The Book Dispossessed

In the book Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin shows us a dystopian universe full of contrasts between planets, Urras, and its satellite Anarres. At first, only Urras had life on it and after a while, some of the citizens started anarchical movements. The people of Urras called them anarchists and the pioneers of the planet sent these people to their satellite; Anarres. Although these people had lived together once, after exiling, Urras and Anarres have very different living conditions in the sense of their politics, their natural circumstances, moral values, and so on.

On the planet of Anarres, there is no owned possession such as houses or cars, and there is no possessive suffix. They can’t own a son or a family that they can refer to as “it is mine”. There is no measurement of work as little or a lot. Thus, there is no hierarchy that could exist with the existence of these social notions.

This lack of hierarchy brings pure equality to society, no one has priority over others, no one has more power or no one can make others do something that they don’t want to do. So these bring an anarchical system to this planet. Anarchism is a belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.

As time passed by, in Anarres, some people started to be seen who didn't do anything, anything for the good of themselves or the good of society. Since there is no higher authority such as a governmental power above them, no one could punish them for doing nothing, or no one could force them to do something. However, even in the absence of any kind of set of rules, some moral values were developed unintentionally in the society itself that created social pressure on the people who were not doing anything. 

With the help of this pressure, the ones that are working could exile the ones that aren’t to another district. It can be seen from this incident that the composition of the organisms like governmental structures or unofficial daily set of rules can justify the idea that belongs to liberalism, which is that government is necessarily evil. They don’t want a government but unintentionally they create a society as if they had a government as a night watchman. An authority that is able to punish when necessary. 

On the planet of Urras, on the contrary, economic classes have a more significant role in the process of running the planet than Anarres. They have a more productive nature meaning more sources that create an environment with welfare. Moreover, the money that people of Urras gain, their jobs, the houses that they live in, and also their gender, do matter for the people who live there. These features refer to a social status that affects how they live, how they communicate with each other, and how they get punished or rewarded. 

Thus, this creates a structure that richer ones or the ones with highly valued jobs have more influence, more power over others. These kinds of social relations indicate that this planet has a capitalist system in itself in order to put its people together. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's a trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

So in this book, with their remarkable differences that match on some level, these two planets have a huge controversy with a kind of harmony. Whether it is politics or physical characteristics, whenever a feature exists in one planet, another one has the opposite of it.

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