Why I read it: I wasn’t in the mood for “non-fiction.” (Troy gasps). Of course, Ursula Le Guin’s science-fiction is often sociological; she creates inspired new worlds/societies based on intriguing thought experiments (cf. The Left Hand of Darkness, etc.). For hard-core fact-based readers like myself, she’s an easy sell.
What it’s about: The Dispossessed is an allegory of anarchism. Written in 1974, it concerns a physicist (Shevek) who leaves his home world, the moon, in search of new understandings. The planet he’s left is in essence a giant hippie commune –there are no possessions and no laws, and all work is done voluntarily. The planet his ancestors left, 200 years ago, is currently splintered into many nation-states, some of whom are at war with each other. The state that hosts him is opulently wealthy, with pockets of extreme poverty (that he’s not supposed to see). It desires his “theory of simultaneity” in order to build faster-than-light spaceships, and thereby to steal a jump on it’s socialist/authoritarian rival state.
Good/Very Good/or Excellent: Very Good.
Details: The writing is above average for Le Guin and the characters are well-rounded and interesting. She doesn’t bite off more than she can chew, and 
much of what we learn about both worlds (“our” capitalist society and “their” anarchist commune) is indirect, or reflected in the characters themselves. The plot isn’t overly complex, which worked for me, as it didn’t detract from the contemplative nature of the story itself.
Portraying Shevek’s astonishment at the capitalist, hierarchical, rigorously-gendered world he encounters is trivially easy for Le Guin, and the least interesting thing about the book, to me. Far more interesting are his difficulties with his own society, which provide his motivation for leaving –he’s the first person to leave Anarres since it was settled. Most people associate anarchism with chaos, but Le Guin does a good job of showing (not telling) how an anarchist society could (would?) likely work. Just as you can’t imagine a democracy without (small “d”) democrats, Shevek’s world consists of anarchists. Each of them learns from childhood to share, to avoid “egoizing” and acquisitiveness, and in return, to rely on each other for their own survival. Anarres is a harsh, desert world, and although there is a lot of hard, dirty, dangerous work to be done, people do it eagerly, in weekly or monthly shifts and in solidarity (echoes of the Israeli kibbutz movement come through strongly here). As a result, the primary individuality of each person is recognized; if you want to do something (“work” and “play” are the same word in their invented language) you are allowed to do it. There are no laws, remember.
But society is its own law. Le Guin does a fantastic job of creating characters who, at the same time they cannot be anything other than anarchists or imagine anything other than anarchism, chafe at the “soft,” but ultimately oppressive restrictions created by the need for conformity. Interpersonal rivalries fester even in a world where food is free, and freely available, and tragically, it’s the very attempt to restrain power that seems to create oppression.
This is not an indictment of anarchism by any means. Le Guin is smart to locate Shevek’s society on a moon, cut off from contact with the mother planet; egalitarian, non-hierarchical settlements on Earth tend to be conquered by authoritarian regimes, or crumble in the face of capitalism. Like Shevek, when you’re finished with The Dispossessed, you can’t imagine how you can live in a society like ours, that locks down our humanity and distributes privileges on manifestly unjust grounds. In some ways, it’s a thrill to see petty, status-seeking behavior in an anarchist context; it highlights the ways in which human nature, for better or worse, is entirely compatible with a non-hierarchical social structure. After all, we evolved that way, right?
I expect that, like a cafeteria on Anarres, readers will take from The Dispossessed what they want. Le Guin does not let anarchist sympathizers off easy; the capitalist world Shevek encounters on the mother world is given its due; it gives Shevek things (of real value) that he can’t get on Anarres. Anarchism emerges from her fictional account much like Augustine’s famous prayer for chastity, “Oh lord, give us a world without power, but do not give it yet.”
Sunlight in a Jar 
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