Postmodern Anarchism in the Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin

It is easy enough to locate anarchist themes in the science fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin. Her frequent critiques of state power, coupled with her rejection of capitalism and her obvious fascination with alternative systems of political economy, are sufficient to place her within the anarchist tradition. She has, from time to time, explicitly embraced that tradition. Le Guin is, among other things, a popularizer of anarchist ideas. The political philosophy of anarchism is largely an intellectual artifact of the nineteenth century, articulated in England by William Godwin, in France by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and in Russia by Peter Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin. Yet this vibrant intellectual tradition remains largely invisible to ordinary people in the early twenty-first century. By describing anarchist ideas in a way that is simultaneously faithful to the anarchist tradition and accessible to contemporary audiences, Le Guin performs a very valuable service. She rescues anarchism from the cultural ghetto to which it has been consigned. She introduces the anarchist vision to an audience of science fiction readers who might never pick up a volume of Kropotkin. She moves anarchism (ever so slightly) into the mainstream of intellectual discourse.