[lbo-talk] The Dispossessed

[Max Sawicky]

Visited Baltimore's legendary anarchist bookstore ("Red Emma") a couple of
weeks ago
and on a whim picked up my first Ursula LeGuin novel.  In my old age I've
become mildly
interested in anarchism, though I haven't read much of it.

At any rate this is a marvelous novel.  Science fiction, but no weird aliens
or ray-gun duels.
A very persuasive description of what a functioning anarchist society would
look like, and
all manner of included problems in such a society.  You could take this as a
socialist
society as well, after the state had withered away.  There is a different
socialist planet
in the story but it hardly figures in the action.  The real tension is
between the anarchist
planet and its capitalist ("propertarian") rival.  Le Guin writes as a
partisan but not an
uncritical advocate.

I usually read science fiction for escape, but for good or for ill there is
no escape in
Le Guin's novel.  It takes you right into all the problems we usually talk
about, as well
as those we could encounter if we got everything we wanted.