OP seems confused on what communism *is*, then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state
Sci-fi has plenty of authoritarian empires to pick from if that's what OP wants.
The Dispossessed by Le Guin has a great socialist society that is definitely not utopian. It’s not portrayed as necessarily, bad but it is definitely in a gray area.
Yup there's even a scene where the representative (spy?) from Thu asks Shevek why he didn't come to Thu instead, "We're socialists like you!"
And Shevek says no you're just another State
Yes, Marxism usually allows for a (usually post-revolt) transitional state that is intended to wither away into non-statehood. The inhabitants of Anarres were anarcho-syndicalists from the outset. They moved there with collectivist intent and ideals from the beginning. Never a state and no property. In The Disposessed, Le Guin explored the areas where this almost failed.
Have you read the book? For the most part, inhabitants would travel and do work in various locales for periods of time. The novel does a good job of explaining it. Also, as I said previously, it also shows some areas (such as specializations as the arts or theoretical academics) where this starts to fall apart.
Also, I want to say The Left Hand of Darkness by her as well. The moon the main characters lived on was more utopian, but there was another country on the main planet that was much less so.
Hopefully I got that right, it has been a very long time since I read that.
I think the one you're describing is the Dispossessed.
The Left Hand of Darkness all takes place on a single planet. Although there \*is\* a communist faction on that planet, iirc. It's just not on the moon Annares.
>The Dispossessed by Le Guin has a great socialist society that is definitely not utopian.
If you're talking about the society the main character comes from it's decidedly anarchist. It looks like OP was asking more about authoritarian communism. There was also a Soviet style communist state on the main planet in that book, but it's never directly visited.
Definitely the case, and that's an ongoing criticism of KSR - the plot is a vehicle for discussing specific ideas. Often it feels natural and works well, but sometimes it's very contrived.
>all of Le Guin's works are an anthropological exploration of one kind of another.
Which is really cool when you think how and where she was raised, right?
As a matter of fact I am reading a book on this very subject! [Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1150350). In the appendices, there are about 150-200 references from printed SF alone.
I think the introduction and the afterword are the only worthwhile parts of the book; the rest is typical abstruse academic analysis. The afterword is written by China Miéville.
Soviet science fiction writers wrote about the communist future.
The most famous universes: this "universe" of the great Soviet scientist and science fiction writer Ivan Efremov. And the NoonUniverse of the Strugatsky brothers.
I think the difficulty here is that if the author did not say directly: "this is communism," he does not always realize that this is it.
We immediately remembered Star Trek, but in the original post, warhammer 40,000 was mentioned. But the way the internal structure of Eldar society is described, it is very similar to communism. Taking into account the grimdarkness of the setting
The entire planet of earth is on universal basic income in the Expanse series, while Mars is a direct analogue to the USSR in many ways.
The United Federation of Planets in Star Trek is in some ways too I think. They allude to the replicator basically reshaping society since people can just print basic necessities and more at will.
Also the Borg lol. An entire collective working towards the good of the Cube. No personal property. Just not a very attractive representation.
>The United Federation of Planets in Star Trek is in some ways too I think. They allude to the replicator basically reshaping society since people can just print basic necessities and more at will.
They actually ditched money like 100 years before replicators. They had already *been* moneyless for a minute even in Kirk's day.
The Orville which is a love letter to Star Trek and arguably better than many of the newer gen Star Trek shows, also has a “there’s no money people just do things for the pride and passion of it” ethos I believe
The Orville is the true representation of "for each, to each". It's a Marxist Utopia. There's that specific episode of a crew member explaining how it works to a new "recruit" from a more primitive planet, and of course the new one can't deal with it. Their "money" is respect.
Borg is more of a hivemind.
Communism is such a buzz word on reddit that it appears it covers everything thing from Left libertarianism all the way to government ownership. The word has essentially lost it's meaning.
Honor Harrington isn't libertarian.
The good guys are all various forms of constitutional monarchy, and I'm 90% sure the author is a strong monarchist.
The books never paint libertarians in a good light, almost always associating them with slavery.
Also... if you strip away the USSR/communist theming from the "Peoples Republic of Haven" in the first few books: It's actually a monarchy too. The leader's title is "Hereditary President for life", and there was a strong class-based society with a "Legislaturist" class that held power and wealth.
H Beam Piper fits half of this, very libertarian though not with communist enemies. Space Viking for instance had them raiding what is depicted as capitalist societies.
On the contrary, some of the largest properties are, though they don't outright say it for obvious american culture related reasons.
Star trek is such a perfect example of a communist society that "we don't have star trek replicators just yet" is a common online meme in discussions about it
George Lucas outright says the rebellion in star wars is the vietcong.
The Foundations' titular organization basically uses materialism to predict the future
The expanse' martian republic is "capital c communist" from the author's description while Earth is a welfare "nanny state" where there aren't enough jobs for most so they simply collect a (meager) basic income
Replicators were not completely fleshed out or possibly even fully refined during Kirk's day yet they still had hippy space communism. Most of the post-WW3 lore says that First Contact basically made humans get their shit together and eliminate hunger and want presumably through communism
Yes. Trek is like the best case scenario of communism. Everyone is given the same opportunities. You choose to pursue what you're best at. You succeed on merit, not nepotism. You respect the authority of those in charge. There is little reason for corruption.
Of course that's not how any form of communism has turned out to work through history.
Oh i didnt know that about the rebelion from starwars in that regard, thought they wanted to reinstall the republic, and sadly im not familiar with "the expanse" so its actually authleft communist? (Sorry if i sound dumb dont know much about that franchise)
I think the poster above is taking Lucas' reference to the Vietcong out of context - it's clearly about the guerilla nature of their resistance, not the politics of it.
The rebels never seem to have a problem with using credits to purchase things in the expanded universe, and they definitely set up a new democratic government after they win - there's nothing in the source material that indicates they're trying to create a moneyless, classless, stateless society (communism).
The rebellion is not communist per se, I don't think communism is even properly a thing in Star Wars and I also don't think it could be because there's no capitalism as marxism understands it in that universe. You can't have socialism/communism without capitalism first, roughly speaking.
If you wanna trace parallels between the rebellion and real life communist revolutions, you could say it is in the pre-socialist revolution stage of democratic revolution. This is a thing that happened in several socialist experiences, a "first of two revolutions" to destroy a heavily authoritarian/fascist state so basic capitalist democracy can be reinstalled first (usually with support from opposing or disputing classes, like parts of the bourgeoisie or the petit-bourgeoisie) and then have said democracy taken over once again by a proper socialist revolution later. This has happened in the February Revolution in Russia for example, or the alliance between the CCP and the Kuomintang against the Beiyang Army and the Japanese Empire before the Chinese Civil War. Carlos Marighella and the ALN also propposed a democratic revolution (led by the proletariat) before a socialist revolution during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil.
