Socialist Dystopias

[germaphobian]

I would say that the ultimate one, written from within the belly of the beast, has to be Foundation Pit by Andrei Platonov. A truly great but somewhat forgotten book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Pit

Also this one by the same author - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevengur

Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog. Always thought it's his best work, not Master and Margarita.

And on a more humourous note, The Little Golden Calf - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Golden_Calf

 

[Mr. Tea]

would have thought so!

God, just imagine a feminazi dystopia in which mere rape is a crime!

 

[versh]

Can anyone think of other examples?

There was that piece of speculative fiction in the Mail on Sunday which set about imagining the horror of Corbyn's Britain:

"The night sky over London was thick with choking black smoke, but in the hellish glow of the flames rising from a myriad burning buildings, the rioters, looters and demonstrators fighting on the city streets could just make out the United Nations helicopter taking Jeremy Corbyn away from 10 Downing Street to his retirement cottage in Ireland."

Prime Minister Corbyn... and the 1,000 days that destroyed Britain

Corbyn has promised to reject austerity, bring the railways back into public ownership and scrap Trident if he is elected Prime Minister - and the results could be terrifying, fears DAVID THOMAS.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[germaphobian]

The classic one about mass immigration would be The Camp of Saints by Jean Raspail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints

But also a lot of Houellebecq's stuff, Submission, of course, but before that - Platform, which deals with similar issues.

Interestingly enough G.K. Chesterton has also written a tale about islamization of Britain, The Flying Inn.

The Flying Inn - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is set in a future England where the temperance movement has allowed a bizarre form of Progressive Islam to dominate the political and social life of the country. Because of this, alcohol sales to the poor are effectively prohibited, while the rich can get alcoholic drinks "under a medical certificate".

 

[blissblogger]

There was that piece of speculative fiction in the Mail on Sunday which set about imagining the horror of Corbyn's Britain:

Prime Minister Corbyn... and the 1,000 days that destroyed Britain

Corbyn has promised to reject austerity, bring the railways back into public ownership and scrap Trident if he is elected Prime Minister - and the results could be terrifying, fears DAVID THOMAS.

www.dailymail.co.uk

That's probably a mini-genre in its own right - I can imagine similar sort of articles in right-wing or curmudgeon-slanted publications, like The Spectactor or Punch, about other Labour leaders. Dire imaginings of what Clement Atlee's regime would be like. (Churchill said that the implementation of the Welfare State would require a Labour government to create its own Gestapo).

 

[blissblogger]

The classic one about mass immigration would be The Camp of Saints by Jean Raspail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints

But also a lot of Houellebecq's stuff, Submission, of course, but before that - Platform, which deals with similar issues.

Interestingly enough G.K. Chesterton has also written a tale about islamization of Britain, The Flying Inn.

The Flying Inn - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is set in a future England where the temperance movement has allowed a bizarre form of Progressive Islam to dominate the political and social life of the country. Because of this, alcohol sales to the poor are effectively prohibited, while the rich can get alcoholic drinks "under a medical certificate".

I've got that Chesterston book - never actually read it. The temperance movement allying with Islam is like an early version of that argument that the left are puritanical.

On mass immigration, there's Fugue For a Darkening Island by Christopher Priest, published in 1972. Civil war in the UK following inundation of immigrants from Africa (devastated by nuclear war) and the rise of a far right government. I believe Priest was left-wing but the book seems susceptible to a Powellite reading (the 'darkening' in the title is unfortunate). As I recall, this concerned him and for a later reissue of the novel, he rewrote parts of it to make clear that it wasn't coming from a National Front mindset.

 

[blissblogger]

I would say that the ultimate one, written from within the belly of the beast, has to be Foundation Pit by Andrei Platonov. A truly great but somewhat forgotten book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Pit

Also this one by the same author - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevengur

Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog. Always thought it's his best work, not Master and Margarita.

And on a more humourous note, The Little Golden Calf - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Golden_Calf

Wow, that's a great example - Foundation Pit. Never heard of it.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The classic one about mass immigration would be The Camp of Saints by Jean Raspail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints

There's nothing particularly 'socialist' about mass immigration, though. We've had it in the UK for decades, through a succession of basically centrist Labour governments and ever more right-wing Conservative ones, all of which have adhered to a neoliberal economic model. Indeed, the free flow of worker-consumers is as central to neoliberalism as that of goods and capital.

 

[versh]

There's nothing particularly 'socialist' about mass immigration, though. We've had it in the UK for decades, through a succession of basically centrist Labour governments and ever more right-wing Conservative ones, all of which have adhered to a neoliberal economic model. Indeed, the free flow of worker-consumers is as central to neoliberalism as that of goods and capital.

Yeah, Marx criticised England's immigration policy re: Ireland.

But the English bourgeoisie has also much more important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class.

And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.

This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this.

Letters: Marx to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt 9 April 1870

www.marxists.org

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah, Marx criticised England's immigration policy re: Ireland.

But the English bourgeoisie has also much more important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class.

And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.

This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this.

Letters: Marx to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt 9 April 1870

www.marxists.org

Yes, lots of socialists are strongly against (mass) immigration for just this reason. OTOH, those on the more anarchist side tend to favour the abolition of all borders. So I don't think there's a general 'left-wing' position on immigration, really.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Of course, right-wing politicians tend to take a strongly anti-immigration stance in their rhetoric because it plays well with voters and the conservative media, and then do nothing about it when they're in power because businesses obviously benefit from a constant supply of cheap and rarely unionized labour.