Ambiguous Utopia: Anarchism, Propertarianism and Communism In Le Guin’s The Dispossessed
In her 1974 novel The Dispossessed, Le Guin explores several societies, each with their own political ideology. The main character, Dr. Shevek, originally planned to reconcile the two planets Urras and Anarres, but after he travels between planets and finds out what the political aspirations are of the different societies he comes across, he realizes that the only place where he could truly be himself is in a society where he is not restricted by hierarchy or possession. Through the main character, Dr. Shevek, who travels between the planets Urras and Anarres, Le Guin takes a critical look at several political ideologies present within the societies found on these planets.
The three societies that the novel focuses on are the Ioti, the Thuvians and the Odonians. The Ioti live in the state of A-Io, which is a propertarian, capitalistic state. To the Ioti, the most important thing is private property; owning as many luxurious things as you can to show off your wealth. When Shevek, an Odonian through and through, goes shopping On Urras for the first time, he is overwhelmed by the amount of things there are for sale: “Sao Pae had taken him shopping during his second week in A-Io (…) The whole experience had been so bewildering that he put it out of his mind as soon as possible, but he had dreams about it for months afterwards, nightmares” (Le Guin 131). This shopping experience makes Shevek realize how property-oriented the Ioti are, and how much they value the possession of lifeless items. Later, when he’s staying over at Oiie’s house, he is again flustered by the Ioti’s need to fill their lives with objects:
It was like home, he thought, ignoring the height of the bedstead and the softness of the mattress, the fine, woolen blankets and silk sheets, the knick-knacks of ivory on the chest, the leather bindings of the books, and the fact that the room, and everything in it, and the house it was in, and the land the house stood on, was private property, the property of Demaere Oiie, though he hadn’t built it, and didn’t scrub its floors (Le Guin 152-153).
Shevek specifically mentions that it felt “like home” and then proceeds to list ten things within sight that make it feel the opposite of home and that show how inherently propertarian the Iotic society is. So, the Ioti live in a capitalistic, propertarian society where the common goal is to acquire as many objects as you can.
In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke defines property as something that you, as an individual, can put labor into, after which it becomes yours (Locke 15). In The Dispossessed, this is translated into ‘if you give money in exchange for something, it becomes your private property’. This includes objects, such as clothes and shoes, but also estate, such as houses, and also land, such as the land that houses are built on. An example of this idea of private property is seen in the passage I quoted earlier, where Shevek is in Oiie’s house and remarks that all the objects, the house and the land on which the house is built is private property of Oiie. Particularly remarkable about this passage is the final comment which goes: “though he hadn’t built it, and didn’t scrub its floors” (Le Guin 152-153). This is remarkable because this signifies that in A-Io, people can also use money to pay other people to, first and foremost, build the property, and second, look after their property, without these people becoming Oiie’s property too. In other words, the notion of private property and how one acquires it, is different from how Locke describes it in his Second Treatise. That, then, is where the function of capitalism comes into play. Capitalism entails that private owners control a country’s trade and industry and use it for profit. In A-Io, there are private owners who own the shops and make the objects that all the Ioti buy, and thus make profit off of them.
The Odonians on Anarres, on the other hand, are completely anarchistic and socialistic, and do not own any private property at all. When Shevek was an infant and spent his days at a nursery, he learned that nothing belongs to anyone; everything belongs to everyone, even nursery school toys: “[The toy] is not yours (…) nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share” (Le Guin 27). When Shevek was eight, he was more advanced in physics than any of his school friends, and out of politeness decided to explain his ideas to other pupils. However, the school accuses Shevek of “egoizing” when he explains something that he understands which the others do not and can therefore not respond: “This kind of thing is really directly contrary to what we’re after in a Speaking-and-Listening group. Speech is a two-way function” (Le Guin 30). Besides the Odonians’ belief that everything belonging to everyone, the Odonians also do not believe in government control. On Anarres, there is no single structure of power that controls everything: “There was no rank, no terms of rank, no conventional respectful forms of address” (Le Guin 101). Thus, Shevek only finds out about the idea of hierarchy when he is eight years old when he came to understand the idea of prisons and power over someone else. In other words, the Odonian society where everything belongs to everyone and there is no power structure, is the complete opposite of the Ioti society.
Emma Goldman played a vital role in the development of anarchist political philosophy, and defines anarchism as follows: “The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary” (Goldman 3). This definition consists of two parts: a social order that is based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law, and the theory that all forms of government rest on violence and are therefore wrong and harmful. The first part of the definition is most clearly evident in The Dispossessed. Anarres is not controlled by a government, which is mentioned regularly throughout the novel. The second part of the tradition is not as evident, except for the fact that there is no form of violence or political unrest on Anarres, as there is no political power to disagree with, thus preventing violence from happening.
The third society that plays a role in this novel is the Thuvian society on Urras. This is a communist society, because the Thuvians are strictly opposed to capitalism and contribute as much as they are able to and receive as much as they need; their “money economy [is] based on the principle that each worker is paid as he deserves, for the value of his labor” (Le Guin 136). Chifoilisk, a Thuvian physicist, claims that the Thuvian society is socialist just like the Odonian society: “I know something about [Odonianism], you know. We are a lot closer to it, in my country, than [the Ioti] are. We’re products of the same great revolutionary movement of the eighth century—we’re socialists, like you” (Le Guin 136). Shevek does not see this at first, but as he discovers the true nature of the Ioti he travels to Thu and sees the resemblance. Eventually, the political differences between the state of Thu and the state of A-Io lead to a revolution.
