Any governments that are communist or socialist in SCI-FI?

[Komsomol]

Is there any governments that have the characteristics of communism or socialism in them? I personally believe the federation is what the USSR aspired to be but never really got to.

[JohnT]

Tons of sci-fi novels have communist/socialist governments. Try Iain M. Banks' "Culture" novels.

[slortar]

Yeah, just off the top of my head, there was a communist empire in Walter Jon William's Aristoi (among many, many other things). There was also one (IIRC) in Ursula Leguin's Left Hand of Darkness. Many, many others are out there. Give me some time and my copy of the Encyclopedia of Sci-fi and I could probably list a few hundred...

[bordelond]

Brave New World's milieu seems to be a technocratic socialist state.

[AndrewL]

On stardestroyer.net there is an essay about why the Federation government of ST:TNG is communist. Be warned the author is heavily anti-communist - quite sensibly IMHO.

[Captain Amazing]

The moon of Annares, in LeGuin's "The Disposessed" is. If you read, "A Short History of the Future", one of the governments is. In Asimov's Robot Novels (esp. evident in "The Caves of Steel"), Earth sort of is. It's actually not an uncommon form of government in science fiction, either in its "autonomous independent communities who share all they own" form, or "large centrally planned and organized bureaucratic welfare state" form.

[Legomancer]

The Borg?

[Komsomol]

Do the Narn have a socialist government?

[Schnitte]

Another Komsomol thread about communist societies - soon we'll have to compile them.

Originally posted by bordelond
Brave New World's milieu seems to be a technocratic socialist state.

One edition of the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin includes an essay on BNW that states Huxley's World State as extremely capitalist. It makes more sense to me, if you look at the World State's Ford worship and the fact that the State's citizens are encouraged to consume as much as possible.

Said novel I find interesting (it was written in the 20s and influenced both Huxley and Orwell). Interestingly, Zamyatin himself participated in the October Revolution, but soon started to disagree with Lenin's policy, whose system isn't depicted too positive in his book. He left the USSR and was branded a counterrevolutionary in official Soviet propaganda.

[RealityChuck]

Norman Spinrad's Russian Spring actually postulated that the Soviet Union would prosper with persitroika and would eventually surpass the U.S. as a world power.

Unfortunately, the book came out two months [b]after[/i] the attempted coup against Gorbachov, and the paperback a year later, long after the Soviet Union was no more.

[Shortie]

The Federation is arguable, sometimes they make comments about how primitive money is, and how everyone gets whatever they should need, but on DS9 they don't have a problem with paying.

The Culture doesn't really have a government, and is perfectly prepared to re-create money (or the equivalent) when demand should exceed supply (like the concert in Look to Windward), normally everyone has everything the want because there are no practical limitations on doing so.

[Sofa King]

What about Clockwork Orange?

[Enola Straight]

Indeed.

The Federation is anti-money, anti-religeon, anti-independence...
I'm certain those in Starfleet Command expect the entire galaxy
to one day be a unified nation...a United Federal Galaxy.

[SPOOFE]

Yeah, the Federation is communist... but Star Trek fans prefer to say that they're "enlightened".

:D

And the Culture isn't very communist... they just have a system where no government is needed.

[China Guy]

Here is a classic from the 50's And Then There Were None (http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm) by Eric Frank Russell. The entire novella I think it was is on line. I haven't read the story for about 25 years, but still remember it vividly. Don't know if it's quite what you're looking for but probably.

[Joe_Cool]

It's been a while since I read it, but isn't the newly independent Looney (Lunar) government socialist in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress?

[Phoenix Dragon]

I kinda liked the socialist goverments of the core worlds of the "Interstellar Confederacy" (Or ConFed) in Albedo, mostly because it had a very reasonable background of how it came to be. It also seemed to integrate capatilistic elements wholey into a socialistic government, and democratic elements as well (I don't remember exactly), but were mostly due to the fact that robotic manufacturing had more or less eliminated the -need- for most jobs, and the remaining were easily filled by the bit of the population that wanted to work for some extra money and purchasing power. Wouldn't work well at all in the modern-day real world, but it worked fine in that one, with the differences in tech and social outlook.

The background of all the other governments, ranging the whole range from socialist to capitalist, etc, also seemed to make a lot of sense. There was no "perfect" government, just ones that best suited each planet's current state of development.

[Odesio]

Originally posted by Joe_Cool
It's been a while since I read it, but isn't the newly independent Looney (Lunar) government socialist in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress?

Nope, the Earth would probably have some sort of socialist government. On the earth you don't have any calorie limits, you have to buy your own air, buy your own water, buy you own education, and well, you pretty much gotta buy anything that is useful. Doesn't sound very socialist to me.

Marc

[Steve Wright]

People who don't think the Culture is communist might want to (re)read Banks' novella The State of the Art, which is quite explicit on the subject. Just a suggestion.

[GSV Consolation of Dreams]

Don't forget Ken MacCleod (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dbooks-uk%26field-author%3DMacLeod%2C%20Ken/026-3376675-1132419) He's a friend of Banks' and has similar politics, although his futuristic commies are rather different to Banks'. He also has a much more negative view of Artificial Intelligences.

Pretty good reads though.

[N9IWP]

The People's Repuplic of Haven in the Honor Harrington series.

[Bricker]

The 'Com' worlds in Jack Chalker's Well World series.

[Melan]

Oh sure!

-Oceania is one
-or the Animal Farm
-the city in Zamyatyn's (sp?) "We"
-Star Trek
-many of Stanilaw Lem's very early works (which he doesn't recognize anymore and prevents them from being published) are set in a future communistic society - like Astronauts , The Magellan Cloud , some of the earlier Ijon Tichy tales...
-the same is true for the Strugatsky brothers

The most important thing: in some of these, it actually works well!

[AndrewL]

Originally posted by Melan
The most important thing: in some of these, it actually works well!
Hence the "Fiction" in "Science Fiction"...

[Captain Amazing]

Then there are science fiction books that have the exploration of socialism as their goal...for example, either Ayn Rand's "Anthem" or Lois Lowry's "The Giver", (for negative portrayals) or Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" (for a positive one)

[toadspittle]

Originally posted by SPOOFE
Yeah, the Federation is communist...

Is it? I know that STARFLEET members go without money, but I didn't know if it was ever spelled out that all of the Federation (i.e., people not in military/research, for whom the govt. provides everything) worked that way.