A Collectivist America Where Choice is a Burden and Free Will is Feared?

Hey all,

I'm interested in writing a dystopian alternate-history novel in a collectivist America where citizens freely relinquish their free will because they find themselves unworthy of using it correctly--in this alternate universe, choice is a burden, something to fear, and selfish individuality is a crime against the State (for every man is an important gear in the communal system). The setting is basically Ayn Rand's nightmare and the anti-Rapture from Bioshock (though the themes are the same).

I want this to be an alternate history piece that allows me to play with the culture and aesthetic of the early-to-mid 1900s time period.
1) What historical events in the early-to-mid 1900s could have realistically stemmed a more collective and less capitalistic America, one hundred or more years later?

2) As I understand communism and communist leaders, the inclination was never to forcefully spread the ideals to the rest of the world. However, were there ever any communist extremists (preferably a communist equivalent of totalitarianist Hitler) who might have gone this route if given the chance?

3) Does extreme collectivist/communist society clash with my intentions of building a world where the common citizen believes individuality is evil--that because we are human, only a "wise" few of us are worthy of making hard life choices for all the others?​
 
2) As I understand communism and communist leaders, the inclination was never to forcefully spread the ideals to the rest of the world. However, were there ever any communist extremists (preferably a communist equivalent of totalitarianist Hitler) who might have gone this route if given the chance?
This is far from universally the case. In fact, I think the opposite is more often true. Obviously, people wanted communism to spring up naturally among the workers and peasants, but they were hardly averse to giving them a push. Trotskyism was especially interested in fostering the International Revolution, just as an example.

I don't think communism/collectivism is inherently more likely to suppress independent thought than any other ideology, but in any system where a self-interested and totaltarian leadership takes over the state and it's appurtenances (notably, the education system), you can reach that result. It brings to mind recently democratized (often by outside elements) areas that just go ahead and elect their recent rulers.
 
2) As I understand communism and communist leaders, the inclination was never to forcefully spread the ideals to the rest of the world. However, were there ever any communist extremists (preferably a communist equivalent of totalitarianist Hitler) who might have gone this route if given the chance?


I'm not sure about the plausibility of the rest of your specifications, but Communism, depending on who you talk to, does in fact believe in 'spreading the ideals'. 'World revolution' and internationalism are a big part of early Communist thought, and it was only Stalin and his ideas of 'Socialism In One Country' that became de facto Communist Law when he took complete control of the world's only Communist state that made Communism seem isolationist.

If you want an internationalist Communist leader who wants to spread their ideals, look no further than Leon Trotsky, famed nemesis of Stalin who was exiled after being outmanouevred in the Soviet Union. He wanted world revolution and wrote about the value of invading and imposing/instating communism by force extensively.

However, I should warn you that there's a consensus on the board that Trotsky could never have led the USSR - one that I'm not enough of a Sovietologist to dispute, and one that does make a great deal of sense. But, if you're asking if it's possible for a Communist leader to want to 'export the Revolution', then absolutely, it's more than possible. If it's a more modern leader, Trotsky would almost certainly be this person's idol.

On a side note, have you played BioShock 2? The system imposed in Rapture during that game is very much the anti-Rand, drawing ideas of communitarianism from John Stuart Mill rather than from political ideas like Communism. I thoroughly recommend it if you've not played it (the gameplay is much better than BioShock 1, but the story not as compelling).
 
You should read 1984, this is exactly the scenario. Actually the national slogan of "Oceania" which was once the U.S:

Freedom is Slavery
War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength

It's based off of the U.S post WW2 after the U.S.S.R invades and conquers Europe, America federalizes with the U.K. and conquers North and South America and Australia out of Communist fear and becomes super Totalitarian.
 

Meerkat92

Banned
Exactly. For ideas, I'd suggest you read 1984, A Brave New World, Anthem, and We to get ideas for a good dystopia. I'd also suggest Farenheit 451, except that it has a semi-happy ending and isn't all that collectivist in tone (more of a dystopia built on apathy instead of fear of choice), so it might not be bleak enough to help you with the world-building.
 
