Stelzer's Travels

Infobox Book |
name = Stelzer's Travels
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translator =


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author = Dan Hurwitz
illustrator =
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country = United States
language = English
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genre = Utopian
Social science fiction
publisher = Booklocker.com, Inc.
pub_date = 2006
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 565 pp
isbn = ISBN 1-59113-669-5
preceded_by =
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"Stelzer's Travels: a voyage to a sensible planet" (2006) is a fantasy novel by Dan Hurwitz.

Like its namesake, Gulliver’s Travels, the book transports its protagonist, David Stelzer, to an imagined land. There, on a planet named “Luxenben,” Stelzer discovers that its inhabitants have achieved a genuinely sustainable, workable civilization—one might even say, a practical utopia. In so doing they have solved problems we humans have found to be intractable such as worldwide pollution, malnutrition, poverty, etc. Stelzer learns that the Luxanders’ accomplishments were made possible by their adherence to a belief system based upon scientifically valid propositions. Upon this system, the planet’s inhabitants were able to build a coherent set of religious, political, economic, and social institutions, each of which is elaborated upon in the book.

Emulating Gulliver, the book presents its ideas within a readable, often humorous, and occasionally suspenseful narrative. The book’s back story is shaped by the commercial interests of a Luxan trading company, Space Ventures, Inc. SVI has been losing customers and needs to expand its interplanetary marketplace. However, the company is unable to do so because it cannot legally sell to unstable planets—i.e., those inhabited by intelligent beings whose ethics have not kept pace with the advance of their military technology. To overcome this obstacle to its expansion, SVI devises a scheme to convert unstable planets into stable ones by prompting them to undergo a spiritual (albeit agnostic) reformation. Before this scheme can be put into general use, however, it must be tested. Thus the company is sent looking for a planetary test site already so nearly on the verge of self-destruction that, even if the scheme backfires, SVI’s meddling cannot reasonably be blamed for the consequences. After scouring the galaxy, Space Ventures selects earth as the planet that most nearly meets its requirement. The company’s next step is to select a human being who can be trained to carry Cartism, their healing ethos, to earth’s inhabitants. SVI’s search for a young man with a messianic spirit results in their picking Neuman, a wild-eyed Hasidic Jew as their intended missionary. For his own reasons, Neuman agrees to meet the ship at the appointed hour and the story begins.

Plot summary

Voyage To A New Planet

On the day that Neuman is to link with the spaceship that is to take him to Luxenben, Neuman discovers to his chagrin that his jalopy will not budge from its parking spot behind the synagogue. Without revealing the purpose of his trip, he convinces Stelzer, a middle-aged businessman he barely knows, to give him a lift. When the two arrive at the desolate pickup site, Neuman thanks Stelzer and urges him to leave. The older man, however, has now become alarmed over the boy’s suspicious behavior and, out of concern for his safety, refuses to go. When the spaceship arrives, Stelzer is naturally dumbstruck. Before he knows it, he becomes entangled in a quirky circumstance that lands him in the spaceship as a stowaway headed to Luxenben along with his bemused young companion.

First Days on Luxenben

Upon their arrival, the two men, who still know nothing of the company’s motivations, are provided very different receptions. Neuman is shipped off to SVI’s Research Institute and held there for weeks incommunicado so that he can be subjected to a subtle form of brainwashing designed to transfer his intense religiosity from Judaism to their faith, Cartism.

Stelzer, meanwhile, is interned in SVI’s private zoo—a profit-making activity the company created decades before when it was still financially fit. The zoo charges admission to native visitors wishing to view the company’s collection of fauna gathered from all corners of the galaxy. Stelzer is quartered in that part of the zoo devoted to intelligent species. Once he accustoms himself to his fellow inmates varied physiologies, the adaptable man finds his circumstances surprisingly agreeable. He is comfortably quartered, well fed, befriended by the staff, entertained by the zoo’s many cultural venues, and assigned no duty other than acting hospitably to native visitors. Contributing most to Stelzer’s satisfaction is the discovery that he is living on a rational planet. With time on his hands, Stelzer turns his attention to a study of Luxenben’s efficacious institutions. The more he learns, the more enamored Stelzer becomes of the planet’s inner workings and, in the process, himself becomes an ardent Cartist.

