybody was allocated, in addition to the much larger collective
farms. If so, it certainly demonstrates the inferiority of a command
economy to a market economy.
>
>A real test would have to be in a system where people don't think pay is
>the reason to work. On Anarres, as people have pointed out elsewhere in
>this thread, there's a lot of indoctrination and social pressure for
>work and especially against hoarding and production and consumption of
>luxuries (which are called "excremental").
Yup. They have socialized people to think there's some virtue in
living in poverty. In a way, LeGuin actually predicted the future
course of socialist thought. These days, few socialist (except for
Clore) actually think that it's more efficient or productive; instead
they argue for socialism for various spiritual reasons. Quite ironic,
actually, since the socialist movement for so long masqueraded as
being practical and efficient.
>>
>> Essentially, a command economy has to set quotas for production and
>ration
>> consumption. But to do this from the top down is very difficult, since
>there
>> are incentives at every level ot cheat, requiring some sort of secret
>police
>> organization to enforce the quotas and rationing (and prevent the
>formation of
>> a black market).
>
>I don't see why the police need to be secret. Companies have to prevent
>their employees from cheating (goofing off), but their methods aren't
>secret.
>
>On Anarres, there are no punishments except public opinion. A
Yes. The question is whether that's good enough. Suppose that a few
of my disaffected friends and I go off and form our own enterprise
based on Propertarian principles? What do the Annarens do? My guess
is that they would need to organize a mob to attack us.
--
Pete McCutchen
Steve Parker
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>But Jerry, Annares is an anarchy. There is no government from whom to
>order.
There's kind of a government. There's a supply-distributor committee,
and a job-posting committee, both of which have tremendous amounts of
power. Granted they don't seem to use it much, but..... There's also
that committee at the end of the book that more-or-less forbids Shevek
to go to Urras. Granted none of these are a government, but it's clear
that they've got the foundations of one. Check out the beginning of
chap. 12. Annares has (or is close to having) a de-facto
government...and not a particularly benign one.
Steve
--
Hugo-Reviews Page (with cover scans) at
http://www.mindspring.com/~sparker9/home2.html
Michael Brazier
>
> As I've said before, most people who regarded the SU et al as socialist
> back then still regard them as having been socialist, and most of the
> people who now say they were never socialist have been saying that all
> along.
There is, however, one well-defined set of people who once regarded the
Soviet Union as "socialist" but today would rather forget they ever did
so. I refer to the "fellow travelers": the comfortable and
self-deluding "liberal"/"social democrat" who casually equated
"socialist" with "good" without any real thought, and who echoed the
real socialists' arguments without understanding them.
But if we confine ourselves to people who put serious thought into their
political positions, we won't find that kind of inconsistency.
--
Michael Brazier But what are all these vanities to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?
X^2 + 7X + 53 = 11/3
-- Lewis Carroll
Michael Brazier
>
> Well, food seems like a fairly simple one. I think the problem of how
> much land to plant with what crops has been solved, and the solution is
> just as accessible to governments as to agribusinesses.
Except it isn't. Agriculture turns out to be the great weakness of all
command economies, the one thing they simply can't do. I think this is
because farming land depends strongly on local knowledge, and is very
difficult to standardize; there are few economies of scale in it, and
command economies do best in fields where there are many economies of
scale.