Foundation and Facism.

Sat down this Thanksgiving break and did what I'd been thinking of doing for a while: read the entire original Foundation trilogy. Was easier than I thought, and the writing was enjoyable. I wanted to do this due to some relatively recent endorsements in the speeches and articles by Paul Krugman and how it relates to economics. So I sat down to read the novels with an economist's approach and came away confused, disappointed, and a little shocked. In no way do I mean to disparage the writing of Asimov, I get that it really is just a sci-fi version of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", but I would have thought he'd use a bit more forward thinking for his future galaxy.

Problem 1: The Galactic Empire. Unless I missed it, there is no real semblance of democracy. Asimov's gigantic Empire is best described as either a Facist or Oligarchic society. The emperor has total control over the life and death of his people. Then the great danger is the fall of a totalitarian government that oppresses billions and billions of people for the purpose of propping up a planet that Asimov describes as being totally devoted to the bureaucracy of a ruling political class? And the entire mathematical study of pyscho history is invented to replace this empire after its fallen? Not improve it? Not ensure that no one else is ever disappeared again or murdered on the whims of the politically powerful? Hari Seldon wants to return and recreate the all powerful totalitarian state? Again, I get that this is Rome in space, but the future of Earth after the Romans fell on average has been a big win. The fall of a comparable empire (the British) was followed by the largest increase in per capita income, health, and educational outcomes that history has ever seen. Wouldn't the idea be to avoid a second galactic empire for a better system? Or is the point that we can do no better? I am honestly in the dark here, if some one with a better understanding of the novel can help me out.

Problem 2: Totalitarianism through mind control. The Second Foundation, which is apparently the new governing body leading to this second empire controls events through emotional and mental manipulation. They are hidden in some kind of academic society, and commit themselves apparently to this rebirth of the old totalitarian state for the sake of stability. This is a good thing? An oligarchy with mind control? And all their motivations and desires are purely for the good of humanity and the completion of this Seldon plan for a second empire? They have no problem manipulating the villain (the one who is supposed to be the bad guy) into wiping out an entire planet just to stay hidden, and then leave some of their own to a lynch mob to convince everyone else they do not exist anymore. And why? Because knowledge of their existence throws some wrench into the plan? What the hell? These guys make Alan Moore's Ozymandias look like a rank amateur, because all he did was murder everyone living in New York City to avoid the nuclear war that he thought was coming (and I'm beginning to wonder if that outcome was as certain in Alan Moore's "Watchmen"). But even Moore gave you an idea of the sickness of this. He introduced you to the characters of the news paper stand owner, the boy reading the comics, the psychiatrist who tried so hard to save people one at a time (at the time of Ozymandias' massacre, he was trying to stop a street fight). He made the reader connect to them just before the "Grand Plan of Salvation" was put into place in all its terror. Asimov makes no attempt to introduce the people who are being slaughtered on a chapter by chapter basis all in the name of some vague greater good of re-founding a totalitarian state.

Unless this is actually Asimov's point and I've some how really missed the mark, the Foundation comes out more the villain as it subjugates and conquers the surrounding planetary system, leaving them open to rule by yet another distant and centralized government which does not truly represent them but rather rules them. And all for the sake of stability? The idea of survival of mankind? I'm lost, I admit it. Is the point that the Foundation is good or bad? Or is it just as it is? And was 30,000 years of instability with multiple self-ruled planets really not preferable to 1000 years of rule by a minority, chosen based only on their ability to perform abstract mathematical equations in an academic setting?

There are some economics arguments... but these two are the most unsettling for me. What confuses me more is how most people I talk to refer to Heinlein as a facist for his "Starship Troopers" novel based on a society that requires military service before citizens can vote (and not based on Nazi Germany, but on good ol' Switzerland) . But is anyone criticizing Asimov for portraying as progressive a totalitarian state run by manipulative and authoritarian academics as being facist? "Benevolent" dictatorship is still dictatorship. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

As a note: not saying the Heinlein arguments are wrong, but if we're going to talk totalitarianism, the guy who wrote "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" seems to have a one up on the guy who wrote Foundation. Just saying.