Neuman’s Conversion

Stelzer’s one concern is Neuman’s welfare. After some time, he is allowed a meeting with the boy during which he begins to suspect that Research’s cynical practitioners have ingratiated themselves with the boy and persuaded him to voluntarily remain in Research for further training. Later encounters with Neuman indicate that the boy has, for all practical purposes, deserted Judaism altogether in favor of the Cartist beliefs without realizing the radical change his opinions have undergone.

During this entire period, that occupies the bulk of the book, Stelzer is baffled by Research’s motives. Moreover he is concerned about Neuman’s state of mind—a fear that is exacerbated when Neuman suffers a traumatic mental break down. Research’s officials assure him that the still-sequestered boy is being given the best of care, but Stelzer remains worried. Stelzer is powerless to do anything but plead for Neuman’s release. His arguments fall on deaf ears.

Disclosure of Company Plans

Throughout the book, the Luxan public is made increasingly aware of SVI’s financial difficulties. The company stonewalls all questions on the subject by saying that, for competitive reasons, their strategy to counter the downturn cannot be made public until their upcoming shareholders’ meeting some months hence. When that meeting does take place near the end of the book, the reader, along with Stelzer himself, learns of SVI’s selection of the now-recovered Neuman to spearhead Project Seedfaith, the campaign to convert humanity to Cartism.

Stelzer is alarmed by these announcements fearing that any crusade to introduce a rational system of beliefs on Earth would be met with violence and that Neuman’s very life would be endangered—a prospect made all the more dire by Neuman’s recent marriage and pending fatherhood. Stelzer pleads with SVI to disband the project, but his advice is ignored and it appears the man can do nothing but sullenly await the launch of what he considers to be Neuman’s suicidal mission.

Project Seedfaith

But on the day of liftoff (and in the final pages of the book), the reader learns that, in fiction at least, a seemingly self-centered man can be induced to sacrifice his life for another reminiscent of Sydney Carton’s decision in Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities. Stelzer, who had vowed never to leave his beloved adopted planet, volunteers as Neuman’s replacement..

Once on Earth, Project Seedfaith, under Stelzer’s direction, enjoys initial success, but eventually the Cartist movement is forced to capitulate in the face of fierce opposition from religious fundamentalists and Stelzer suffers the fate he had predicted for his young friend. Nevertheless, from the company’s standpoint, the experiment is a great success. Thanks to the man’s heroic efforts, the test had proceeded far enough to validate the company’s original premise and SVI gains confidence to pursue other, less vulnerable planets in like manner thus assuring its eventual return to profitability. Neuman remains on Luxenben, happily married to his congenial spouse. Thus the book can be said to end on a positive note notwithstanding the painful events that had occurred on distant planet earth.

Utopian ideas

Underlying Ethos

Luxanders enjoy complete freedom of religion, but the great majority of them adhere to the planet’s state religion, Cartism. The rationale for this official favoritism is that it is simply a restatement of nature’s own ethos and thus is no more nor less than the recognition of our status as a species of animal. Cartism requires its devotees to fulfill the same obligation nature places on all her life forms—i.e., that they evolve. In practical terms, Cartists are expected to conduct their personal lives in accordance with their innate positive values derived from millions of years of cooperation and equal sharing among fellow clan members. With respect to their public affairs, Cartists are directed to emulate nature’s evolutionary methods including innovation, feedback, creative destruction, and the maintenance of an environment providing for the free flow of accurate information.

Economic System

Luxenben’s economy is neither socialist nor capitalistic; it is, instead, organic, taking its cue from nature’s cyclical systems. Money on this well-organized planet functions as a catalyst enabling transactions as opposed to an artificial proxy for value. As such, it depreciates with time rather than earning interest. Although incomes and living standards vary widely, wealth cannot be inherited. Thus Luxenben enjoys a far more egalitarian society than our own while retaining crucial, free-market incentives. Furthermore its monetary system all but precludes borrowing and its attendant boom-bust cycles. Business ownership is divested among employees only. Direct taxation is nonexistent. The funds necessary to run the government are skimmed off the regular circulation of money.

