Isn’t communist society utopian?
Read Engels - Socialism, utopian and scientific, for the modern basis of marxism / scientific socialism, and how its different from the earliest utopian strands of socialism.
In the sense that it seeks to change society, yes. However, Marxist currents of socialism hold strictly to philosophical materialism. Ideas which are too far rooted in ideology and not in real world conditions are considered by marxist theorists to be destined to fail when tested in real life.
Given that the two biggest names in dystopian literature (Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World) are not capitalist futures—assuming one doesn’t use the trivial and meaningless definition “anything I don’t like is capitalism”—this seems a bit of a stretch. I suspect dystopias are more believable than utopias because deep down we all know that human nature is, unless properly guided through social conditioning (the mechanisms of which are as variable as the colours of an autumn forest), a dark, festering kind of place.
Fordism, named for industrialist Henry Ford ,is not capitalist? The whole book is a desciption of capitalist excess and the dumbing down of culture through consumerism. And Orwell was a traitor, but he still fought alongside socialists and identified as one.
Christianity is named for Christ. Do you think Christ (the historical or mythical one, either way) would recognize the beliefs being spewed by Christians as being inspired by him?
Same with Fordism.
There is very little in the novel that is explicitly capitalist. Only capitalist-adjacent, but none of it exclusively adjacent to capitalism.
Mass production was satirized and lampooned with the mass production of models of people. Can you name a socialist state that doesn’t do mass production, however? (Hint: No, you can’t.)
Further down that line of thought, castes of people are certainly capitalist-adjacent … but if someone is telling you that there aren’t castes in socialist states, they’re selling you a pack of lies. (Or do you, to bring in Orwell, believe that in a socialist state a university professor will hang out with coal miners?)
Consumerism is very often associated with capitalism. Except that it is a human universal once a certain level of development is reached and there’s more wealth than is required for subsistence. In the Middle Ages people would buy unnecessary kitsch if they had excess money: to show status, because they thought it was nifty, etc. That’s ur-consumerism rearing its ugly head. That instinct to acquire things with excess wealth has been part and parcel of the human condition before ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ were even words! It’s only with recent wealth (courtesy of the mass production cited earlier) that it’s reached the point of running rampant.
And it runs rampant whether the country is nominally ‘capitalist’ (there are no capitalist nations) or ‘socialist’ (there are no socialist nations). Go visit Taobao and look at consumerism in a nominally ‘socialist’ (there are no socialist nations) nation.
As with Orwell, Huxley’s works are more subtle and sophisticated than its politically shrill advocates (on either side) would have you believe. And they address points entirely unrelated to whether or not the underlying depicted society is ‘socialist’ or ‘capitalist’. Orwell addresses the subject of power and its application and architecture. Huxley addresses the subject of hedonism and its dehumanising influence. They are dystopias because of the erasure of human dignity through these two spheres.
The underlying political structures are, in both cases, almost, but not quite, completely out of scope.
Same with Fordism.
Fordism is a heavy-handed metaphor, not an actual religion with historical nuance. Huxley’s metaphors are obvious as semaphores, even naming his main character Bernard Marx. He wasn’t a socialist, himself, too wrapped up in ideology and esoterism. But he did openly show sympathies to leftist philosophers like Kropotkin, and characterized his collectivist utopian society in The Island as being encroached upon by capitalist oil barons. Characterizing him as pro-modern-economy completely overlooks his drug-influenced orientalist utopian values.
Can you name a socialist state that doesn’t do mass production, however?
Mass production itself is not at issue. Mass production is necessary to maintain modern population density. The issue is in profits, how profits influence resource distribution in a society, excessive waste of goods which are not profitable (mass transit) or cannot reach profitable markets (30% of our food supply goes to waste despite a large portion of the world population suffering from food insecurity), and the accumulation of profits by individuals.
if someone is telling you that there aren’t castes in socialist states, they’re selling you a pack of lies.
I’m not naive enough to believe complete egalitarianism is possible in a transitionary state. But the most powerful ‘despotic’ heads of state in socialist countries have(/had) salaries comparable to the President of the US. Whereas the actual seat of power in western countries, the capitalist class, far outearn public employees to the point of holding 50% of the world’s wealth. Joesph Stalin had nothing on Rockefeller or Bezos. This doesn’t even go into the profit-motive of unpaid labor and slavery which still persist in many supplychains.
