One of the major criticisms levelled at anarchism as a political philosophy is that it is
utopian. Many would argue that this is a misunderstanding of anarchism, that the basis
for an anarchist society does not rely on naivety, impracticality or a simplistic and
overly positive view of humanity. I want to argue that this is a misunderstanding of
utopianism. Of course anarchism is utopian. Anybody who thinks their own ideology is not
utopian either hasn?t thought it through properly or, for some reason, wants to live in a
society that?s doomed to inequality, misery and eventual self-destruction. And anybody
who thinks utopianism is simplistic, impractical or naive clearly hasn?t read enough
utopian fiction.
There are a plethora of distant worlds that can boast anarchist societies as complex, as
pragmatic, as inspired and inspiring, as troubled and as troubling as any historical or
contemporary earth-bound revolution, and they all have utopian characteristics.
Then again, those critics may have a point when it comes to some of the 19th Century
utopias (e.g. William Morris? News from Nowhere, H.G. Wells? A Modern Utopia, Edward
Bellamy?s Looking Backward), but as a science fiction reader I have a greater criticism to
level against these than their naivety or even their comically dire gender politics:
they?re really dull stories. Which isn?t to say they aren?t interesting utopias. As
portraits of the utopian ideals of anarchists and socialists of the time, they?re a
fascinating insight, and there?s plenty that?s still relevant in their lengthy and
technical explanations of the organisation of labour and property. But in terms of plot,
character and a sense of place with more depth and veracity than the stage set for a
school pantomime, they pretty much fail. Take News from Nowhere, the most anarchist of
these early utopias: it?s a guided tour of a pre-industrial pastoral idyll, with no
nations or borders, no heavy industry or money, all produce shared freely, all objects
beautiful and practical works of artisanship, where the words ?work? and ?play? mean much
the same thing. Fair enough, as holiday brochures go. I?m sold on the week?s stay, but
if I?m looking to take up residence in a utopia I generally want to dig a bit deeper and
cast a more cynical eye. I might ask questions like: ?What happens if the harvest
fails??, ?What if a natural disaster requires the speedy need for mass-produced tools and
shelters?? and ?If child-rearing and home-making are such highly respected, rewarding
professions, haven?t any of these sexually free and socially emancipated women ever
wondered why there aren?t any men doing them?? There?s something about those unflappably
amiable, instant responses the tour guide has to all the protagonist?s questions that
suggests a script, or at least a party line, recited by rote and possibly under threat.
You want the protagonist to, just once, say something like: ?I don?t buy it, beardy. It?s
too perfect, and the ?work is play? crap sounds distinctly Orwellian to me. Put down the
exquisitely carved pipe and tell me where they?re hiding the gulags.?
This might be a little unfair. News from Nowhere was written to explain how an anarchist
society can be productive and stable in the conditions of the time and place it was
written, not to explore its responses when faced with environmental crisis or massive
social change. But you?ve got to admit, answering those questions would make it a much
more interesting novel. The utopias that really capture our imaginations are those that
are less concerned with the solutions an anarchist society can offer than the problems it
might face.
If you?re wondering whether a story exploring problems within an anarchist society is
really a utopia, let?s do definitions. The word ?Utopia?, coined by Thomas More, comes
from a pun on the Greek for ?no place? and ?good place?. So really, the essential
qualities of a utopia are just that there?s something desirable about the society, and
that it doesn?t exist. Anybody who thinks that establishing a better society will
instantly bring blissful contentment to all is destined to spend the revolution forcibly
re-educating dissenters (and until then, they?ll probably be selling you The Socialist
Worker). A utopia doesn?t have to be a flawless place, where day to day problems are
entirely eliminated. It?s about demonstrating an alternative and preferable way of
living. You can do that with a guided tour of a perfect society, but it?s more
interesting and more persuasive to show how that society deals with imperfection and
conflict, both from within and without.
