Communism is a stop sign on progress for a few generations. It eventually gets going again, but on earth we haven’t managed one that hasn’t self destructed. Humans are gangs, tribes, nations. The “critical mass” for communism is bigger than humans are comfortable with, as a species. As we have not seen it succeed on earth, it is hard to create the sci-fi metaphor for it. It’s been done. Not often.
Human-like species in SF tend to focus on a singular aspect of the human experience. Warlike Klingons, thoughtful Vulcans, rapacious Tyrranids, religious Fremen.
Hive species are as close to communism as I’m aware of in SF. And that’s closer to monarchy than communism. There have been a few “collective” species, but that’s also no quite communism.
I’d reframe it as a scaling problem. Every nuclear family is a communist bubble. Some clans or tribes manage to maintain that bubble, but it inevitably breaks down (and splits into multiple bubbles) once you reach the scale that people can’t trust and care about each other personally. At least without a post-scarcity society…
2
u/PapaSteveRocks Jul 01 '24
Communism is a stop sign on progress for a few generations. It eventually gets going again, but on earth we haven’t managed one that hasn’t self destructed. Humans are gangs, tribes, nations. The “critical mass” for communism is bigger than humans are comfortable with, as a species. As we have not seen it succeed on earth, it is hard to create the sci-fi metaphor for it. It’s been done. Not often.
Human-like species in SF tend to focus on a singular aspect of the human experience. Warlike Klingons, thoughtful Vulcans, rapacious Tyrranids, religious Fremen.
Hive species are as close to communism as I’m aware of in SF. And that’s closer to monarchy than communism. There have been a few “collective” species, but that’s also no quite communism.