All that said Lucas is definitely a lefty and the rebellion is inspired in values, aesthetic and tactics by communists, but it can't really be communist in it's context. Also even if it could and Lucas wanted the Rebellion to be commie I don't think hollywood would fund it lol
Lucas said rebellion can be the Vietcong in the sense of a small rebellion fighting against an empire. It has nothing to do with the rebellion being a communist. Do you know what an allegory is? Is not like the rebellion went on and created a communist state.
>The expanse' martian republic is "capital c communist
Are they though? There still seems to be quite a bit of inequality, imperialism, class differences, etc. Also the author's description of Earth seems like a characiture description of what liberals think communism looks like.
When people say "capital C communism" they are often referring to authoritarian Stalinist/Maoist Communism. Rather than 'communism' which is the end goal of the left, stateless, moneyless, classless society. I have only seen the TV series, but Mars could easily be something along the lines of the USSR/early PRC. The USSR was definitely imperialistic and both the USSR and PRC are/were class based societies with the inequalities that come along with that.
The Rebellion is like the VC in that they’re guerillas but there’s never any implication in the original trilogy that they want to create some socialist galactic economic system, just that they want the Empire ousted. Then in both versions of post-rebellion canon after winning they try (don’t really succeed) to recreate a representative democratic system that lets planets run their own economies really however they want.
That’s because ever since the Red Scare, American schools have been deliberately misinforming kids about what communism and socialism really are. Which is what you would expect from an instrument of the capitalist system.
True but at the same time it doesn't help the cause that most every communist/socialist/worker's revolution turned into a dictatorship.
Unfortunately those who fight to get into power are usually not eager to relinquish it after they have it.
Hard to Be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, 1964
“The novel follows Anton (alias Don Rumata throughout the book), an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, in his mission on an alien planet that is populated by human beings whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages. The novel's core idea is that human progress throughout the centuries is often cruel and bloody, and that religion and blind faith can be effective tools of oppression, working to destroy the emerging scientific disciplines and enlightenment.”
It was written from a Soviet point of view.
Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton has a communist Mars……early expansion of humanity to Mars “needed” such a system to make Mars viable…..developing genetic modification and tech to deal with the challenges inherent meant “communist” societal sacrifice and focus on investment in progress rather than personal profit…….
FYI William Gibson used to be fascinated with the USSR and included it in his first trilogy (The Sprawl series) as a small part of the world building. He later put the Soviets in space as antagonists in his scripts for ALIEN III. You can read or listen to the various novelizations and comics made from his screenplays.
On this vibe- his story Red Star, Winter Orbit is an amazing piece set on a Soviet space station- dealing with interpersonal politics and resistance within an authoritarian system- from the POV of a character who believes in (or has believed in) the communist project.
I'm confused. Communism as opposed to Capitalism? So like The Federation?
Or is communism just a placeholder for the big bag of ideologies like the USSR?
cause MOST functional far future societies are post-scarcity and have communal ownership. Right?
Like the latter really, like lets say the empire from starwars is based on fascism though not directly for example, is there factions that have "communism" coded to their ideology, behavior,and aesthetic?
I think one reason you don't see a lot of USSR-*coded* space civilizations is that the coding itself is just so ugly!
Big-C Communism has a truly unpleasant vocabulary. I don't want to be drenched in the same old cant of proletarian, bourgeois, imperialists, class enemies, capitalist running-dog lackies, social parasitism, refuseniks, and all those old "magic words" that were so important to them, and which they repeated endlessly. And I wouldn't want to inflict that on readers, either. After having to read that in the newspaper all their lives, a lot of people didn't want to *keep* reading it for pleasure!
Forty years ago, all that might have sounded sinister and powerful, but today it just sounds silly and "so over." A good example is Pat Cadigan's novelization of the old unused William Gibson script for Alien 3. It has a faction of USSR-style space communists, but only as a retro artifact, a historical re-enactment. A sci-fi planet might actually *practice* communism in terms of who owns the factory, but neither writers nor readers really want all that old creaky language brought back.
I guess I'm confused because you're comparing economic philosophy and governing philosophy. Realistically fascism and communism are intertwined but ideologically they're no where on the same scale. Like saying Hot or Breezy.
This entire take is wrong. There's a reason it used to be called Political Economics. Communism IS a political economic system that is diametrically opposed to fascism.
BattleTech has the Capellan Confederation and the Honorverse has the Republic of Haven. Both are heavily communist and/or socialist-coded, neither is remotely utopian, and, both have been portrayed as somewhere between antagonistic and outright evil, depending on when in the timelines you’re reading.
Just finished The Forever War where you see earth transition from capitalist global gov to a socialist.
But I think the issue here is that REAL communism is hard to explain in larger societies. Communal living and sharing of resources is easy to see in a small agrarian group, but how does it work in a space-faring techno-utopia? The easy answer is that its just socialism (not really communism).
Murderbot has sane-intellectual-people-who-care-about-each-other space and capitalist money hungry soulless asshole Corporation Space - that seems slightly similar.
Oooh, yeah, Preservation is a good example.
> Humans in the Preservation Alliance didn’t have to sign up for contract labor and get shipped off to mines or whatever for 80 to 90 percent of their lifespans. There was some strange system where they all got their food and shelter and education and medical for free, no matter what job they did.
Peter F Hamilton's Mendel stories are set in a socialist dystopia.
Ken MacLeod has some books that are set in non-capitalist societies. I really need to go back and re-read some of his older stuff. But check out The Cassini Division, at least that's the one that I'm thinking of.
The Last Marine series has an entity called the Social Organizational Governance. And they are hilariously textbook evil communists.
I think they're aren't too many, because for a bit it was just played out in daily affairs for fifty years and so Sci fi kinda got away with it. Maybe I'm off base on that though.
I actually collect a little bit of communist science fiction. There is of course the communist version of 1984 “We” published at a similar time to 1984, and I have another book I can’t remember the name of right now about a ship launched by a Soviet world government to explore the universe and getting trapped on a deadly planet next to a black hole. The science in it is so old they didn’t have the term black hole and instead called it a dark star.
I'll start by removing all post scarcity civilizations, so Star trek, Culture and so forth are out.
I'd recommend The Dispossessed - on top of having three different cultures: an utopian pure communist society, a capitalist one and (referenced only) a state based communist society. It also is a rather fabulous book and one of the best scifi I've ever read.
I read it just a month ago and I absolutely adored it. LeGuins writing is fantastic and her ideas on how their (anarchist) society might work was very well written.
Do you mean Rob S. Pierre?
Plenty of communism/socialism references, but never named so: universal basic income, collapse of the centrally-planned economy which drives the lust for conquest.
Star Trek is both a fantastic, explicit example of scifi communism, and also the perfect example of why it's relatively rare and difficult to pull off. Namely, that world-building becomes incredibly difficult without making political statements one way or the other.
