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

[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".