From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Tue Jun 26 2007 - 12:51:21 EDT
Hi Paul C and Jurriaan: [PC wrote] > I was also influenced by the Disposesed when working on > the economics of socialism. What ideas specifically did you find useful in her book? The divlab (division of labor) computer sounds like a workable idea, but even Lu Guin recognizes that it wouldn't necessarily be the most efficient means for allocating labor. Furthermore, there were conflicts in the book over that issue with some of the central characters. Marx referred to a "free association of workers" but not too many Marxists contemplate the meaning of that, I believe. [JB wrote} > One of the contributions of anarchist thinking is its emphasis on > interpretive freedom, i.e. the idea that you do not have to interpret > everything as other people do or believe, which opens up a realm of > personal imagination and independent thought. That may be the source of the somewhat meatphysical theory of physics suggested in the book. > What impressed me most about the novel when I read it in 1976 was the > possibility that the processes, interactions and relationships involved > in giving and receiving, obtaining and taking, sharing and > relinquishing - > central to economics, but also the means through which human love is > expressed - could be successfully organised in a completely different > way. > Intriguingly, in pursuing his idea, the character Shevek meets with > forces > which are internally corrupting the "utopia" of Anarres - forces of > conservatism, bureaucratism and centralism - yet it remains > dissatisfyingly unclear, what ultimately gives rise to those forces. In > Anarres, there is no government oppression or inequality, but > individuality is stifled and creativity devalued, <snip> That's one reason why I think it's not exactly in either the utopian or disupopian traditions. What gives rise to the forces? Even after 150 years and the creation of a new society and language, "egoism" still might exist. Pride, vanity, jealosy, fear of mediocrity, etc. wouldn't necessarily "wither away" completely, would they? Le Guin suggests that much of this is caused by the conditions of extreme hardship and the simple need for social survival. In some ways, the conditions were not unlike the civil war period in the USSR (although the settlers were _allowed_ to relocate to Annares and there were no invasions from great powers that they had to deal with). One tension which I don't think Le Guin really addressed satisfactorily is that the anarchist society was based upon the teachings of an *authority figure* (Odo) and many of the arguments in "Odonian" society seem to be addressed by an appeal to this long dead authority figure. I think there was even a statue of her on Annarres, if I recall correctly. Yet, if anarchism is anything it is anti-authoritarian. In solidarity, Jerry Gloucester, headed N
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