free-market communists in space

One of the odd things about science fiction as a genre is the attraction it holds for libertarians. Or perhaps it’s the odd attraction that libertarianism has for science fiction writers.

When you think about it though it does make sense. Science fiction is all about creating imaginary universes. If you don’t like the laws of physics you just ignore them. Faster-than-light travel might be impossible but if you want faster-than-light travel in your story you just pretend it’s possible. It’s a game of make-believe. And libertarianism is of course a game of make-believe. Libertarianism could never work in practice but libertarians just pretend that it would work.

Which brings us to Ken MacLeod’s 1995 cyberpunk science fiction novel The Star Fraction. MacLeod is an interesting figure. He was a Trotskyist activist back in the 1970s. When the Left ceased to exist he had to find some kind of ideology that would offer the same attractions – a better and more just society. Perhaps he’d done too many drugs in the 70s because he seems to have invented a kind of amalgam of libertarianism and Trotskyism.

The hero of the novel is a security  mercenary who is a good and loyal communist. He hates socialism and he loves capitalism. Because capitalism apparently equals freedom and will therefore magically bring about an ideal communist world. This will happen because, well just because.

It’s no coincidence that the characters in the story smoke a lot of dope. Because if you really want to believe that libertarian capitalism will achieve communism you have to smoke a prodigious amount of dope.

The novel appears to be set around the middle of the 21st century. Like most of MacLeod’s work it deals with multiple futures – Britain is a multiplicity of different statelets, even including a fundamentalist Christian one (which surprisingly isn’t mocked or derided quite as much as you’d expect). This idea of nation states fragmenting into semi-independent quasi-state entities has popped up quite a bit in science fiction since the 80s and of course it’s an idea with a certain appeal to some modern right-wingers. It’s interesting to see the idea approached here from a left-wing perspective.

Of course it has to be noted that MacLeod is most definitely not a conventional left-winger.

One of the more interesting ideas in the book is a rogue computer virus that is a kind of self-contained revolutionary program, but the question is what kind of revolution? This is a question that exercises the hero of the story quite a bit. Being a good communist he think the Party should control the political program. This is a program that seems to have the ability to control the Party.

Like most of MacLeod’s work the book is packed with ideas. Some are, it has to be admitted, quite silly (although no more so than the ideas you’ll find in the works of right-wing science fiction writers of an earlier generation, such as Poul Anderson). But others are genuinely provocative and intriguing. It’s not as good as his later Newton’s Wake but The Star Fraction is an odd little science fiction novel but quite interesting from a political point of view.