American versus Lunar Revolution

One thing I found interesting about Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is that despite the many correlations between the prison colony on Luna and European colonies, particularly British colonies of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, the choice he made to set his colony on the moon created differences that altered his society from developing the way that colonies developed on Earth. For example, the British colonies in America were exploited in a similar fashion to the way Terra exploits Luna. The British reaped materials from their colonies, which they transformed into finished goods and sold back at a much higher price. The colonies were not supposed to engage in trade with other countries, which was supposed to give Britain full advantage of both the materials and the colonists’ money. Because this system is set up between Britain and its colonies, the colonials had the outside recourse of smuggling with which to bring in needed supplies and cash flow so that they would not be bled dry. The situation on Luna in which the Loonies ship wheat back to Terra reminded me of that colonial system on Earth because Luna will exhaust its own food supply if it continues to make the required wheat shipments. The difference in this situation is that the Loonies do not have an outside source that they can use to relieve the stress on their food supply because no such source exists. This dilemma leads them to planning their revolution, which again is reminiscent of the American Revolution. One of the many causes leading up to the American Revolution was that the Britains, though they knew that smuggling provided continued income into their colonies for them to take away through their exploitative policies, cracked down on smuggling and tried to actually uphold the trading regulations they had set down.

Another difference I found interesting between the colony on Luna and the British colonies is that British colonials were able to return to Britain. Living in the Americas would not have made them unable to survive in the English atmosphere, which made them more able to be vocal in Britain than the Loonies are on Terra. Since the Loonies have an extremely difficult time surviving for any extended period on Terra, they are even easier to exploit than the colonies in American were for Britain. Because they cannot fight back (I’m talking pre-revolution here) through official or political avenues, they are forced to a revolution more quickly. They have to fight physically, and on their own turf, because they cannot survive on Terra, and no one will listen to them until they take power and make their words be heard.