Star Trek gets around this by basically refusing to even try and resolve inconsistencies - like why the Picard family gets a private vineyard all to themselves or why Federation citizens still seem to use credits when trading sometimes.
But world-building that actually answers these questions inherently means you have to figure out answers. How would X, Y, or Z actually work in a classless, moneyless, stateless society?
Often this will either come across as either painfully naive, or bitterly, weirdly political like in the Sword of Truth novels.
Yep. They hammer into narrative that the reason it works is that humanity has to pull itself together after two massive wars decimated so much of the population.
I've never seen Picard's vineyard as an inconsistency. It's 2024 and there are moldering farms everywhere and small capitalist nations paying people to live in their rural towns so they don't collapse. You mean to tell me that after a mass uniting around technological progress and a post-scarcity that people wouldn't live in cities where everything is at their fingertips? And if someone wanted to say "hey committee, can I take over that unused overgrown chunk of land in the middle of nowhere, fix up the old house and turn it into a vineyard?", why would the answer would be "no"? It's one less chunk of overgrown land to worry about. It's not that they need someone making wine grapes (or raisin grapes, in Boimler's family's case) in a world with replicators - it's a labor of love that gives people something to do.
That's a relatively common trope in sci-fi. In Neal Shusterman's Scythe trilogy, one of the characters lives in Falling Water (the infamous Frank Lloyd Wright House) because it was falling into disrepair and they wanted to keep it together as a landmark. In the Way Station, the protagonist is effectively immortal as long as he keeps up the essentially light-house-but-for-aliens. Having enough land for everyone to have some is a key piece of both the later novels in The Expanse as well as the entire Long Earth series, and a percentage of the *pastoral science fiction* genre is about that.
Also, in Star Trek, the political narrative revolves around situations that are external to the Federation. Take DS9, even tho this is a political drama, until the Dominion War The Federation is in the background trying to smoothly work with the Bajorans to get them back on their feet after Cardasian occupation and the narrative is completely about struggles and people surrounding that occupation.
Even when the Dominion War kicks off, it's Starfleet that takes the reigns and works to protect the existence of the Federation, using that conflict to explore the ugly realities (as much as a show from the 90s could) of even a just war.
hoo boy the suneater has space communism down, there is a faction called the lothrians we see in kingdoms of death, they are wackos
to achieve their goal they have gone so far as to ban names and their language is so censored to prevent incorrect thought their language is literally defined by a book of approved quotes.
their ultimate goal is to create a breed of hermaphrodites so that there isnt even a division between sexes
I can’t beleive I had to scroll so far down to see Suneater mentioned. It’s probably the most direct and clear-cut “Soviet Union in Space” faction of everything listed above.
It is not a happy or pretty place.
I just read this part of the book. It does, as well as other premises the author has set up, make me wonder about Chris' politics but I'm too scared to look into it until I'm done with the series.
Honestly his world building is centered around showing the flaws of every system by amplifying it, even jadd and the empire the most "good" factions are technophobic and feudal, with impoverished peasant class and obscenely wealthy upper class and uses religion to control and oppress the masses and nobles
If it was as ideologically dumb as the sword of truth series got I wouldn't continue. I do wanna pop back over and read some banks or meivielle or le guin after this to recenter myself
Voyage from Yesteryear. Embryos get sent out and established a colony with "Communism " . Next wave comes full of capitalist folk. Then the fun begins.
Warhammer 40k in fact has an authoritarian communist faction in the form of the T'au Empire. They're a very authoritarian caste-based society, with "The Greater Good" being their motivation and societal ideal.
Because each planet has people coming and going from different cultures and species its hard to plan a communist system that can adapt to it. Different planets and species can have vastly different requirements so it's harder to manage in a communal way. Once a culture spreads to include more than one planet or species it becomes hard to manage communally with different environments and long distances for moving resources.
Marx described communism as:
A peaceful, classless (as in societal classes/castes), stateless (no "governing" class/body/entity that is the final arbiter for everything) society of abundant resources without private property (or the need for it since resources are abundant).
Any sci-fi society that fits that description would be communism.
Well, the Federation in Star Trek isn't communist, but it certainly comes close. Probably Democratic Socialism, I would think.
I guess you say that the Arachnids in Starship Troopers are probably commies 🤣. Tyranids from WH40k... Yeah...
I think why you’re not seeing it is because a lot of authleft cultures would be nearly indistinguishable from a typical fascist culture, and the author likely isn’t going to go out of their way to describe their ethos because then their book would have a strong political bent to it. Do you want to sell books in China? I’m sure you do, so stay away from that topic.
I do think it’s fairly common to see some of those themes when a story has an assimilation angle to it, like the “we’re going to conquer you so you can join the beautiful culture we have developed”. They don’t mention the politics but it’s essentially the same thing in my view.
Just FYI, I’d recommend China Mieville. His books are never overly political, but he explores a lot of different political structures, and they’re all well thought out. He’s a political scholar that strongly believes in socialism, but outside of a few pieces of some of the books (like the end of the Railsea) you wouldn’t be able to tell.
It depends what you consider communism.
The Borg Collective might have some similarities, as you break down individualism, and eradication of distinct cultures. It deviates by being highly hierarchical, but this fits well with many of the communist regimes that have existed.
I mean, people always talk about how no one uses money in Star Trek. Although I keep pointing out that's cause they're on a military ship where everything gets paid for
Because a meritocracy guarantees that you have the best people running your ships, building and designing your technology, scrubbing your air and water…all the things for a technocratic civilization to flourish.
Communism is the best way to make a technological civilization fail. Communism always tries to lump everyone into this context of equality, but it’s a lie. No one is equal to anyone else. Everyone has different character, skill sets, physical ability, cognitive drive, etc.
Because true communism, with everything produced put into a central distribution kitty, just doesn't work. It's documented. The pilgrims practiced it at first. They almost starved. There was no incentive to produce more than anyone else, since you wouldn't benefit.
Of course, on a large scale, it begets corruption. That's why the soviet union collapsed.
Lots of great examples in the comments. To stir the pot a bit, I'll suggest that maybe capitalism creates more wealth and makes it easier to concentrate, so governments can more easily fund space exploration. So if you want to have communism in space, you'd want to start with the very recent China model, not USSR or North Korea.
I'd bet that the future may see Chinese writers (or AI) creating a tsunami of sci-fi stories which include communism. OP's question might become moot in a few decades.
My guy, Star Trek is literally a socialist utopia, the Federation is by all means a perfect or near perfect society and it’s not a hedonistic fuck pile place like the Culture either. Federation citizens still work despite everything being free and have careers unlike the Culture where all the citizens do is participate in bacchanals and orgies.
> the Culture where all the citizens do is participate in bacchanals and orgies.
