It is good to discuss speculative fictions, historical texts and works of political theory together. All three kinds of writing address how society is and, whether explicitly or implicitly, how it might become. Tyranny on Earth coexisting with freedom in space is realized at the end of They Shall Have Stars by James Blish. If I were oppressed by the Bureaucratic State, then I would be glad to know that there was freedom elsewhere but would still want to overthrow the State!
A slave economy producing only for the consumption of the slave owners would be able to stagnate or even regress (owners have finite stomachs) whereas any economy that retains an external competitor must continue to expand. The USSR, like Stirling's Domination of the Draka, was engaged in strategic competition against the US and its allies, necessitating continual research and reinvestment in militarily applicable technology: atomics; rockets; computers; aircraft; hand weapons; surveillance; something destructive that no one else has ever thought of etc.
By contrast, the human beings who enslave an entire planetary population in Poul Anderson's The Peregine keep the location and even the existence of this planet secret from other space travelers. With no external enemies, they can afford to restrict technology in their planetary domain as long as they themselves retain sufficient coercive force to enable them to continue to extract immediately consumed wealth from the subjugated population.
Thus, there are different kinds even of slavery although that does not make any of them palatable.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I can think of more than one speculation by Poul Anderson of what a bureaucratic/totalitarian state might be like. In "The High Ones" and "The Pugilist" we see somewhat different views of what conquest by the Marxist USSR might be like. ORBIT UNLIMITED shows us a World Federation which is certainly oppressive but was, at least in its beginnings, was probably not meant to be like that.
And the USSR eventually collapsed because it was unable to keep up with the more dynamic economy of the USA. Esp. after Ronald Reagan came into office and refused to continue appeasing Brezhnev and his successors.
I would need to check my copy of THE PEREGRINE, but I'm not sure you are right about the humans of the "gypsy" ship which conquered a non human planet enslaving its population. I recall one of the other characters saying the conquerors had done nothing the natives themselves were not already doing to each other. And a bit later I read these humans were becoming ASSIMILATED by the people they conquered.
And I'm looking forward to any comments you care to make about Stirling's THE STONE DOGS!
Sean
Sean,
The word "slavery" is definitely used. And, yes, the slave-owners degenerate because all that they have to do is to maintain the status quo.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Or this "degeneration" might in time lead to the conquerors becoming milder rulers. Because of becoming assimilated into the culture they took over. Or, of course, they might in time be overthrown.
Sean
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