Recently saw the

the director does not like the book at all because he believes it advocates warmongering and fascism, and went through great lengths to mock it.

>film starts with a recruitment ad
most people think that the film begins where the ad ends, but the point of starting the film with the ad is that the whole film is a propaganda film

>young man volunteers with his best friends in serving the federation
>service makes him a better person
>fights in a war
>end of film is a reunion with all his friends

however, the book federation actively discourages people from service. it's acknowledged that civilians (no franchise) can be smarter than a citizen (has franchise) but the experience of federal service is supposed to make a citizen understand through blood, sweat and tears that the interests of the whole (the federation) must be considered before the individual.

militarist can't into logistics

Fascism is thrown around as such a pejorartive. dirty word, as though the ideology were inherently bad. It just seems to be a structure for militarist authoritarianism. Given that humanity in this case is mobilised for a unified, total war it doesn't seem out of place to follow a fascist government for this purpose.

Yes you can tell me to go to /pol/ now or wherever

>guilty

also forgot to mention, the federation is an incredibly efficient bureaucracy/meritocracy (possibly technocracy?). personally, it's too efficient, and that's why i accuse the book of utopianism.

well the fascist states of the 20th century were incredibly corrupt, inefficient, and dysfunctional to the point of disbelief.

the same could be said of de facto fascist states in the current era.

now i don't think fascism is objectively wrong. it's pretty kick-ass if you're born into the higher stratus of society, but in practice fascist governments fall to pieces.

>fascism is a description of their style of government

and how so?

to begin with, fascism supposes authoritarianism and nationalism, federation had neither, federation is clearly non nationalistic (unless you claim that the bugs were the space jews, lol) and iirc is not authoritarian i.e. it doesn't have a sort of dictator or something, iirc it's a democracy

it's militaristic though since it allows to vote and to be elected only to those who voluntarily served in the army. this notion is in no way fascist, fascists had one ruling political party but they didn't demand that its members had to be former soldiers or something. also this way to qualify people to vote is likely less discriminatory than a property or gender qualification, which were common in the history of the democracy, since their army accepts everybody regardless of their gender, material wealth or even physical condition; they also assume that it's likely not the best political system but they keep it since it works

i am not even sure if you could call federation a right-wing government since i am not sure such an unique way to have democracy can be called conservative or reactionary

>federation is clearly non nationalistic
>iirc is not authoritarian i.e. it doesn't have a sort of dictator or something

i would hazard that the nationalism and authoritarianism comes from the indoctrination of service people to always place the group and/or federation before the individual. there is also much scorn for the 20th century democracies, among the other political systems, which is taught in the high school "history and moral ethics" classes, which are essentially political indoctrination classes. self-criticisms of the federation are relatively few.

btw authoritarianism and democracy are not mutually independent.

i don't recall if there's more than one party, what elections are held, etc.

btw, disregarding the author's intent, but would the protag recognize the federation as a fascist state if it were one? the political indoctrination in the book all comes from citizens, either from the P.I. classes or the drill instructors or the war college instructors.

i personally don't think the federation is fascist, it seems to actually shy away from war. a lot of military science is involved, but i think discussing theory shouldn't be conflated with eagerness to practice it.

>it's militaristic though since it allows to vote and to be elected only to those who voluntarily served in the army.

actually, the book says that veterans are only allowed to be come citizens. however, characters in the book note that most "veterans" (95%?) are not actually combat veterans, and moreover served in other government departments, i.e. the protag's friend served as a researcher on pluto.

I was only answering his question, not claiming that the Federation was fascist. I meant the general "their." I don't really know how to classify the Federation's government. It's not exactly an oligarchy, not much of a meritocracy either. Unique, I guess.

i believe it's democracy, probably right-wing since it assumes a rather strict voting qualification

I don't think it's supposed to be an endorsement of fascism, and I haven't read the book, only seen the film
but the director said he took a lot of inspiration from Triumph of the Will
perhaps it's supposed to give a sense of what it must have been like for someone in 1930s Germany to be exposed to that sort of media in a more relatable setting