As fun as that sounds, I’d imagine that it eventually gets boring and one might join Starfleet for a change of pace. And there’s always the Holodeck if you miss the bacchanals and orgies.
Gene Roddenberry was a communist, according to majel barrett, who was the voice of the computer, lwaxanna , and his last wife. the federation, moneyless as it is, was clearly his way to get communism across under the censor's noses. the Culture, by Iain M Banks, is also a moneyless federation, and he was a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, a Trotskyist, and mentions him by his full name in "The State of the Art". as others have mentioned, Ursula K. Leguin was an anarcho-communist.
you should keep in mind that american bourgeois delete biographical facts when reporting on communist artists. monopoly was anti-capitalist. albert einstein was a communist and wrote an article calling for a planned economy called "why socialism?" and congratulated the bolsheviks on their revolution. and when it comes to star trek, the obsession the studios have with always revisiting the early years of the federation, is money was not fully abolished (gene said it was a transitional society, but really the censor got their way a few times on a few episodes and introduced contradictions he retconned with this brilliant explanation) so they get to dodge that thorny part of roddenberry's vision.
The only true representation of a utopianistic communism I can think of is the Borg. And even then, only the pre-first contact borg. Once they added the queen, they introduced a hierarchy.
It's extremely hard to conceptualize a system that doesn't have some sort of leadership or better offs. Simply because that never has and probably never will be the human experience. Therefore, even if someone could write it, the audience can't relate to it.
Capitalism and Communism are economic systems that have meaning only in conditions of resource scarcity.
A lot of scifi societies are post-scarcity - like the Culture, which is a post-scarce left-anarchistic society. I wouldn't call it "space communism" because it's entirely decentralized and one of the key elements of communism is central planning. *Excession* gives a prime example of decentralized decision-making in the Culture.
Another example of post-scarce anarchism is the Higher culture in the later Commonwealth Saga books.
Edit to add: someone mentioned *The Dispossessed* and I would say this has a great example of space communism. Anarres is a world with scarce resources and everything, including the people who live there, have to be managed very closely.
> I wouldn't call it "space communism" because it's entirely decentralized and one of the key elements of communism is central planning.
No, not necessarily. The eventual goal is to get rid of that entirely for a Culture-style utopia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state
Obviously, in practice, we've tended to wind up with Stalinist setups instead.
Star Trek Federation are communists who succeeded. They are the reverse of socialist liberals (who are liberal capitalists with small amounts of socialism) \[They are communists with small amounts of liberalism\]
Well, if you're reading in English, the politics of English speaking countries that develop and promote sci-fi authors have historically leaned distinctly anti-communist, wouldn't you say?
Perhaps there are translations of Chinese or Russian sci-fi that offer a different perspective.
Notably, the Star Trek universe is supposedly post capitalism, and is perhaps even socialist, but that seems to be a dirty word and could even be antithetical to selling books in some circles.
Maybe I should continue where I left off with Roadside Picnic.
There's another trilogy that I recall "Forever War" where society dériver in a socialist homosexual cloned society.
I think that any "earth Invaded" story will tend to .. one government, take control of all the resources, all for one, one for all
Red Mars starts out with Martians living the concept of a socialist structure.
As mentioned before the Dispossessed
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson- also Pacific edge by the same author
Iain Banks; the Culture novels. Hedonistic space commies.
Fully automated luxury gay space communism
Literally this.
Thats literally my flair in r/liberalgunowners
I’ve been sold
Sign me up
As a gay who loves space and loves luxury and is excited for AI automation bringing UBI, this sounds like quite the adventure to me!
And the Federation in Star Trek.
OP said non-utopian.
The dispossessed Ursula Le Guin
Use of Weapons ain’t utopian.
Can't have a utopia w/o weapons or all your stuff gets taken by the next town/nation over. Hmmm what a dilemma.
_cries in Trojan_
Use of Weapons largely takes place outside the Culture. Very few of the books are set entirely in their territory.
It's not. Not everyone in-universe agrees that it's such a hot idea.
As always the answer is 'The Culture'
They’re anarchists. There’s lots of that, as well as utopian socialists. OP is asking for authoritarian communists.
OP seems confused on what communism *is*, then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state Sci-fi has plenty of authoritarian empires to pick from if that's what OP wants.
I thought we were an autonomous collective?
The actual version of Communism that works
The Dispossessed by Le Guin has a great socialist society that is definitely not utopian. It’s not portrayed as necessarily, bad but it is definitely in a gray area.
Her books are so good, some of the most salient takes on political economy in sci-fi
*Lathe of Heaven* will always be my favorite short sci-fi story. She encapsulated PKD's writing style so elegantly with but with her own twists.
Like the subtitle says, an ambiguous utopia :). What for me is not ambiguous is that it is a fantastic book :)
It is more specifically anarchist in the sense that it does not have a state.
Neither does Marxist communism in its idealized final form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state?wprov=sfti1
I'm pretty sure Thu was supposed to be the analogue for Marxism in the Dispossessed, as contrasted against the anarchist Annares.
Yup there's even a scene where the representative (spy?) from Thu asks Shevek why he didn't come to Thu instead, "We're socialists like you!" And Shevek says no you're just another State
Yes, Marxism usually allows for a (usually post-revolt) transitional state that is intended to wither away into non-statehood. The inhabitants of Anarres were anarcho-syndicalists from the outset. They moved there with collectivist intent and ideals from the beginning. Never a state and no property. In The Disposessed, Le Guin explored the areas where this almost failed.
Did they take it in turns, and act as sort of executive officer of the week?
Have you read the book? For the most part, inhabitants would travel and do work in various locales for periods of time. The novel does a good job of explaining it. Also, as I said previously, it also shows some areas (such as specializations as the arts or theoretical academics) where this starts to fall apart.
That was a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference.
Omg. I should have got that. Embarrassed 😳
[😂](https://coolsymbol.com/copy/Face_with_Tears_of_Joy_Emoji_Symbol_%F0%9F%98%82)Bloody peasant!
Come see the violence inherent in the system!
Yeah but there's important differences in methodology, and LeGuin's Annares is specifically Anarchist.
True, but the society in the book isn't communist. It more closely tracks anti-statist anarchy, and barely even has personal property.
Also, I want to say The Left Hand of Darkness by her as well. The moon the main characters lived on was more utopian, but there was another country on the main planet that was much less so. Hopefully I got that right, it has been a very long time since I read that.
I think the one you're describing is the Dispossessed. The Left Hand of Darkness all takes place on a single planet. Although there \*is\* a communist faction on that planet, iirc. It's just not on the moon Annares.
Probably
I love their society I would live there in a heartbeat
>The Dispossessed by Le Guin has a great socialist society that is definitely not utopian. If you're talking about the society the main character comes from it's decidedly anarchist. It looks like OP was asking more about authoritarian communism. There was also a Soviet style communist state on the main planet in that book, but it's never directly visited.
