The Anarchist Utopia In Le Guin's The Dispossessed

An anarchist utopia is a place free of structure, an “intentional community” (Bey 2003, 95) that embraces the Chaos that “never died” (Bey, 3). Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (Le Guin 2003) Depicts such a utopia. Anarres hosts an anarcho-syndicalist society. There is no political system, socioeconomic classes, or possession. Everyone has the “birthright of decision” (Le Guin, 9). “Nobody goes hungry while another eats” (Le Guin, 285). The only organizational forces are the computers that “coordinated the administration of things, the division of labor, and the distribution of goods, and the central federatives of most of the work syndicates” (Le Guin, 96). Members of this society understand “that their anarchism was the product of a very high …show more content…
Power imbalances and social governing ideologies mar this anarchist’s paradise. In Anarres, the most apparent hierarchies are in academia. Sabul, a physicist, embodies power imbalance and the presence of Urras’ ideology on Anarres. Shevek, the protagonist, is informed that he will be working with Sabul, that he “will be [Sabul’s] man,”(Le Guin, 58) This is significant as the singular possessive is rare on Anarres, because “’nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share”’ (Le Guin, 27). Sabul’s power comes from his role as a gatekeeper of physics knowledge. He controls what can be sent to Urras for publication and to what Shevek has access. This power imbalance comes to a head when Shevek is trying to publish a paper on Urras. Sabul will only publish it if can “take the credit”, exposing the nature of the relationship to be “exploitive, not organic, but mechanical” (Le Guin, 117). These power imbalances on Anarres are subtle and often times present only in individual interactions, indicating the presence of hierarchical ideology within the Annaran …show more content…
Jameson argues that Anarres is a utopia due to its scarcity (Jameson, 277). The moon has just enough to keep the population alive during the good times, and not quite enough during the bad ones. Le Guin strips the world of anything more than the bare minimum. No one can have more material than others because there is so little. With so little, Jameson argues that “human beings have surmounted historical determinism, and have been left alone with themselves to invent their own destinies”(Jameson, 271–72). However, this is not a utopic space, because the ideologies that shape any space are derived from past ideologies, and have incorporated them into current