Iain M. Banks sets his Culture novels in a context that gives his advanced anarchist
society something to kick against, namely a universe full of distinctly less utopian
societies. The Culture is post-scarcity, high-tech, wish-fulfilment utopianism at its
most decadent. Resources are near infinite, labour is unnecessary, and infallible
sentient computers (the Minds) with a wry sense of humour and impeccable ethical judgement
ensure the smooth running of all environments. The enhanced humanoid residents of The
Culture?s many worlds have nothing to fill their near-immortal existences except for
games, sex, drugs, the pursuit of intellectual and creative fulfilment, and interference
in the development of other societies. This last is the job of an organisation known as
Contact, a popular career choice with those who remain strangely unsatisfied by the
literally limitless opportunities The Culture has to offer, and take to the stars to see
and ultimately save less fortunate worlds. These are the most interesting characters, as
their stories tell us most about The Culture itself, and about our own ambivalence towards
utopianism. We fear and mistrust perfection even as we strive for it, because it will
ultimately leave us with nothing to strive for, no jeopardy to brave, no cause to defend,
no meaning to our existence. The Culture, like Nowhere, is a static society, but unlike
Morris? utopia it isn?t merely holding itself in place with a distaste for further
development, it has reached the peak of its possibilities ? of all possibilities ? and has
nowhere to go. This is the problem that leads to the restlessness of those who join
Contact, and who then struggle with the ethical dilemma of what they do, of whether the
worlds they visit even want to be saved, of whether they are, in fact, saving them or
dooming them to their own state of existential stasis. It would all be quite angsty if it
weren?t for the humour of the Minds, who inhabit armed spaceships that can be as large as
planets and give themselves names like Prosthetic Conscience, Of Course I Still Love You,
You?ll Thank Me Later, Jaundiced Outlook, Frank Exchange Of Views, Honest Mistake, Zero
Gravitas and God Told Me To Do It.
Don?t be fooled by the presence of warships and conflict into thinking this is a trick
utopia. There are no false walls here, and the Minds are not secretly megalomaniacal
controllers who keep humanity enslaved in luxury for their own ends. They are,
themselves, complex and sympathetic (if somewhat ineffable) characters, as caught up in
the ethical dilemmas of utopian life as their human companions. While some of them can be
manipulative, they seem to be genuinely trying not to be, though they?re so much more
intelligent and aware of action and consequence than their organic friends they can hardly
help it. The point of this anarchist utopia is not that there?s some ignored power
relation at work that compromises its integrity, or even that you can have too much of a
good thing. It?s a more subtle and complex message about inertia and entropy, of the
nature of power and privilege, and the need for change and development, personal and
societal, even in the face of seeming perfection.
At the other end of the scale is Anarres, a scarcity society set on a near-desert moon in
Ursula Le Guin?s universe of the Ekumen. It is most fully explored in The Dispossessed,
which is subtitled ?An Ambiguous Utopia?. Anarres is neither the simple idyll of Morris?
Nowhere nor the paradise of Banks? Culture. An isolated community, self-exiled from its
capitalist neighbour Urras, the Anarresti have built their utopia in far from ideal
conditions. This anarchist society suffers famines, labour shortages and social
upheavals, and has plenty of technological development still to strive for. Because we
see Shevek both growing up on Anarres and explaining his homeworld to those he meets on
Urras, there are some good, clear demonstrations of how labour, property, security, family
and institutional decision-making work in a world without money or leaders. There are
easy parallels to draw with our own world?s revolutions and the founding of Anarres, which
reflects the society many Russian revolutionaries envisaged, and might have built if they
weren?t trapped in the context of a capitalist economy. Even the language and names sound
a little bit Russian. It?s a great utopia for showing how anarchism can build a society
as stable as any other system, but also how isolation and ideological orthodoxy breed
stagnation, and the importance of revolution as a social value, not a one-off event or a
means to an end.
