Ursula K. Le Guin Calls on Fantasy and Sci Fi Writers to Envision Alternatives to Capitalism

[KamaAina]

http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/ursula-k-le-guin-calls-on-sci-fi-and-fantasy-writers-to-envision-alternatives-to-capitalism

In November 2014 science fiction and fantasy writer Ursala K. Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation’s medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

In her acceptance speech she called out publishers for turning literature into a commodity and charging libraries ridiculously high rates for books and e-books. Le Guin also explained how authors, especially fantasy writers, have a special opportunity to stand up to the corporate system because they can portray a world very different from the one we currently live in.

“We live in capitalism,” said Le Guin, “Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” It’s up to authors, she explains in the video below, to spark the imagination of their readers and to help them envision alternatives to how we live.

She herself did so in The Dispossessed, set on the Earth-like planet Urras and its moon Anarres. Anarres had been given a few centuries earlier to the collectivist Odonian Movement. Urras was divided into nations that parodied the powers of the time: ultra-capitalist and super-sexist A-Io, complete with grinding poverty (USA) and warlike, totalitarian Thu (USSR), as well as a few Third World-like nations such as Benbili, which was "always having revolutions".

[demmiblue]

1. Interesting!

Bookmarked to read later.

[LWolf]

2. I love this woman.

It was an honor to hear her speak, and get to talk to her for a bit, a few years back.

[hifiguy]

3. She has been ahead of the curve for decades

even for a science fiction writer.

[Hekate]

4. LeGuin is an astute political writer. Thanks for bringing this in. nt

[Fairgo]

5. I've been looking

For something new to put on the nightstand. Thanks!

[MH1]

11. The Dispossessed is a must-read.

[myrna minx]

6. K&R!

[NobodyHere]

7. I wonder how much money she has made from capitalism

[PETRUS]

14. Better questions.

How were the proceeds from economic activity related to her work distributed? What sort of external costs were generated and who is paying for those? The answers to those questions would be more interesting.

[LWolf]

19. +1

[hunter]

18. That's a religious question, and the religion is capitalism.

It's rather along the lines of a fundamentalist asking "how can one be an ethical person if one doesn't believe in God?" Fom that perspective God wrote the rules and we follow them as best we can and end up in heaven or burning in hell, right?

Capitalism is not the cornucopia of all things, in fact, like other fundamentalist religions and ideologies, it often brings upon us great evil.

[valerief]

8. Does it have to include heroes and dragons? I hope not. nt

[scarletwoman]

9. Ursula Le Guin is a treasure. She has written some of the most amazing stories ever.

I think I've read most of what's she's written, but it's The Left Hand of Darkness that particularly stands out in my memory - it totally blew my mind back when I read it. I remember The Dispossessed, too - so intricate and thought-provoking.

Of course, all her writing is thought-provoking. I know I'm a richer person for having read her.

[KamaAina]

12. The Left Hand of Darkness was so completely minimalist

it would have been interesting to see what, say, a Swedish filmmaker might have done with it. Not nearly as much of a political message as The Dispossessed, though.

(n00bs: The Left Hand of Darkness is set entirely on an ice field that two people are attempting against the odds to cross.)

[scarletwoman]

15. Maybe not as overt a political message as "The Dispossed", however

reading it back in the early 70s, as the Feminist movement was building up, it certainly felt political to me. A human male encountering a race of people whose genders change back and forth between female and male - I was totally awestruck at the time.

Excerpt:

"And I saw then again, and for good, what I had always been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in him: that he was a woman as well as a man. Any need to explain the sources of that fear vanished with the fear; what I was left with was, at last, acceptance of him as he was."

[KamaAina]

20. I completely missed that

and I'm pretty sure I read it after my feminist awakening in the early '90s.

[Fritz Walter]

16. Indeed

Here's a clip of one national treasure interviewing another.
It's focused on bringing The Lathe of Heaven to the small screen.
The original (better) version. The remake is not worth discussing!

[seveneyes]

10. Tax the Rich

[Augiedog]

13. How about

Capitalists actually behaving like capitalists and earning their way in this world. I'm sick and tired of business owners sucking off the societal tit and claiming "I made it". If your business takes one nickel in government largess, you didn't 'make it'. Yer just another sucubus, big or small and are dragging America into the dirt.

[hunter]

17. She's had a rather large influence on my thinking about politics and the economy.

I always have a process running in the back of my mind asking "How do we move beyond money?"

[LittleBlue]

21. I don't think one exists

Every other system, when implemented, has only created widespread poverty. Capitalism was the first and only system that ultimately lifted a large chunk of the world from poverty.

The fundamental nature of human beings would need to change before capitalism can be replaced.

[PETRUS]

22. Nothing in your post is true. nt

[LittleBlue]

23. Everything I wrote is true. You don't know our own history

Find me one other system that has granted us anything like what we enjoy today. There isn't one. Capitalism and science lifted us from a medieval existence to a level of wealth and technology that our ancestors from a mere 300 years ago could never have dreamed.

98% of those people lived on the same wages that people lived on in the 1500s, the 1300s, the 900s, it doesn't matter. We all lived at the edge of starvation and death until the technological miracle of industrialization. That was only possible by capitalism

[PETRUS]

24. You made two assertions.

Although I'm not a fan, Mao's program lifted more people out of poverty in a shorter amount of time than any other system ever has. (Also, capitalism's record on poverty is mixed - it has lifted people out of monetary poverty but thrown others into abject poverty.)