At the start of the novel Le Guin favors the Ioti society over any other, but that is solely because Shevek only sees the beauty of the planet and the abundance of luxury that appears to be available there. When Shevek first arrives at the place where he will stay Urras, he thinks to himself: “it [is] the most beautiful view [he] had ever seen” (Le Guin 65). Le Guin uses, through the narrator, phrases such as “grove of trees”, “innumerable patches of green”, and “hills rose up bordering the valley” to describe the Urrasti landscape, and such positive phrases convince both Shevek and the reader that Urras is so beautiful that it can almost be compared to Paradise. When Le Guin describes Anarres, on the other hand, she uses phrases that stand in stark contrast to the ones she used to describe Urras, and subsequently, Anarres comes across as desolate and unfruitful: “the Eden of Anarres proved to be dry, cold, and windy, and the rest of the planet was worse”; “the planet was arid and weak” (Le Guin 93; 342). Phrases such as these indicate an aversion to the appeal of the planet. Thus, Le Guin gives off the impression that Urras has better living circumstances and it is no surprise that Shevek feels as though Urras is the place where he is supposed to be.
However, that changes as the story progresses and Shevek realizes what the real reason is why Shevek can work on his theory on Urras: it is a profit obsessed society, imprisoned by the Ioti’s own behavior. When Shevek first arrives on Urras, he is not only impressed by the beauty of the landscape, but he is also completely surprised by the luxury and the size of the place where he gets to stay. He becomes so wrapped-up in the Urrasti lifestyle that he even buys and expensive suit and shoes; something completely unusual for an anarchist Odonian. But Chifoilisk, a physicist from the state of Thu, attempts to keep Shevek grounded and warns him for the Ioti. Chifoilisk tells him he has “been bought”, that the Ioti only want his theory to profit off of it because they live in a ‘profit economy’, and that he is ‘in danger’ for being in A-Io’s pocket (Le Guin 136). He tells Shevek “[he’s] a child among thieves”, and he emphasizes that in A-Io, “where there’s property, there’s theft” (Le Guin 138; 139). Shevek thinks Chifoilisk is talking nonsense, but when Shevek finds a note in his new coat pocket that urges him to stop working on his theory, he slowly but surely starts to realize what has happened: “I was to be kept from the populace … Not to see anything ugly. I was to be wrapped up in cotton in a box in a wrapping in a carton in a plastic film, like everything here” (Le Guin 343). Shevek finally sees the true intentions of the Ioti. A little while later, he ends up in discussion with some Ioti about Anarres, A-Io, and Thu, and the purpose of the revolution. Finally, someone asks Shevek: “tell us about Anarres”, which triggers Shevek and he is finally able to word everything he has been trying to for a long time: “You are rich, you own. We are poor, we lack … Everything is beautiful [on Urras] … only not the faces. On Anarres nothing is beautiful but the faces … Here you see the jewels, there you see the eyes. And in the eyes you see the splendor, the splendor of the human spirit. Because our men and women are free—possessing nothing, they are free. And you the possessors are possessed. You are all in jail” (Le Guin 228-229). In conclusion, Le Guin favors the Odonian society over the Ioti society.
A novel like The Dispossessed which includes a myriad of different political and economic ideologies, then, helps readers to better understand contemporary politics in the United States because it gives a new perspective on and new insights to the logic behind certain choices and the reason why states went to war with each other. While anarchism has never played an important role in contemporary politics of the United States, A-Io and Thu represent a highly significant era in United States’ contemporary politics. This novel was published in 1974, which was in the midst of the global Cold War. During this ‘war’, the capitalist United States and its allies ‘fought’ against the communist Soviet Union and its allies. That is exactly what occurs in this novel as well. The capitalist A-Io represents the United States, and the communist Thu represents the Soviet Union. In fact, the ‘war’ between these states was fought somewhere else, namely Benbili, which is also what regularly occurred during the cold war. Because the United States were so afraid of the spread of communism, they fought in other countries to stop the spread, including Vietnam. Thus, the fictional Benbili might represent Vietnam’s role in the Cold War.
To conclude, the political ideologies that Le Guin explores include propertarianism, anarchism, and communism. While Shevek was flattered by the request to work on Urras and completely overwhelmed by the luxurious lifestyle, he quickly finds out that life on Anarres is, after all, better. He concludes that because the Ioti are so obsessed with property and making profit, they actually become trapped within their society. The Odonians, on the other hands, are completely free, because they own no possessions for themselves. While Urras seems ideal on the surface and Anarres does not, Anarres provides the political freedom Shevek longs for.
Works Cited
Goldman, Emma. Anarchism and other Essays. Mother Earth Publishing Association, 3rd ed., New York, 1917.
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed. Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 1974.
Locke, J. Second Treatise of Government. Infomotions, 2000.
Iris Elske 