For all these reasons, The Dispossessed tends to be the go-to utopian novel for anarchists
trying to explain to the cynical how a society without money or authority could actually
work. We see a society in which children are taught from the earliest age that they can?t
keep possessions to themselves (though there?s little for them to keep) but are free to do
as they choose (and there?s much for them to do.) They learn together through play and
discussion, and education continues into adulthood through self-directed research. Work
is not compulsory and resources are not rationed, but contribution to the community and
distaste for excessive consumption are strong social values. Personal freedom and social
duty exist in a balance that is, for the most part, healthy, rational and fulfilling, but
this can change with a bad harvest. The story follows Shevek?s career as a physicist
whose momentous discovery could affect all the known worlds of the Ekumen. His desire to
follow anarchist principles, to avoid propertarianism and unbuild walls, leads him to
Urras, which looks a lot like contemporary western democracy (except for those countries
that look a lot like contemporary state communism). On Anarres, Shevek battles
environmental and social upheavals, informal power structures and the appropriation and
censorship of ideas, and yet the anarchist society still manages to come out favourably in
comparison with Urras, in which the power structures are even less clear to Shevek, and a
great deal more dangerous. Protest and defiance of convention meets with violence on both
worlds, but ultimately both have the possibility of revolution, of growth and change, and
hope for the future.
Nobody does alternative societies better than Le Guin, and she has created a few besides
Anarres that could be viewed as ambiguously anarchist, and more ambiguously utopian. They
tend to get less attention than Anarres, probably because they?re less useful for
anarchists having arguments. They?re interesting, though, for more subtle discussions of
anarchist society and utopianism, ones that explore not the society that anarchists would
necessarily wish to build but the many varieties of anarchist society that are possible,
the many ways in which human societies could reject hierarchy. One of the most acclaimed
is Always Coming Home, but though there is no particular hierarchy of individuals in the
societies of the Kesh, there are a great many customs that dictate social status of
various kinds, and the reliance on the spiritual and the rejection of technology (aside
from some sort of internet that they don?t use much) sends it into a static state. In
this way it would resemble News from Nowhere if it weren?t for its much more sophisticated
investigation of cultural differences and interactions, and its acknowledgement of various
forms of conflict, both personal and societal.
More unusual, and less frequently explored, is the world of Eleven-Soro in the short story
Solitude, a world in which a post-cataclysm society has developed social arrangements that
go to extreme lengths to guard against the mistakes of the past. Any exercise of power by
one person over another is taboo, referred to as ?magic?. This includes any attempt to
manipulate another?s behaviour, to make them feel guilty or duty-bound to follow a course
of action for another?s sake. The men live alone and the women in circles of houses known
as ?auntrings?, where they educate each other?s children but do not enter one another?s
homes and rarely speak to other adult women without good cause, in what seems to be the
ultimate expression of anarchist individualism. Nobody asks for or offers help with any
task, though women are watchful of one another?s health, send their children with food to
the sick and assist each other in childbirth. Only children can ask questions or be
taught anything. No adult tells another what to do, or even offers advice except in the
most roundabout of ways and the direst of circumstances. Looked at as a society,
Eleven-Soro is brutally dystopian (especially for men), but individuals within it can find
a kind of utopia that is achieved through the fulfilment of total self-awareness, becoming
?a self sufficient to itself?, and in many ways the lives of the Sorovians are rich and
happy beyond imagining. It is a strange, sad, beautiful story that consistently
challenges gut responses and judgements on the nature of power and community. I highly
recommend giving it a read, not as a model for an anarchist society but as a challenge to
some of our ideas on interpersonal relationships and social duty.
So which of these societies, if any, comes closest to what we as anarcho-communists aim
for? For me, any society claiming utopian status has to be convincingly resilient; show
that it?s not going to crumble at the first sign of change or challenge; that its systems
are robust enough to undergo cultural, ecological and technological developments without
compromising its ideological foundation. Static societies are neither believable nor
desirable. Who wants to live in a world where nothing ever changes?
This is the mistake many make about utopianism and about revolution. They think it means
embodying an ideal within society and then trying to hold back the tide of human
fallibility and outside influence to preserve that moment of perfection. No wonder so
many people think it?s a completely unrealistic perspective. That kind of utopianism is
not what we strive for, either in life or science fiction. I read utopias and work
towards anarchist communism not because I believe in a perfect world but because I believe
in a better world. The most inspiring and persuasive utopias are the ones that, like
Anarres, don?t just ask, ?Where do we want to be?? or even ?How will be get there?? but
?Where will we go next?? That?s something important for science fiction writers and
activists alike to remember. Revolution is not an event but a process, and utopia is a
journey, not a destination.
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To order a printed copy see details above.
Organise! magazine, issue 81, Winter 2013.
http://www.afed.org.uk
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