Alliance - Capitalist or Communist?
POSTED BY: chronicthehedgehog
UPDATED: Saturday, August 13, 2005 12:24
VIEWED: 12105
PAGE 2 of 6
Quote:
Originally posted by batmarlowe:
Another question is does the Alliance actively control all planets or are they in the process of actively trying to control the outer planets or are they just letting them be so long as they don't get any funny ideas?
Joss definitely was inspired by the US Civil War, but as all good writers he brought his story out into an arena of more universal application.
I have always seen the relationship between the Alliance and the outer planets as that of a colonial power with its various colonies.
As a modern super power you terriform a planet/moon, but you don't know if it will actually support life (if there will be radiation disease or other complications) so you allow the poor or unwanted of your society to pioneer the newly terriformed planet or moon.
If they all die horrible lingering deaths, then well...no loss. BUT if they thrive and prosper, then they clearly owe taxes, and allegance to the Alliance (and what ever Corporate body that was paying for the experiment).
But, as I said in my earlier post...this is all theory and my own personal impressions, Joss has played it very close to the vest. I hope that there will be many sequels in which he can explore all these subjects and many others.
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I have argued before that the Alliance is a capitilist government. However, it's a government that is highly unregulated.
Think of the nature of 18th century England. In that nation you had a government (parliment) and an aristocracy (king and nobels). You also had strong business interests (East India Company among others) that influenced these 2 forces. As a triad you see a form of capitilism where each part of the triad influences and corrupts the other 2.
The Alliance is quite similar. Here we have a central Alliance government much like Parliment. Then also you have extremely strong nobility influences (Think about the Shindig ball) and corporations like Blue Sun and others.
Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony.
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I thought the Alliance and the Blue Sun thing were directly related somewhere behind the scenes. Is that my imagination or is there something in the show that supports that?
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Quote:That's perfect!!!
Originally posted by batmarlowe:
it seems the Alliance is Corporofascist.
A logical and horrible outgrowth of the facist mentality used to maximize corporate profits!
That's brilliant!
Can I use it?
Copyright Chrisisall
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Yeah, it’s also a bit loaded. It’s a common term used by anti-globalization types on the internet. It usually precedes the word “neocon.” I’ve been accused of it a couple of times myself. 
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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I would see Corporofacism to mean a system of Uber-capitalist conglomerates that would, for example, have the ability to have me, Signym, HK, and most other people here that question their integrity swiftly 'erased' to contain such thinking.
That's just how I would take it's meaning, and we're nowhere near that....yet. Give it a few decades, and some administrations more extreme than Bush's, and I say it's possible (however unlikely).
You Finn, on the other hand, I see as an Independant conservative with a slight tendancy toward liberal (not leftist) leanings. How does that sit with ya?
I used the 'L' word Chrisisall
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Yes, Chrisisall, you can use it as soon as you start watching Season 5 of BUFFY. But not until then.
Embers, you and I had different preconceptions as to how the planets came to be terraformed.
I saw it as Those Who Came From Earth-That-Was started terraforming some planets. These first planets got the lion's share of what it would take to allow them to grow and prosper. While those planets were growing and prospering, those who came from Earth-That-Was continued outward and terraformed planets but there was less and less to give out as their resources got used up. Thus the further they got from the core the less developed those planets were and the terraforming stopped when Those Who Came From Earth-That-Was ran out of resources.
Meanwhile the prospering first terraformed planets (the core planets) continued to get stronger, more developed and more "civilized". They then formed an alliance (known as "The Alliance") and decided that those other planets out there should be under their wing and if they didn't like it, then the Alliance would have to force them to be under their wing. The outer planets saw the Alliance as invaders and they banded together (ironically forming their own alliance) to fight the invaders and lost.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you see it as the terraformers of the outer planets was the Alliance itself. In which case yes, the outer planets would be more like colonies. If this is the case it makes explaining the back story a lot easier. My version is clunkier.
So do you think Mal and Zoe and their brothers and sisters in arms were fighting a war to keep the outer planets from being colonized or were they fighting a war to overthrow their colonizers?
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Quote:
Originally posted by batmarlowe:
So do you think Mal and Zoe and their brothers and sisters in arms were fighting a war to keep the outer planets from being colonized or were they fighting a war to overthrow their colonizers?
I saw them as rebels trying to make the 'colony' independent of the Alliance.
I have thought that the 'control' of the central government was almost non-existant while they are all poor and struggling. That they had to achieve a level of financial and cultural sophistication before it was worth the while to collect taxes, and exert control.
I thought Mal & his fellow rebels thought it would be easy to fight off the distant power, that maybe it wouldn't be worth the money and man-power to send troops so far out to the border planets....
But of course they were wrong, the Alliance had no intention of allowing any rebels to stand against them, bringing inspiration to others who might want to break free.
but of course I could be totally wrong.
LOL
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Quote:I’d just call it fascist or criminal, but then I’ve never been that creative. I have a lot of definition issues, anyway.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
I would see Corporofacism to mean a system of Uber-capitalist conglomerates that would, for example, have the ability to have me, Signym, HK, and most other people here that question their integrity swiftly 'erased' to contain such thinking.
Quote:Hell of a lot better then being called fascist!
Originally posted by chrisisall:
You Finn, on the other hand, I see as an Independant conservative with a slight tendancy toward liberal (not leftist) leanings. How does that sit with ya?
Quote:I doubt there’s anyone in this thread that is totally wrong about anything.
Originally posted by embers:
but of course I could be totally wrong.
LOL
How could the rebels have staged an effective offensive against such a heavily entrenched military and economic power without some “core” planets of their own? Has anyone ever wondered that? We’ve seen several battle scenes from the war and the impression that I get is that the rebellion, while ineffective, was actually quit large and well organized.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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I always saw the Alliance as pretty much the equivalent of the current day US. And I don't mean that in a bad way neccessarily. Keep in mind that we saw the Alliance pretty much through Mal's eyes. If you watch 'between the lines' though, the vast majority of the 'feds' they run into were relatively neutral, even benign, given that fact that Mal and crew were criminals.
I've always been of the opinion that there were the seeds of a gradual transformation in Mal. The Message hinted at it heavily. Of course we may never know if the series doesn't come back.. but that's another thread.
SergeantX
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