Dispossessed

Book: Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974)

Description

Dan Clore:

"attempts to portray an anarchist-communist society in full, with both its good and bad features readily apparent. On Anarres, moon of the planet Urras, there is a society founded on the philosophy of Odonianism, a synthesis of Taoism and anarcho-syndicalism. This novel is currently very popular amongst anarchist-socialists, but many pro-capitalists consider Anarres an unambiguous dystopia. "The Day before the Revolution" (1974) concerns Odo, the founder of Odonianism, the mix of anarcho-syndicalism and Taoism portrayed in The Dispossessed. Odo is, furthermore (according to LeGuin), one of "The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas" (1973) and refuse to benefit from a system in which some gain at the unwilling expense of others. In her introduction to the story in The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975) LeGuin says, "Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with; not the social-Darwinist economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principal moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories." (http://www.nolanchart.com/article4700.html)