I think the prelude to it was worse. I mean, the guy attempted a coup! How exactly did he get to be the Chancellor after that?! Also, socialism in a non-industrialised country like Russia? Give me a break!
Look to the West Volume V: To Dream Again
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
I think the prelude to it was worse. I mean, the guy attempted a coup! How exactly did he get to be the Chancellor after that?! Also, socialism in a non-industrialised country like Russia? Give me a break!
How did FDR get not three but four terms? The people would never stand for it!
I wonder how societism will be structured internationally: I recall there being some kind of societist congress or organization by the 50's, and it got me thinking... Maybe countries transitioning to societism have to go through an intermediate phase before they become part of the greater societist world. Maybe akin to, in Communism, countries having to transition from feudalism to capitalism to communism, in the case of Russia. Or perhaps the congress is just there so that the "Unfree World" can enjoy greater coordination between its component parts. We can't rightly know until we get there.
I also wonder how societism will emerge in the UPSA. We're all fairly certain that it emerges as a result of the Pandoric War, but I'm uncertain as to whether it is some kind of coup (electoral or otherwise) or a greater revolution or what.
Last one: how will the greater world react to societism, at least at first? In the beginning the Bolsheviks were more than happy to take the capitalists' money when they needed funds - maybe the societists will try to play nice at first, or maybe they will try to stay separate and build up their strength. After all, their ideology directly calls for the entire world to be united, so perhaps they will be strictly opposed to the Diversitarians from the very beginning. After all, they have much more industry than the Bolsheviks had at a comparable stage.
I also wonder how societism will emerge in the UPSA. We're all fairly certain that it emerges as a result of the Pandoric War, but I'm uncertain as to whether it is some kind of coup (electoral or otherwise) or a greater revolution or what.
Last one: how will the greater world react to societism, at least at first? In the beginning the Bolsheviks were more than happy to take the capitalists' money when they needed funds - maybe the societists will try to play nice at first, or maybe they will try to stay separate and build up their strength. After all, their ideology directly calls for the entire world to be united, so perhaps they will be strictly opposed to the Diversitarians from the very beginning. After all, they have much more industry than the Bolsheviks had at a comparable stage.
There is mention of at least one "Black Scare", probably equivalent to the Red Scares of OTL.
Right - I remember now. But is the Black Scare directly after the revolution or is it in the 20's? I think there might have been more than one.
The entire premise of Bolshevism and the Third International was to deny this of course--justified in ideological terms by viewing capitalism as a global system rather than a phenomenon that happens in individual countries that can be viewed as developing separately. Which did emerge from the Russian experience and applies to Third World nations as well--the pattern of development in the colonized world was quite different from what happened in the cradle of capitalism, and the whole debate between them and Second Internationalist revisionists depended on the question of whether despite the very different conditions of development society would converge on one model, or whether it would not.
We are still largely speculating on what Societism is and how it pragmatically works. Not to mention how reliable the impression we get of it from sources in Diversitarian England are!
Given the clues of the early program of Sanchez's disciple we've been told of thus far, his plan of action is to form corporations competing with presumably bog-standard capitalist ones, which operate individually as capitalist enterprises, but are internally devoted to Sanchezite programs of action. Instead of appealing to workers to join a mass party/union aiming at overthrowing capitalism completely, he urges them to quit their jobs and take new jobs at these Sanchezite concerns, where presumably (if we believe the sincerity of the movement and that they are pragmatically feasible) they will be individually promoted on merit, and where workers, even those deemed low-grade and unworthy of individual advancement, will get a fair shake collectively from a management devoted to the common welfare of all. Presumably less efficient workers won't be fired if they show willing, but will be shunted to less crucial roles. There will be no antagonistic unions tolerated because all workers, from the janitors to the head of the enterprise, are presumed united in a common cause. If the Sanchezite companies can deliver on the promises well enough to remain competitive in the labor market and in the commodity/services output markets at the same time, then the plan is to gradually take over the entire market by displacing the simply for-profit concerns, and become the entire economy, hence also the entire electorate. Presumably also, Sanchezite companies will cooperate with each other voluntarily, becoming a great monopoly cartel--one that will not gouge the public because its managers are committed to the common weal.
It would be possible then for the Combine to develop not as a political federation but in principle a private consortium, aiming at the goal of world unity via bypassing the state completely, or anyway capturing each state as the majority of the population in a country dominated by Sanchezite firms becomes employed by one or another of them, thus becoming the governing majority in a democracy--and in a formally non-democratic state, capturing or bullying the possibly hostile ruling elite, either coopting them or displacing them in revolution. Presumably with the overarching Sanchezite coordinating body controlling all the firms the way the Soviet Communist Party controlled the ostensibly democratically elected state bodies of the USSR, all states where the Combine dominates coordinate their policies as directed, by the collective will of all the people in the world who have joined the Combine. Whether the states wind up dissolved or reorganized into rational regional bodies probably depends on pragmatics; Sanchez was not so much a "smash the State!" anarchist as he was a One Worlder.
