Re: [Marxism] Michael Moorcock/Heinlein's economic analysis

[Douglas Nesbitt <djnesbit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Pearn wrote,
>The Michael Moorcock essay on fantasy fiction and
>right wing politics is entitled Starship troopers. I'm
>pretty sure it's available on line...

The Moorcock essay is actually entitled "Starship Stormtroopers" and
should be available here (a cached site available via google):
http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:4atu7HBL6BUJ:flag.blackened.net/liberty/moorcock.html+starship+stormtroopers&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

(If the above link does not work, type in the essay's title in google
and click on the cached version of the first available link hosted by
flag.blackened.net)

Moorcock's piece is worth reading, although its full of references and
name-dropping that may leave even the moderate SF-fan confused.
However, the criticisms of Heinlein are spot-on, especially regarding
his paternalism, which I always found to be *the* common link between
all his works. Heinlein spells out his libertarianism to an extent in
"Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript" which is available in
the "Future History Vol.3: Revolt in 2100/Methuselah's Children".
Heinlein mostly elaborates on his short stories concerning a theocratic
dictatorship in the United States, and why he thinks it is possible
(ie: anti-intellectualism, anti-science, etc). When defending his
views, he says:

"Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties - and how far it got
without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and note how close
that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to
smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without - mind
you - the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of
the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent
and repressive action has never yet been plumbed." (Revolt in
2100/Methuselah's Children, Baen: 1999, p.266)

If you then wish to read some of Heinlein's own economic analysis, it
is available in a rather entertaining "Logic of Empire" available in
the "Future History Vol.2: The Green Hills of Earth". The key passage
in particular occurs when a paternalistic character explains to the
ex-slave protagonist why Venus has become a slave-colony to produce
goods for an imperialistic Earth:

"Its nothing new; it happened in the Old South, it happened again in
California, in Mexico, in Australia, in South Africa. Why? Because in
any expanding free enterprise economy which does not have a money
system designed to fit its requirements; the use of mother-country
capital to develop the colony inevitably results in subsistence-level
wages at home and slave-labor in the colonies. The rich get richer and
the poor get poorer, and all the good will in the world on the part of
the so-called ruling class won't change it, because the basic problem
is one requiring scientific analysis and a mathematical mind. Do you
think you can explain those issues to the general public?" (The Green
Hills of Earth, Baen: 2001, p.269)

Perhaps this is Heinlein's reasoning behind a
paternalistic/authoritarian approach to libertarianism and his outright
contempt for the masses, which is also demonstrated in his most famous
"political" works, Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

~Doug Nesbitt

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