If I were to list my 10 favorite books there would be one science-fiction novel on that list:
The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.
It tells the story of Shevek who is a physicist on Anarres which is a nonauthoritarian communist society. Theoretically no government. No money. And no laws as such. Shevek travels to the homeworld Urras of which Anarres is a moon to complete his work on a general unified field theory of time. At first a pampered honored guest of the A-Io government he escapes his hosts in order to support a general strike. The government uses military force against the strikers. Shevek manages to escape and survive and eventually seek asylum at the Terran embassy.
The ambassador from Terra says to Shevek:
Perhaps Anarres is the key to Urras… The revolutionists in Nio, they come from that same tradition. They weren’t just striking for better wages or protesting the draft. They are not only socialists, they are anarchists; they were striking against power. You see, the size of the demonstration, the intensity of popular feeling, and the government’s pani reaction, all seemed very hard to understand. Why the commotion? The government here is not despotic. The rich are very rich indeed, but the poor are not so very poor. They are neither enslaved nor starving. Why aren’t they satisfied with bread and speeches? Why are they supersensitive? … Now I begin to see why.
Yes I know. Another political post.
