Here on Urras / Would you move?

Two more questions in advance of my class on The Dispossessed next week.

(1) As a teenager on Anarres, Shevek sees a film about Urras, the home planet that’s a lot like ours–multiple countries, all with governments, some of which are capitalist and some communist. The film juxtaposes a famine in the country of Thu where the bodies of starved children are being burned with the wealth and plenty only 700 km away in the nation of A-Io, noting that these exist “side by side” (pp 33-34 in the Avon paperback edition). Do you think  this is a fair criticism? Can it be applied to our world? How would you defend us, or would you make the same criticism?

(2) If you suddenly discovered that Anarres existed and you could move there, would you trade the benefits of living in a society like ours for those of that society? For example, would you give up the various things you own, and the possibility of owning more, in exchange for life in a society where you have almost no private possessions and “no one eats while another starves”?

Cross-posted at the UUCPA blog, and I’ve disabled comments here so that all comments are in one place; please make them over there.