Transformers leftist infighting in disguise

Despite being created during the cold war and being about the war, the transformers franchise wasn’t about leftist fighting rightist until over two decades into its existence. Instead, the original Transformers cartoon was about leftist facing off against leftist even if it wasn’t the intention of the writers. To clarify, I will mainly be discussing G1 cartoon continuity.

Before any statements can be made, we must first define our terms. In a socialist society, the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. This can be through different methods. With more libertarian variants of socialism having things be run by decentralized councils, while the more authoritarian varieties have the state own all property. In a capitalist society, the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be privately owned and run for profit.

From what we see in the G1 cartoon, the transformers civilization has little to no private property, and most, if not all property is publicly or state-owned. Now yes, the leaders of the respective factions may have more control over how the property is utilized, but they don’t profit off it. In general, Transformers society is more collectivist, with all individuals being expected to work towards the betterment of the whole of society. This is precisely what the left stands for.

Interestingly enough, the history of the Transformers in the generation one cartoon is oddly similar to the Marxist theory of historical materialism. Historical materialism posits that for civilization to advance, it must go through different systems of production. So feudalism and capitalism are necessary steps in the development of society before socialism and communism can be attained. The reason is that capitalism is needed to industrialize and to advance so it could become socialist, and feudalism is required to develop civilization so it could become capitalist. In the lore of Transformers, Cybertron was conquered by the Quintessons, who subjected the Transformers, making them slaves and dividing them into two different castes. One caste would be made to produce consumer goods while the other served the purpose of being military hardware. However, the Quintessons also made Cybertron into a factory, essentially industrializing it, making it possible to have a socialist system. After that, the transformers rebelled and banished the Quintessons from their world. Just as historical materialism states, for socialism to be achieved, the society had to be under a rigid class structure temporarily. Once that system served its purpose, and the civilization was industrialized. The laboring masses would overthrow the oppressive class system and replacing it with a more egalitarian system. Well, at least economically speaking. However, after liberation, something happened that Karl Marx might not have predicted. The society split into ideological lines, but instead of fighting over economic policy, it was over foreign policy. This split was over whether their society should have an expansionist or conciliatory foreign policy. This is starkly in contrast to human conflict, which usually has a foreign policy as a component of conflict rather than the root cause, with most conflicts happening on economic or ethnic grounds.

Now some might argue that the Decepticons are on the right-wing since they have an imperialist foreign policy. However, I’d beg to differ since the Autobots are a monarchy, with the leader being a religious figure. While the Decepticons, on the other hand, though dictatorial, still have a more republican type of leadership. So it kinda balances out between who is more left and right-wing. In a way, their ideologies are two sides of the same coin since they have the same economic belief, and both have undemocratic forms of government. This is also a difference between Cybertronian civilization and human civilization since, in human culture, religious figures and institutions supported expansionism rather than denounced it. The only real differences are their foreign policy and stances on religion, but despite that, they fight a grueling war against each other instead of coming to a compromise. This goes to show that even a society with a collectively owned economy and strong collectivist values. Can still be divided into political factions over matters like foreign policy. This can also raise questions for our civilization. If we are to become advanced enough that class barriers would become redundant. Should we go out conquering lesser civilizations, or should we help them advance to our level? Questions like these will increase in importance as time passes and our civilization advances. Perhaps foreign policy will become a significant enough matter that we might fight each other over it. So in a way, the original Transformers cartoon might foreshadow our future as a civilization. Only time can tell.

Wait a second transformers have a socialist economy, undemocratic goverments and either ultra-religious or ultra-atheist. OMG I think I’ve discovered the anti-centrist master race. Well atleast left anti-centrist master race the right-wingers are gonna have to find their own. Also I guess the Autobots are technically the more centrist of the two faction since they are non-interventions. So, all hail Megatron!

Further viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojR86ivIhQ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXzvE3I39t8