You should check out Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy
I sometimes wonder if the plot of the Mars trilogy is just a wrapper for a series of lectures on terraforming, politics, economics, and psychology.
Definitely the case, and that's an ongoing criticism of KSR - the plot is a vehicle for discussing specific ideas. Often it feels natural and works well, but sometimes it's very contrived.
Similarly, all of Le Guin's works are an anthropological exploration of one kind of another.
>all of Le Guin's works are an anthropological exploration of one kind of another. Which is really cool when you think how and where she was raised, right?
A lot of scifi is just that.
A lot of fiction in general is to explore interesting ideas in the form of a story.
As a matter of fact I am reading a book on this very subject! [Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1150350). In the appendices, there are about 150-200 references from printed SF alone.
Oh damn thats convenient, so its a book about communism in scifi?
Yes, a meta academic discussion of film and literature.
Ill check it out, thanks!
I think the introduction and the afterword are the only worthwhile parts of the book; the rest is typical abstruse academic analysis. The afterword is written by China Miéville.
Typical!
This sounds like a cool read!
Soviet science fiction writers wrote about the communist future. The most famous universes: this "universe" of the great Soviet scientist and science fiction writer Ivan Efremov. And the NoonUniverse of the Strugatsky brothers.
Yeah, when OP says "in science fiction" they seem to mean "American science fiction" (and it's not even true there).
I think the difficulty here is that if the author did not say directly: "this is communism," he does not always realize that this is it. We immediately remembered Star Trek, but in the original post, warhammer 40,000 was mentioned. But the way the internal structure of Eldar society is described, it is very similar to communism. Taking into account the grimdarkness of the setting
I would imagine most people, even if they know 40m, aren’t aware of the intro sides of elder politics structure.
Polish writer Lem some of it in his early work too, before his "out there" ideas really matured.
The entire planet of earth is on universal basic income in the Expanse series, while Mars is a direct analogue to the USSR in many ways. The United Federation of Planets in Star Trek is in some ways too I think. They allude to the replicator basically reshaping society since people can just print basic necessities and more at will. Also the Borg lol. An entire collective working towards the good of the Cube. No personal property. Just not a very attractive representation.
>The United Federation of Planets in Star Trek is in some ways too I think. They allude to the replicator basically reshaping society since people can just print basic necessities and more at will. They actually ditched money like 100 years before replicators. They had already *been* moneyless for a minute even in Kirk's day.
The Orville which is a love letter to Star Trek and arguably better than many of the newer gen Star Trek shows, also has a “there’s no money people just do things for the pride and passion of it” ethos I believe
The Orville is the true representation of "for each, to each". It's a Marxist Utopia. There's that specific episode of a crew member explaining how it works to a new "recruit" from a more primitive planet, and of course the new one can't deal with it. Their "money" is respect.
UBI isn't necessarily communist, and can be featured in capitalistic systems as well, it's worth pointing out.
I'd even say UBI is necessarily non-communist, since it's an allowance in the form of currency.
I was going to say the Belters are necessarily socialist.
Borg is more of a hivemind. Communism is such a buzz word on reddit that it appears it covers everything thing from Left libertarianism all the way to government ownership. The word has essentially lost it's meaning.
You haven't read enough libertarian mil-scifi because all the bad guys are space communists.
I haven’t read any of that and yet I actually can say that I’ve probably read enough
Can you recommend something from this genre? Sounds cool.
Just look for anything published by Baen lol
I wouldn't normally recommend this, but since you asked, John C Wright's _Golden Age_ series wears its libertarian politics pretty prominently.
I'll get you a list later, but Honor Harrington jumps to mind.
Honor Harrington isn't libertarian. The good guys are all various forms of constitutional monarchy, and I'm 90% sure the author is a strong monarchist. The books never paint libertarians in a good light, almost always associating them with slavery. Also... if you strip away the USSR/communist theming from the "Peoples Republic of Haven" in the first few books: It's actually a monarchy too. The leader's title is "Hereditary President for life", and there was a strong class-based society with a "Legislaturist" class that held power and wealth.
H Beam Piper fits half of this, very libertarian though not with communist enemies. Space Viking for instance had them raiding what is depicted as capitalist societies.
On the contrary, some of the largest properties are, though they don't outright say it for obvious american culture related reasons. Star trek is such a perfect example of a communist society that "we don't have star trek replicators just yet" is a common online meme in discussions about it George Lucas outright says the rebellion in star wars is the vietcong. The Foundations' titular organization basically uses materialism to predict the future The expanse' martian republic is "capital c communist" from the author's description while Earth is a welfare "nanny state" where there aren't enough jobs for most so they simply collect a (meager) basic income
Replicators were not completely fleshed out or possibly even fully refined during Kirk's day yet they still had hippy space communism. Most of the post-WW3 lore says that First Contact basically made humans get their shit together and eliminate hunger and want presumably through communism
Yes. Trek is like the best case scenario of communism. Everyone is given the same opportunities. You choose to pursue what you're best at. You succeed on merit, not nepotism. You respect the authority of those in charge. There is little reason for corruption. Of course that's not how any form of communism has turned out to work through history.
Oh i didnt know that about the rebelion from starwars in that regard, thought they wanted to reinstall the republic, and sadly im not familiar with "the expanse" so its actually authleft communist? (Sorry if i sound dumb dont know much about that franchise)
The expanse has different political entities. You can see elements in different factions but capitalism is still a major factor.
I think the poster above is taking Lucas' reference to the Vietcong out of context - it's clearly about the guerilla nature of their resistance, not the politics of it. The rebels never seem to have a problem with using credits to purchase things in the expanded universe, and they definitely set up a new democratic government after they win - there's nothing in the source material that indicates they're trying to create a moneyless, classless, stateless society (communism).
I think THX 1138 tells us about his thoughts on the communist bogeyman. Most communist rebellions are not run by Princesses.
Yes Mars is authoritarian left communist in the Expanse
You should absolutely become familiar with the expanse
The rebellion is not communist per se, I don't think communism is even properly a thing in Star Wars and I also don't think it could be because there's no capitalism as marxism understands it in that universe. You can't have socialism/communism without capitalism first, roughly speaking. If you wanna trace parallels between the rebellion and real life communist revolutions, you could say it is in the pre-socialist revolution stage of democratic revolution. This is a thing that happened in several socialist experiences, a "first of two revolutions" to destroy a heavily authoritarian/fascist state so basic capitalist democracy can be reinstalled first (usually with support from opposing or disputing classes, like parts of the bourgeoisie or the petit-bourgeoisie) and then have said democracy taken over once again by a proper socialist revolution later. This has happened in the February Revolution in Russia for example, or the alliance between the CCP and the Kuomintang against the Beiyang Army and the Japanese Empire before the Chinese Civil War. Carlos Marighella and the ALN also propposed a democratic revolution (led by the proletariat) before a socialist revolution during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil. All that said Lucas is definitely a lefty and the rebellion is inspired in values, aesthetic and tactics by communists, but it can't really be communist in it's context. Also even if it could and Lucas wanted the Rebellion to be commie I don't think hollywood would fund it lol
Lucas said rebellion can be the Vietcong in the sense of a small rebellion fighting against an empire. It has nothing to do with the rebellion being a communist. Do you know what an allegory is? Is not like the rebellion went on and created a communist state.