Human nature probably hasn't changed much over the millennia, but the systems in place now were unimaginable in the past. There is no reason to think something else isn't possible.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. The reduction in poverty in China happened after Mao

As already mentioned, the most impressive reductions occurred in China.
Since 1979, China’s economy has experienced high and sustained growth following
successful land and economic reforms. Over the last 25 years, China
successfully moved from agriculture to manufacturing activities and saw an
annual trend of real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of just under 10 per
cent (Ghosh, 2008a). China’s manufacturing sector doubled its share of the
workforce and tripled its share of output. The rate of extreme poverty at the
national level declined from a high of 84 per cent in 1981 to a low of 16 per
cent in 2005. The decline occurred in both rural and urban areas: the rural
poverty rate fell from 94 to 26 per cent and the urban poverty rate fell from
45 to less than 2 per cent during this period.

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2010/chapter2.pdf

Arguably. the difference was that China turned to capitalism in that period.

[PETRUS]

28. Both things are true.

An enormous number of people were lifted out of poverty under Mao, and more rapid expansion of GDP happened later.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. How many were lifted out under Mao?

If 84% were in extreme poverty shortly after he died, and 16% by 2005, it would seem that a far larger number were lifted out after him than under him.

[PETRUS]

32. That's a fair question.

And I don't have a ready answer, as my initial comment was based on a recollection of a study I read more than ten years ago. I do know that the population grew significantly faster during the last two decades of Mao's reign than it did before or since, so undoubtedly that's a factor. I also have misgivings about how we measure poverty, since it's possible for someone with little money to provide a better existence for themselves than someone with more - pushing more people and a greater portion of our lives into market transactions doesn't necessarily correspond to an improvement in living standards (or general well-being, which is a subjective and personal judgement), but it will move the needle in a way that appeals to subscribers of the currently dominant ideology. I don't know if you read the whole subthread but I really have no interest in defending Mao, I just found the other person's comment to be both shallow and not entirely correct.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. But the thing is that post-1981 China might be called 'capitalist'

in which case capitalism would get the credit for the numbers. From the UN report (which is as neutral a definition of poverty as we're going to get), we have the percentage of China that was notin extreme poverty, and from the Wikipedia population figures:
1981 16.0% of 994 million = 159 million
1990 39.8% of 1135 million = 452 million
2005 84.1% of 1304 million = 1096 million

So a maximum of 159 million were lifted out of poverty under Maoism (roughly pre-1981; that's assuming that the entire population were in extreme poverty at the end of the civil war, which probably isn't far off the truth); nearly 300 million in the next 9 years; and over 600 million in the next 15 years.

[PETRUS]

34. A few things:

I notice that you're referencing only "extreme poverty," which is a technical definition subject to some dispute. If we're going to be thorough, we should also consider other measures - and you haven't commented on my observation that these statistics only reveal so much.

More importantly, I don't have access to the study I read years ago so I can't really comment on its methodology (my recollection is that it talked about caloric intake and access to medicine and the main takeaway included the short time frame during which conditions changed) and how that compares to the statistics you're quoting. So it's difficult for me to argue from it - and it would be rational of you to doubt it - but I do have reason to challenge the other poster's belief.

As a final thought, I think this subject is complex and involves too many interacting variables to draw the simple conclusion offered by the other person. Can we say whether industrial revolution happen because of capitalism? Are we making any attempt to include the downsides to all this - the rise of abject and relative poverty, accounting for external costs with impacts yet to be felt (e.g. climate change and other negative environmental impacts) - in our calculations? I find it both irresponsible and dishonest to say capitalism is the bestest and that people will never come up with a preferable alternative.

[LittleBlue]

26. The greatest modern movement out of poverty came in the last 30 years

when Mao's policies were abandoned in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping for capitalism



capitalism


Mao caused millions of deaths and over a billion people to languish in poverty when they should have been the dominant global economy. He held more people back than any single man in history

[PETRUS]

30. Two things.

See post #28.

If we're going to talk about the downsides of any particular political/economic institutions, the history of capitalism doesn't look particularly rosy either.

As I said, I don't care for Mao's China - my point isn't to defend that, just to be clear about the very specific and narrow topic of poverty, which you brought up; and to question your lack of imagination about future possibilities.

[libdem4life]

27. Might I suggest Democratic Socialism? We already have it with the schools, and libraries and

municipalities and insurance and many more. Bernie just wants to expand on those services and insure that all Americans are paying their fair share of taxes...it's not tax the rich, that's bull, it's get them to pay their fair share...that and raising the SS age limit would likely finance our leftward shift to...more Democratic Socialism. Not either-or, but yes-and.

[Scootaloo]

31. Tough sell

I have a shelf or ten full of Sci-Fi, an the overwhelming trend there is Randian "rugged individualism" paired with monetary self-interest.

I think it's a combination of the genre's explosion during the cold war, the overwhelmingly male gender of its authorship, and simple inertia from that point - "Asimov and Heinlein wrote like this, so I should write like this!"

Doesn't render it unreadable (in most cases) but it definitely sticks out like a sore thumb once you start seeing it.