1984 was still a class based society, arguably more so than we have currently as there seems to be almost zero possibility of social mobility. This would seem more line with Rousseau's society of the General Will than any form of Communism or Socialism.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
You should read 1984, this is exactly the scenario. Actually the national slogan of "Oceania" which was once the U.S:

Freedom is Slavery
War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength

It's based off of the U.S post WW2 after the U.S.S.R invades and conquers Europe, America federalizes with the U.K. and conquers North and South America and Australia out of Communist fear and becomes super Totalitarian.

er...since when did George Orwell ever say how the world in 1984 came to be?

The whole point of the novel is that it's supposed to just be this monolithic all-seeing omnipotent force that has always been and will always be.
 
er...since when did George Orwell ever say how the world in 1984 came to be?

The whole point of the novel is that it's supposed to just be this monolithic all-seeing omnipotent force that has always been and will always be.

Winston talks about the formation of Oceania somewhere in the book. I'm currently reading it again...

But Ingsoc is a weird form of collectivism. The Party doesn't consider the proles people, so technically they don't share things distributed by the party (which is everything, being that the Party is collectivist) with the Proles. The Proles go on the "Free Market" and are forced to trade among themselves.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I thoroughly recommend it if you've not played it (the gameplay is much better than BioShock 1, but the story not as compelling).
For some reason, I found the Audio Diaries to be significantly less compelling in BioShock 2.
 

Spengler

Banned
er...since when did George Orwell ever say how the world in 1984 came to be?

The whole point of the novel is that it's supposed to just be this monolithic all-seeing omnipotent force that has always been and will always be.
I always thought that one of the ideas of 1984 was that you couldn't be sure if everything the system said was even in anyway true. For all you knew Oceania was just Airstrip one.
 
Now, how does this dystopian society function? Is there a drug that the government makes everyone take, or do people just say that they've given up their free will?
 
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Wolfpaw

Banned
I always thought that one of the ideas of 1984 was that you couldn't be sure if everything the system said was even in anyway true. For all you knew Oceania was just Airstrip one.
Fascism is ultimately what is says it is: corporate. The Party uses all of the Society's ligaments to flood the Brain with falsity.
 

whitecrow

Banned
er...since when did George Orwell ever say how the world in 1984 came to be?

The whole point of the novel is that it's supposed to just be this monolithic all-seeing omnipotent force that has always been and will always be.
No kidding. And how could Oceania be formed as a reaction to fear of communism spreading when it was supposed to show what would happen if communists took over Britain?

The story I was told is that Orwell wrote the novel in response to pro-communist sentiment in U.K. in 1948 (thus if you re-arrange the numbers you get 1984. Get it?). The novel was supposed to be speculative fiction showing how bad things would turn out if the reds took over.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I always thought that one of the ideas of 1984 was that you couldn't be sure if everything the system said was even in anyway true. For all you knew Oceania was just Airstrip one.

That was my thought. There's nothing that can be trusted...that's kind of the point.

I don't get how people can even try to graft a rhyme or reason to any part of that world that wasn't literally spelled out or came into physical contact with any of the main characters.
 
The story I was told is that Orwell wrote the novel in response to pro-communist sentiment in U.K. in 1948 (thus if you re-arrange the numbers you get 1984. Get it?). The novel was supposed to be speculative fiction showing how bad things would turn out if the reds took over.

It wasn't meant as a condemnation of any specific ideology, just a general opposition to totalitarianism. Ingsoc has both fascist and communist elements in it (note how the proles are vilified as degenerate and unworthy rather than glorified as heroic workers).

Orwell had first-hand experience with creeping totalitarianism in Spain - the POUM militia he was fighting with was outlawed and persecuted for political reasons by the increasingly Stalinist Republican government.
 
No kidding. And how could Oceania be formed as a reaction to fear of communism spreading when it was supposed to show what would happen if communists took over Britain?

The story I was told is that Orwell wrote the novel in response to pro-communist sentiment in U.K. in 1948 (thus if you re-arrange the numbers you get 1984. Get it?). The novel was supposed to be speculative fiction showing how bad things would turn out if the reds took over.

Well, no, that's not correct, given that Orwell himself was a committed socialist. 1984 is basically a dystopic examination of, as Mac says, the worst possible monolithic, all-seeing government, combining what Orwell saw as the worst of Nazism, Stalinism and 'American Imperialist' capitalism.

For example, Ingsoc is a corruption of 'English Socialism' - which of course sounds a lot like National Socialism, which was itself normally abbreviated to 'Nazi'.
 
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