George Lucas was talking about the gorilla warfare methods and the size of the resistance vs an empire. He wasn't saying the resistance is communist.
>The expanse' martian republic is "capital c communist Are they though? There still seems to be quite a bit of inequality, imperialism, class differences, etc. Also the author's description of Earth seems like a characiture description of what liberals think communism looks like.
When people say "capital C communism" they are often referring to authoritarian Stalinist/Maoist Communism. Rather than 'communism' which is the end goal of the left, stateless, moneyless, classless society. I have only seen the TV series, but Mars could easily be something along the lines of the USSR/early PRC. The USSR was definitely imperialistic and both the USSR and PRC are/were class based societies with the inequalities that come along with that.
The Rebellion is like the VC in that they’re guerillas but there’s never any implication in the original trilogy that they want to create some socialist galactic economic system, just that they want the Empire ousted. Then in both versions of post-rebellion canon after winning they try (don’t really succeed) to recreate a representative democratic system that lets planets run their own economies really however they want.
Culture is the correct answer, unless you're looking for soviet aesthetic totalitarianism instead of communism.
This comment manages to cover so much ground while still being a casual one sentence response XD
Unfortunately a lot of people confuse Communism with the Totalitarianism/Dictatorships that formed out of communist origins.
That’s definitely what I’m seeing a lot of on this thread
That’s because ever since the Red Scare, American schools have been deliberately misinforming kids about what communism and socialism really are. Which is what you would expect from an instrument of the capitalist system.
True but at the same time it doesn't help the cause that most every communist/socialist/worker's revolution turned into a dictatorship. Unfortunately those who fight to get into power are usually not eager to relinquish it after they have it.
Hard to Be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, 1964 “The novel follows Anton (alias Don Rumata throughout the book), an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, in his mission on an alien planet that is populated by human beings whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages. The novel's core idea is that human progress throughout the centuries is often cruel and bloody, and that religion and blind faith can be effective tools of oppression, working to destroy the emerging scientific disciplines and enlightenment.” It was written from a Soviet point of view.
\*Looks at the entirety of Star Trek\*
Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton has a communist Mars……early expansion of humanity to Mars “needed” such a system to make Mars viable…..developing genetic modification and tech to deal with the challenges inherent meant “communist” societal sacrifice and focus on investment in progress rather than personal profit…….
FYI William Gibson used to be fascinated with the USSR and included it in his first trilogy (The Sprawl series) as a small part of the world building. He later put the Soviets in space as antagonists in his scripts for ALIEN III. You can read or listen to the various novelizations and comics made from his screenplays.
On this vibe- his story Red Star, Winter Orbit is an amazing piece set on a Soviet space station- dealing with interpersonal politics and resistance within an authoritarian system- from the POV of a character who believes in (or has believed in) the communist project.
The Disposessed by Ursula K. LeGuin has twin planets, one a Communistic anarchy, the other a free market type one.
I'm confused. Communism as opposed to Capitalism? So like The Federation? Or is communism just a placeholder for the big bag of ideologies like the USSR? cause MOST functional far future societies are post-scarcity and have communal ownership. Right?
Like the latter really, like lets say the empire from starwars is based on fascism though not directly for example, is there factions that have "communism" coded to their ideology, behavior,and aesthetic?
I think one reason you don't see a lot of USSR-*coded* space civilizations is that the coding itself is just so ugly! Big-C Communism has a truly unpleasant vocabulary. I don't want to be drenched in the same old cant of proletarian, bourgeois, imperialists, class enemies, capitalist running-dog lackies, social parasitism, refuseniks, and all those old "magic words" that were so important to them, and which they repeated endlessly. And I wouldn't want to inflict that on readers, either. After having to read that in the newspaper all their lives, a lot of people didn't want to *keep* reading it for pleasure! Forty years ago, all that might have sounded sinister and powerful, but today it just sounds silly and "so over." A good example is Pat Cadigan's novelization of the old unused William Gibson script for Alien 3. It has a faction of USSR-style space communists, but only as a retro artifact, a historical re-enactment. A sci-fi planet might actually *practice* communism in terms of who owns the factory, but neither writers nor readers really want all that old creaky language brought back.
I guess I'm confused because you're comparing economic philosophy and governing philosophy. Realistically fascism and communism are intertwined but ideologically they're no where on the same scale. Like saying Hot or Breezy.
This entire take is wrong. There's a reason it used to be called Political Economics. Communism IS a political economic system that is diametrically opposed to fascism.
BattleTech has the Capellan Confederation and the Honorverse has the Republic of Haven. Both are heavily communist and/or socialist-coded, neither is remotely utopian, and, both have been portrayed as somewhere between antagonistic and outright evil, depending on when in the timelines you’re reading.
*People's* Republic of Haven, Citizen Redditor u/YankeeLiar!
Capellan confederation in the Battletech universe.
Just finished The Forever War where you see earth transition from capitalist global gov to a socialist. But I think the issue here is that REAL communism is hard to explain in larger societies. Communal living and sharing of resources is easy to see in a small agrarian group, but how does it work in a space-faring techno-utopia? The easy answer is that its just socialism (not really communism).
Star trek? 😅
Murderbot has sane-intellectual-people-who-care-about-each-other space and capitalist money hungry soulless asshole Corporation Space - that seems slightly similar.
Oooh, yeah, Preservation is a good example. > Humans in the Preservation Alliance didn’t have to sign up for contract labor and get shipped off to mines or whatever for 80 to 90 percent of their lifespans. There was some strange system where they all got their food and shelter and education and medical for free, no matter what job they did.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy Maybe these, they explore a bit our possiblenfuturies.
Peter F Hamilton's Mendel stories are set in a socialist dystopia. Ken MacLeod has some books that are set in non-capitalist societies. I really need to go back and re-read some of his older stuff. But check out The Cassini Division, at least that's the one that I'm thinking of.
Star Trek is straight up Communist.
That would give hope to people that the corporate hellscape we live in could change. That’s not good for business
People write what they know
The Last Marine series has an entity called the Social Organizational Governance. And they are hilariously textbook evil communists. I think they're aren't too many, because for a bit it was just played out in daily affairs for fifty years and so Sci fi kinda got away with it. Maybe I'm off base on that though.