Or do you, to bring in Orwell, believe that in a socialist state a university professor will hang out with coal miners?
Would you? I have done both.
That’s ur-consumerism rearing its ugly head.
You’re looking at this from a specifically western point of view. While capitalist-style markets are an outgrowth of feudal economies (particularly the economic philosophy of 16th century Italy), market economies are not the only type of economy. There are numerous archaeological and ethnographic studies showing that this diversity was much greater in Sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the Americas pre-colonization. Asserting that modern economics is a crucible of universal truths is a myth invented by modern ideologues with no imaginations.
The underlying political structures are, in both cases, almost, but not quite, completely out of scope.
Ideas do not come out of a contextless aether. They come out of real places. These men wrote about the societies that they lived in based on their lived experience. Neither of them lived in soviets.
Mass production itself is not at issue. Mass production is necessary to maintain modern population density. The issue is in profits, how profits influence resource distribution in a society, excessive waste of goods which are not profitable (mass transit) or cannot reach profitable markets (30% of our food supply goes to waste despite a large portion of the world population suffering from food insecurity), and the accumulation of profits by individuals.
Absolutely agreed. Now re-read Brave New World and note the following:
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While there was money, it acted more as a way to induce consumerism (the real target of Huxley’s ire). As I noted earlier, Huxley’s beef was with hedonism and how it dehumanizes. He lampoons the capitalist-adjacent (but not capitalist-exclusive) focus on consumerism as it leads to empty hedonism.
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But at the same time the economy was strongly central-controlled which is pretty much the precise opposite of capitalism. (This is why I repeated several times ‘there are no capitalist countries’ and ‘there are no socialist countries’ in my earlier rant: there is not a society on the planet that’s pure-anything.)
Huxley’s satire is far more subtle and more pointed than ideologues who read it seem to be able to perceive. Right-wing types read it as a condemnation of socialism because they see the command economy. Left-wing types read it as a condemnation of capitalism because they see the consumerism. The truth is he sticks a shiv into both systems while working at his main thesis: that the best means to control is hedonism.
Ideas do not come out of a contextless aether.
Of course they don’t! Which is why, as I pointed out above, the right and left both read both books and see something completely different. From their respective contexts Orwell and Huxley are lampooning socialism (the right’s readers) and capitalism/fascism (the left’s readers). And the reason is that Orwell and Huxley both lampoon either hedonism (Huxley) or authoritarianism (Orwell) without explicit reference to actual political or economic systems. They are doing the 禅 thing of overturning the question of which political or economic system is best by answering 无: in effect “unasking” the question by pointing to the things they thought were the real concerns.
Orwell’s and Huxley’s worlds both are strongly centrally-planned economies. Socialist, in a word. Huxley’s world, however, is rooted in consumerism, castes, and hedonism, very strongly capitalist-adjacent with a smattering of feudal or worse (via the castes). Orwell’s is rooted in intense, iron-fisted control of information and, by extension people, which is primarily fascist (a.k.a. hyper-capitalist) in model. So it is hyper-simplistic to say that they’re criticising ‘capitalism’ when at the core of both stories is a strongly socialist feature, don’t you think?
If we’re going to be honest. I don’t really care what either of them wrote about. They were both cranks whose works became enshrined by neoliberals and then led to nothing of note. I only talked about them to stay in context.
The reason I think this whole conversation is silly is that you’re attempting to steer it toward these model societies that a. don’t exist b. by your word are complete fabrications of the authors.
In following this assertion, one cannot examine the intrinsic and inseperable social relationship between an economy and the political system that supports it. You call dialectical materialism pure ideology, yet this thought experiment is like examining the power structures in Harry Potter. It’s a complete waste of time.
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And Orwell was a traitor
“If I don’t agree with a socialist, he doesn’t count as one”
I mostly disagree with him ratting out fellow leftists to the state’s information wing.
both 1984 and brave new world are about capitalism
Only if you go with the facile “anything I don’t like is capitalism” definition. Nineteen Eighty-Four was very carefully constructed to not be identifiable as any particular economic form because the focus was on authoritarians, not how money was managed. Orwell very carefully drew from the Nazis (capitalism on steroids) but also from Stalinists in crafting the society it was set in. Because, to repeat for emphasis, the point wasn’t political systems but rather architectures of power.
The idea that political systems and economic systems can be separated from one another is hilarious. Pure ideology.
