I am not even apologetic any more that I have been immunized against socialist rhetoric. If your formative years were during the declining end of the communist era in Eastern Europe, like I was, you would have been too. The slogans by then were so empty, the people who actually believed them and believed in them so little in numbers, the force used to imprint these into new generations was becoming less and less violent and the people who paid lip service to the dogma were so many that there was no way I could properly internalize Marxism as it existed there and then.
This upbringing unfortunately created an almost visceral reaction to me when I encounter it now in other forms and countries. I no longer am capable judging these ideas on their own, without the context of how it ruined generations of people in the Soviet bloc. This predisposition of mine tends to disregard the positive aspects of what the regimes brought to the very same nations.
I had to explain the above before I could write a review of Edward Bellamy‘s “Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887.” Otherwise you may not understand my disdain for this science fiction. After all, the book’s plot is similar to ones I like. It is an utopia, where a Bostonian falls asleep in 1887 and wakes up in the new world of 2000. The problem is that the society of this 2000 is a kind of socialism that I know by experience cannot exist. The author attempted to circumvent human nature by creative ways of governing, but people in power would always find the way to corrupt a system. The checks and balances built into the US Constitution seemed to have work for a long while, but the history of the US, looking at it from another perspective is nothing more than a series of scandals and bad decisions, which is creating inequality of the people. Still, this is the best system I am aware of.
But Bellamy envisions a very tempting harmonious future, built on socialist principles. It is one boring world. What I like about capitalism are the options it gives you. I also dislike this very same aspect as it continually forces you to make choices and it becomes a very time consuming activity that can distract you from more important actions and thoughts. But not having options, or others limiting them for you is much worse. And that seems to happen in Bellamy’s book, even if it is in the disguise of benevolence and balance.
I would like to emphasize that I would love having less consumer options if it would bring universal peace, prosperity, and harmony for all. But I don’t believe it can be done on the mass level in a top-down way. The way to do it right is making the right life, consumer and other choices to bring that utopia closer.
I realize that this was less of a book review and more of personal stance. But the majority of the book is a description of an ideal society. There is a romance line too, but that doesn’t actually add anything to the book’ message. I assume making it a novel, as opposed to a non-fiction item made the book more sellable. It did sell more than a million copies in a few years and was the third biggest best seller of the time. There are also at least 16 sequels to it Seeing how successful it was I have to conclude that I cannot judge the book’s qualities because of my own prejudices. But I found it too political for a science fiction and too much out of the reality I know to make it believable.