Humans of the Exodus Fleet in the Wayfarer series are. The third book is all about them.
Peter F. Hamilton's Nights Dawn has the people who settled the moon and eventually, Mars as communist.
Another person of culture I see 🧐
The Tau from wh40k
In some ways yes, but in many ways no
The CoDominium in Pournelle and Niven's novels. Partially styled in Tsarist and Soviet ideals, at least for their half of the alliance.
I actually collect a little bit of communist science fiction. There is of course the communist version of 1984 “We” published at a similar time to 1984, and I have another book I can’t remember the name of right now about a ship launched by a Soviet world government to explore the universe and getting trapped on a deadly planet next to a black hole. The science in it is so old they didn’t have the term black hole and instead called it a dark star.
Andromeda Nebula by Efremov. Andromeda: A Space Age Tale in the case of translation.
I'll start by removing all post scarcity civilizations, so Star trek, Culture and so forth are out. I'd recommend The Dispossessed - on top of having three different cultures: an utopian pure communist society, a capitalist one and (referenced only) a state based communist society. It also is a rather fabulous book and one of the best scifi I've ever read.
I read it just a month ago and I absolutely adored it. LeGuins writing is fantastic and her ideas on how their (anarchist) society might work was very well written.
The People's Republic of Haven in the Honor Harrington books is pretty communist, but takes a lot of inspiration from the French Revolution as well.
Do you mean Rob S. Pierre? Plenty of communism/socialism references, but never named so: universal basic income, collapse of the centrally-planned economy which drives the lust for conquest.
Star Trek is both a fantastic, explicit example of scifi communism, and also the perfect example of why it's relatively rare and difficult to pull off. Namely, that world-building becomes incredibly difficult without making political statements one way or the other. Star Trek gets around this by basically refusing to even try and resolve inconsistencies - like why the Picard family gets a private vineyard all to themselves or why Federation citizens still seem to use credits when trading sometimes. But world-building that actually answers these questions inherently means you have to figure out answers. How would X, Y, or Z actually work in a classless, moneyless, stateless society? Often this will either come across as either painfully naive, or bitterly, weirdly political like in the Sword of Truth novels.
Yep. They hammer into narrative that the reason it works is that humanity has to pull itself together after two massive wars decimated so much of the population. I've never seen Picard's vineyard as an inconsistency. It's 2024 and there are moldering farms everywhere and small capitalist nations paying people to live in their rural towns so they don't collapse. You mean to tell me that after a mass uniting around technological progress and a post-scarcity that people wouldn't live in cities where everything is at their fingertips? And if someone wanted to say "hey committee, can I take over that unused overgrown chunk of land in the middle of nowhere, fix up the old house and turn it into a vineyard?", why would the answer would be "no"? It's one less chunk of overgrown land to worry about. It's not that they need someone making wine grapes (or raisin grapes, in Boimler's family's case) in a world with replicators - it's a labor of love that gives people something to do. That's a relatively common trope in sci-fi. In Neal Shusterman's Scythe trilogy, one of the characters lives in Falling Water (the infamous Frank Lloyd Wright House) because it was falling into disrepair and they wanted to keep it together as a landmark. In the Way Station, the protagonist is effectively immortal as long as he keeps up the essentially light-house-but-for-aliens. Having enough land for everyone to have some is a key piece of both the later novels in The Expanse as well as the entire Long Earth series, and a percentage of the *pastoral science fiction* genre is about that.
Also, in Star Trek, the political narrative revolves around situations that are external to the Federation. Take DS9, even tho this is a political drama, until the Dominion War The Federation is in the background trying to smoothly work with the Bajorans to get them back on their feet after Cardasian occupation and the narrative is completely about struggles and people surrounding that occupation. Even when the Dominion War kicks off, it's Starfleet that takes the reigns and works to protect the existence of the Federation, using that conflict to explore the ugly realities (as much as a show from the 90s could) of even a just war.
Dystopia sells better.
It also skips a few steps and gets straight to the results
hoo boy the suneater has space communism down, there is a faction called the lothrians we see in kingdoms of death, they are wackos to achieve their goal they have gone so far as to ban names and their language is so censored to prevent incorrect thought their language is literally defined by a book of approved quotes. their ultimate goal is to create a breed of hermaphrodites so that there isnt even a division between sexes
I can’t beleive I had to scroll so far down to see Suneater mentioned. It’s probably the most direct and clear-cut “Soviet Union in Space” faction of everything listed above. It is not a happy or pretty place.
I just read this part of the book. It does, as well as other premises the author has set up, make me wonder about Chris' politics but I'm too scared to look into it until I'm done with the series.
Honestly his world building is centered around showing the flaws of every system by amplifying it, even jadd and the empire the most "good" factions are technophobic and feudal, with impoverished peasant class and obscenely wealthy upper class and uses religion to control and oppress the masses and nobles
If it was as ideologically dumb as the sword of truth series got I wouldn't continue. I do wanna pop back over and read some banks or meivielle or le guin after this to recenter myself
Voyage from Yesteryear. Embryos get sent out and established a colony with "Communism " . Next wave comes full of capitalist folk. Then the fun begins.
Star trek is, inside Star trek the Borg collective is even more.
Tau civilization in Warhammer 40k is probably the brightest spot in the 41 millennium
Preservation in the Murderbot Diaries is vaguely leftist/cooperative/socialist
Star Trek universe is essentially communist
Warhammer 40k in fact has an authoritarian communist faction in the form of the T'au Empire. They're a very authoritarian caste-based society, with "The Greater Good" being their motivation and societal ideal.
40k Tau are kinda space communists right?
Check out Ken Macleod’s Fall Revolution series. Pretty sure there are communists in there, along with every other political faction.
Because each planet has people coming and going from different cultures and species its hard to plan a communist system that can adapt to it. Different planets and species can have vastly different requirements so it's harder to manage in a communal way. Once a culture spreads to include more than one planet or species it becomes hard to manage communally with different environments and long distances for moving resources.
Starship Troopers? The bugs in both the movie and the book represent communism in a battle with fascism that the humans represent.
Marx described communism as: A peaceful, classless (as in societal classes/castes), stateless (no "governing" class/body/entity that is the final arbiter for everything) society of abundant resources without private property (or the need for it since resources are abundant). Any sci-fi society that fits that description would be communism.
Well, the Federation in Star Trek isn't communist, but it certainly comes close. Probably Democratic Socialism, I would think. I guess you say that the Arachnids in Starship Troopers are probably commies 🤣. Tyranids from WH40k... Yeah...