Political Affairs

Modeled after the operations of the intelligent brain, Luxenben’s government eschews all operative activities and, instead, confines itself exclusively to intellectual functions. Activities such as postal service, road building, police protection, etc. are all privatized. Governmental ‘intellectual’ activities are divided between two distinct divisions: autonomous and voluntary. The former sets standards and monitors routine day-to-day matters and the latter concerns itself with adapting Luxenben’s body of law to changing circumstances. Lawmaking is accomplished by means of a wiki-like process that allows citizens to freely introduce proposed statutes provided each is accompanied by a quantitative feedback control measure. Subject to vetting by impartial experts, these proposals automatically take effect and their internal controls activated. The scope of successful laws is allowed to expand; laws that fail to meet their preset parameters self-destruct. The executive and legislative branches that are a requisite part of governments on earth are dispensed with on Luxenben.

ocial Sciences

Luxenben’s government is prohibited from directly aiding its destitute citizens by two inviolable principles: 1) to do so would be a violation of its rule to never engage in operative functions and 2) welfare payments to the needy would violate the provision in the planet’s constitution guaranteeing equal treatment of all its citizens. This gap in the planet’s social structure is filled by private charities and profit-making companies specializing in the poverty sector. Taking the place of our government-run “safety nets,” Luxan privately-owned work centers offer indigents decent room and board in exchange for the right to contract out their labor and pocket the bulk of the earnings gained thereby. What on the surface would seem a cruel denial of human rights is, however, ameliorated by several factors: participation in the work centers is strictly voluntary, competition between work centers allows the indigents a choice of working conditions, and government surveillance ensures minimum living standards at the work centers. Paradoxically, under this policy of deliberate governmental neglect, the overall status of the working poor keeps rising in part due to their strenuous efforts to avoid falling into desperate straits and becoming prey to the work center operatives. It is said that a more frugal, harder working, upwardly-mobile proletariat cannot be found anywhere.

Ecological Solutions

On Luxenben, non-profit, quasi-governmental entities called Natural Resource Utilities (NAREUTS) have been granted planet-wide control of air, water, raw land, and other resources including the right to charge for and limit the consumption of these public goods. The Luxanders’ reasoning behind such controls rests on the grounds that, first, anything free-for-the-taking is certain to be overused; second, every citizen automatically inherits an equal share of the planet’s resources; and, third, left unchecked, industrial development is bound to deplete them. Notwithstanding the limitations imposed by the Natural Resource Utilities and other ecological protection measures, Luxanders are aware that their day-to-day activities represent a clear and present danger to the environment. Recognizing that in the natural world such disequilibrium by any one species is countermanded by competitor species, Luxanders have chosen to create an artificial species of their own for the express purpose of curtailing their overdevelopment. Thus was born the Future Society. Luxanders automatically become members of the society upon reaching the age of sixty. The society is funded by an annual levy of seven percent of the planet’s gross national product and given a free rein as to the use of the proceeds. The society’s activities vary from the creation of parklands to the destruction of factories it finds offensive, but all are guided by a concern for future generations. Active participation in the society is voluntary but altruism persuades most elders to volunteer in one capacity or another.

Planetary Constabulary

Luxenben’s early history had been characterized by an interminable clash of armies and, once those armies became equipped with weapons of mass destruction, the demise of the planet’s civilization seemed inevitable. Fortunately, a few of the warring nations had the foresight to disband their armies and replace them with a multi-national constabulary empowered, like any other police force, to independently confront violence, real or threatened, within its jurisdiction. At first, the constabulary’s reach was limited to those few nations who originated it, but, as more nations began to realize the benefits of a nonpolitical force dedicated to peacekeeping, its influence expanded. Eventually armies disappeared altogether, the authority of the constabulary extended across the entire planet, nationalistic sentiment waned, and today’s planet-wide government emerged.