This is the theory that I have at the moment anyway.
In terms of OTL 19th Century liberalism, there is nothing objectionable about a program such as I just outlined, in theory. Individual people are free to join with the Combine (looking ahead to the date what then name emerges, and applying it retroactively) or not, as they choose, and democracy presumes people vote their interest--if the Sanchezites keep their end of the bargain and appear to be acting in the common interest, to those who have joined anyway if not necessarily those who have rejected the appeal, they are free to prosper or fail in their economic ventures, and free to dominate democracies where they become the majority. In practice of course radical movements OTL denounce liberal societies for rank hypocrisy and that political opposition to Sanchezism will emerge seems certain, starting in the UPSA itself. Some will denounce the Combine for not living up to its own ideals, others will reformulate the basic rules of ideology to exclude their type of program from legitimacy. Certainly they are open to the charge of tyranny of the majority, and in fact they may move to seize overwhelming power long before they have accumulated actual majorities, believing that imposing their program by fiat of a determined minority will be retroactively justified.
I don't think "Diversitarianism" could exist as a movement or ideology without the Combine to oppose.
And the world of LTTW is not dominated by a liberal consensus such as evolved in the 19th Century OTL either. The North American Empire appears to the casual glance to be pretty much an exponent of such liberalism but perhaps the author can spell out the ways the ideology diverges from it. After all OTL large numbers of historically respectable figures who appear to be staunch liberals to the modern casual glance also embraced, at least in lip service, ideas such as Henry George's notion that property ownership was in a different category than capital ownership in general, and that revenues from land ownership should be socialized to some degree or other, both as a less objectionable base to tax and as a distortion in market forces that the state should correct. The lockstep of democracy and laissez-faire capitalism that modern ideologues living in a real world that has evolved to be far removed from their paradise of competing small enterprises assert was not as universally accepted as the time as their view of history would have us believe.
Anyway ITTL the ideological landscape is different again, and the grounds on which opponents of the Combine will fight it, and thus the means they use, will depend on that as well as tactical and strategic advantages different parties happen to enjoy.
I'd think that for quite some time the Combine would exist without controlling any states, not with certainty anyway, and to various degrees some Sanchezists will be found everywhere, and Sanchezite firms almost everywhere, even in places like India or the two Chinas. Then in some world crisis, perhaps not even during the Pandoric War but some time after it, a sort out will happen where they consolidate their hold on core territories presumably starting with UPSA and the inner circle of the Herminadad, sweepingly abolishing all anti-Sanchezite economic entities thus forcing all workers to enroll with one or another Combine shop, purging the states to come fully into line with Combine policy and blocking all political avenues to anti-Combine movements, and in reaction to this the non-Sanchezite nations will crack down on their Combine elements, dissolving the companies, jailing or exiling the leaders, punishing workers who adhere to the program by law or by blacklist, and embodying impediments to the Sanchezite program in law. Some nations will prove to be hanging closely in the balance and become battlegrounds, with both sides intervening in various ways, ranging from legal advocates arguing before courts to mass invasion.
Eventually the lines will stabilize, the battleground nations either joining the Combine or expelling most of its manifestations, and some, probably not every one, of these, participate in the anti-Combine Diversitarian movement with all its paradoxes. The remainder are non-aligned, in Cold War terms; either they are genuinely neutral, perhaps with some national characteristics that check the rise of Sanchezism more or less naturally, or with aggressive anti-Sanchez ideologies of their own that don't mesh with Diversitarian organization. On the Combine side, states can be very fluid, creatures of the Combine directives, and it appears that some decision has been made to either dissolve them completely or rearrange the borders. Within the Combine, now appearing to be a mega-state at least seen from the outside under the control of the Combine directors, it seems that some sort of global coordinate system has been adopted and is used for functional governance, either with the new intended to be global system acting as a state, or simply as internal organization of Combine director policy implementation without reference to a theoretically separate state structure. Who can tell at this point? Do the people of the Combine all learn and speak one common language apparently derived from Spanish? If so, do they speak it as a second language and continue to have their own separate mother tongues? Is information more strongly controlled there than in England--where we see plain signs of censorship at work--or perhaps English people can access alternate channels of information but the state wants to keep an eye on it? Is it like that in the Combine or is there some sort of Orwellian totalitarianism going on there, presumably enforced more by ostensibly private and voluntary Combine officials... or what?
I've always been skeptical of the idea that the Combine is a terrible place to live, but that certainly is the drift of what data the author chooses to disseminate. Given the disagreeable elements one can infer (or not!) exist in English society, quite a bit of harshness might seem, fairly judged, to be merely an equivalent alternative to the forms of tyranny in the Diversitarian sphere. Presumably the latter at least vary a lot in their character, by the nature of the ideology, while it seems reasonable to assume that in the Combine there is aspiration toward uniformity in many respects, with diversity of situations on the ground being seen as unfortunate holdovers of circumstance.
The thread is getting really restless as I can see. 
Is there really censorship in England? I thought that was just propaganda by books' Irish editions.
