Monday 23 August 2010

Interspecies Research and Capitalist Exploitation




According to 'A Companion to Science Fiction', edited by David Seed, the Rand Corporation wrote a report "which suggested that...production-line sub-humans [would be available] as workers by the year 2025 (Lane 1991: 9). This inspired Stephen Gallagher to write his 1982 novel, 'Chimera', which "traces modern genetic engineering back to concentration camp experiments and thereby implies, and denounces, the parallels between capitalist exploitation and Nazi atrocity." The British t.v. version of the book (which from some of the screen shots I've seen looks slightly underwhelming) apparently "removes this theme, [although] it retains its critique of a government intending to further disenfranchise its people of economic self-determination by manufacturing subhuman workers... As it stands, it is a disturbing view of what the cooperation between capitalism and science could achieve." Gallagher, it should be noted, also wrote the Doctor Who story 'Warrior's Gate', which concerns the enslavement and exploitation of an alien species.

1 comment:

Anselmo Quemot said...

Thanks a lot for this excellent series of posts Space Jockey. I particularly enjoyed this one: it got me thinking, maybe Rand should just come out and announce their new slogan, "More Human, Than Human", right? I could mention Weyland Utani as well, but you catch my drift...