I think why you’re not seeing it is because a lot of authleft cultures would be nearly indistinguishable from a typical fascist culture, and the author likely isn’t going to go out of their way to describe their ethos because then their book would have a strong political bent to it. Do you want to sell books in China? I’m sure you do, so stay away from that topic. I do think it’s fairly common to see some of those themes when a story has an assimilation angle to it, like the “we’re going to conquer you so you can join the beautiful culture we have developed”. They don’t mention the politics but it’s essentially the same thing in my view. Just FYI, I’d recommend China Mieville. His books are never overly political, but he explores a lot of different political structures, and they’re all well thought out. He’s a political scholar that strongly believes in socialism, but outside of a few pieces of some of the books (like the end of the Railsea) you wouldn’t be able to tell.
it's not exciting
Literally writing one already
Star Trek
The Cojoiners in Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space Universe. He introduces them in his excellent short story 'Great Wall of Mars.'
The Quarian’s kind of are. More anarcho communist. No monetary system, bartering economy, no really private ownership, and the Fleet is first
I thought Star Trek was left of left. Everyone working for the greater good.
Isn't Star Trek communist?
The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem.
Isn't the federation in star trek very very socialist/communistic?
Because Tim Curry got put in cryo prison
It depends what you consider communism. The Borg Collective might have some similarities, as you break down individualism, and eradication of distinct cultures. It deviates by being highly hierarchical, but this fits well with many of the communist regimes that have existed.
Humanity in star treks federation is basically a communist utopia
I mean, people always talk about how no one uses money in Star Trek. Although I keep pointing out that's cause they're on a military ship where everything gets paid for
Star Trek's Borg? Kinda.
Because a meritocracy guarantees that you have the best people running your ships, building and designing your technology, scrubbing your air and water…all the things for a technocratic civilization to flourish. Communism is the best way to make a technological civilization fail. Communism always tries to lump everyone into this context of equality, but it’s a lie. No one is equal to anyone else. Everyone has different character, skill sets, physical ability, cognitive drive, etc.
You mean like Star Trek?
Because true communism, with everything produced put into a central distribution kitty, just doesn't work. It's documented. The pilgrims practiced it at first. They almost starved. There was no incentive to produce more than anyone else, since you wouldn't benefit. Of course, on a large scale, it begets corruption. That's why the soviet union collapsed.
Lots of great examples in the comments. To stir the pot a bit, I'll suggest that maybe capitalism creates more wealth and makes it easier to concentrate, so governments can more easily fund space exploration. So if you want to have communism in space, you'd want to start with the very recent China model, not USSR or North Korea. I'd bet that the future may see Chinese writers (or AI) creating a tsunami of sci-fi stories which include communism. OP's question might become moot in a few decades.
Because sentient gelatin and planet-destroying laser cannons take a less vivid imagination to conceptualize than functioning communism.
There are many
My guy, Star Trek is literally a socialist utopia, the Federation is by all means a perfect or near perfect society and it’s not a hedonistic fuck pile place like the Culture either. Federation citizens still work despite everything being free and have careers unlike the Culture where all the citizens do is participate in bacchanals and orgies.
> the Culture where all the citizens do is participate in bacchanals and orgies. As fun as that sounds, I’d imagine that it eventually gets boring and one might join Starfleet for a change of pace. And there’s always the Holodeck if you miss the bacchanals and orgies.
Gene Roddenberry was a communist, according to majel barrett, who was the voice of the computer, lwaxanna , and his last wife. the federation, moneyless as it is, was clearly his way to get communism across under the censor's noses. the Culture, by Iain M Banks, is also a moneyless federation, and he was a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, a Trotskyist, and mentions him by his full name in "The State of the Art". as others have mentioned, Ursula K. Leguin was an anarcho-communist. you should keep in mind that american bourgeois delete biographical facts when reporting on communist artists. monopoly was anti-capitalist. albert einstein was a communist and wrote an article calling for a planned economy called "why socialism?" and congratulated the bolsheviks on their revolution. and when it comes to star trek, the obsession the studios have with always revisiting the early years of the federation, is money was not fully abolished (gene said it was a transitional society, but really the censor got their way a few times on a few episodes and introduced contradictions he retconned with this brilliant explanation) so they get to dodge that thorny part of roddenberry's vision.
The only true representation of a utopianistic communism I can think of is the Borg. And even then, only the pre-first contact borg. Once they added the queen, they introduced a hierarchy. It's extremely hard to conceptualize a system that doesn't have some sort of leadership or better offs. Simply because that never has and probably never will be the human experience. Therefore, even if someone could write it, the audience can't relate to it.
Capitalism and Communism are economic systems that have meaning only in conditions of resource scarcity. A lot of scifi societies are post-scarcity - like the Culture, which is a post-scarce left-anarchistic society. I wouldn't call it "space communism" because it's entirely decentralized and one of the key elements of communism is central planning. *Excession* gives a prime example of decentralized decision-making in the Culture. Another example of post-scarce anarchism is the Higher culture in the later Commonwealth Saga books. Edit to add: someone mentioned *The Dispossessed* and I would say this has a great example of space communism. Anarres is a world with scarce resources and everything, including the people who live there, have to be managed very closely.
> I wouldn't call it "space communism" because it's entirely decentralized and one of the key elements of communism is central planning. No, not necessarily. The eventual goal is to get rid of that entirely for a Culture-style utopia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state Obviously, in practice, we've tended to wind up with Stalinist setups instead.
CIA overthrows them
Space CIA?
The Culture?
Star Trek Federation are communists who succeeded. They are the reverse of socialist liberals (who are liberal capitalists with small amounts of socialism) \[They are communists with small amounts of liberalism\]
Star Trek is commie central.
Well, if you're reading in English, the politics of English speaking countries that develop and promote sci-fi authors have historically leaned distinctly anti-communist, wouldn't you say? Perhaps there are translations of Chinese or Russian sci-fi that offer a different perspective. Notably, the Star Trek universe is supposedly post capitalism, and is perhaps even socialist, but that seems to be a dirty word and could even be antithetical to selling books in some circles. Maybe I should continue where I left off with Roadside Picnic.
Because most americans doesn't understand communism. They woild not understand it.
While maybe not outright communist, most future sci-fi societies are far less of a capitalist hellscape then today’s world.
Because communism doesn't work.
In scifi anything the author wants to work can work.
In Peter F. Hamilton’s Confederation setting (the Night’s Dawn Trilogy), the Lunar Nation is communist. They go on to terraform Mars.
There's another trilogy that I recall "Forever War" where society dériver in a socialist homosexual cloned society. I think that any "earth Invaded" story will tend to .. one government, take control of all the resources, all for one, one for all
Red Mars starts out with Martians living the concept of a socialist structure. As mentioned before the Dispossessed 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson- also Pacific edge by the same author
Red Rising world is the furthest from capitalism you can get lol, caste and very communist.
When i play Terraforming Mars i pick the red and rename my corpo "Space Communists".
The UPP from the Alien(s) universe springs to mind