Is there really censorship in England? I thought that was just propaganda by books' Irish editions.
England does not censor anything, it just takes a democratic decision not to publish certain things.
Since we're talking propaganda, I wonder just how elastic the truth is in the Diversitarian world. With every ethnic group and nation's opinion being shown as part of some greater truth, if not as the same truth, it seems like there would be no way to know what was true or false. Perhaps the English know about Irish propaganda and they accept it as part of the Irish perception of reality. Kind of creepy when you think about it...
Whatever the English government says it is, of course I also wonder who the big winners will be in the Pandoric War. The ENA, almost certainly, with the French and their sphere being a close second. Maybe the Feng will be able to take control over more of the north(if they are so inclined, and if they are actually at war with Russia) given that Russia can't be everywhere at once. The Siamese Empire will be a big loser, given that we know that Indochina becomes Societist, but where does that leave Germany and Danubia? Plenty of nations' fates are still up in the air. Also, I hope we hear from that interracial couple They were very cute together.
I also wonder who the big winners will be in the Pandoric War. The ENA, almost certainly, with the French and their sphere being a close second. Maybe the Feng will be able to take control over more of the north(if they are so inclined, and if they are actually at war with Russia) given that Russia can't be everywhere at once. The Siamese Empire will be a big loser, given that we know that Indochina becomes Societist, but where does that leave Germany and Danubia? Plenty of nations' fates are still up in the air. Also, I hope we hear from that interracial couple They were very cute together.
Last edited:
Whatever the English government says it is, of course
Cheeky.
We know they divide New Holland amongst themselves, but we really don't know. Might be that the war itself will end up more or less status quo ante bellum and the Societist takeovers start.
As far as I remember, China will be reunited with this war. What's left is of course Formosa, Liaodong and Manchuria. Also, how do we go from the Empire of China to the Union of China.
Danubia will probably go Societist in a fairly short time. Czechs in Bohemia might want to join them. I also want Jutland to be freed from German control.
The one thing that LTTW is missing is an update (or part of an update) by a Societist author. I think that it would be absolutely brilliant to have a Societist author in an update concerning the UPSA's revolution, perhaps after the new format of Turtledove-esque tales is complete? And maybe we could also have a Diversitarian author so everything is nice and non-biased
We had one way back at the beginning. It was pretty smugly anti-nationalist (and plain smug in general).The one thing that LTTW is missing is an update (or part of an update) by a Societist author. I think that it would be absolutely brilliant to have a Societist author in an update concerning the UPSA's revolution, perhaps after the new format of Turtledove-esque tales is complete? And maybe we could also have a Diversitarian author so everything is nice and non-biased
People can speculate all they want, but this is Thande's TL and Actually Existing Societism his to create (and take the blame for ). It will reflect what he considers plausible, and as a guess, he's unlikely to have a Societist setup which is at the same time strongly anti-liberal, dedicated to stamping out national and regional differences, and democratic, although Your Orwellianism May Vary.
). It will reflect what he considers plausible, and as a guess, he's unlikely to have a Societist setup which is at the same time strongly anti-liberal, dedicated to stamping out national and regional differences, and democratic, although Your Orwellianism May Vary. People can speculate all they want, but this is Thande's TL and Actually Existing Societism his to create (and take the blame for
My prediction is that it is quite "liberal" in theory, broadly corresponding well to OTL 19th century liberal doctrines--private property in free competition, etc. And "democratic" in much the same sense that various Marxists have interpreted "democratic centralism"--that is, in phases where the state exists as a competitive entity, Societists generally advocate maximum democracy and then instruct their followers to vote the party line, while the party line itself is decided by a committee representing all movement followers deemed adequately instructed in Sanchezite thought and committed to it; the central bodies will issue directives meant to guide all Sanchezites correctly in particular circumstances. The "democratic" part of the centralism has in fact varied a lot in various movements among Marxists OTL, with Stalinism on extreme. Similarly I'd expect the strictness of correctly interpreted doctrine to be applied stringently in some cases and loosely in others.
So in your terms I guess we have two points check and check--they are pro-liberal, and of course pro-uniformity, and "democratic" in the sense that Marxist parties and movements tend to be OTL. Indeed unlike Marxism, there may not be an ultimate goal of universal retroactive consent by affirmation of all the common masses elevated to equal citizenship status and intellectual clarity; Sanchez might be satisfied with a Platonic guardian cadre and affirm that the masses don't really know what they doing and are out of their depth in fully democratic states.
I don't think Thande would like to trust me with the necessary information to know the definitive canon backstory of Societism before he is prepared to reveal it generally. He'd have to not only explain what he foresees in terms of the movement's inner meanings but also the external general events that shaped its actual outcomes. He has made it (apparently) clear that whatever it is, it is BAD. It is not so evident to me it must be, and some of that disagreement may be down to clashing world views. Whereas I don't want to speak for dystopia!
I think maybe I could, if asked to. But I'm pretty sure I'd rather write about how something works than doesn't.
Thanks for the affirmation though!
