Author's Note:

This isn't necessarily a work of fiction in terms of story and plot. It's more of an essay, but in my opinion is too focused on guesswork surrounding Pokémon to be put on FictionPress. It arises out of a combination of two things that interest me - you guessed it, politics and Pokémon. I guess that makes this the ultimate nerd trip.

I've recently started an A2 course on political ideologies, and I'm finding them really interesting. The amazing thing about ideologies (political and philosophical) is that they form the base ideas of pretty much everything that's thought out, a structure supporting everything we do. They're also relative to each over and largely agreed upon, so can be applied to things such as art and, apparently, video games. You may need a bit of basic political knowledge to get what I'm on about, but if you hit a road block hopefully it'll be nothing you can't Google. I'm basing most of my explanation of the ideologies on a book I have just read for my course - Political Ideologies: An Introduction by Andrew Heywood. You should read it, it's bangin'.

The world of Pokémon has been a subject of great interest for many years, due to its captivating originality mixed with many blank spaces. I should point out that what I'm writing here is basically superstition: there's no way of proving any of this, and I doubt GameFreak even considered it when they were designing the games, but I'm just throwing different ideas at what has already been established to see what sticks. Also note that just because something is never seen, that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist (e.g. a Pokémon government), but that's lame so we'll just take what we're given.

Here, we're asking the question, "what kind of ideology suits the politics and philosophy of the Pokémon world best?" Everyone sitting comfortably? Good, then I'll begin :)

Introduction: A Society Geared Towards Training

This bit was written as an afterthought from the first section on anarchy, so forgive me if my direction in it seems a little off. One thing that has to be set straight is whether society in the Pokémon games and anime is totally based around Pokémon training. Well...is it? The media of the franchise exclusively follows people who are trainers, which makes sense, because it is definitely the most interesting thing about their universe as opposed to ours. I mean, it'd be weird if instead they started with a Mad Men style business drama, but their pets were Delcatties and Growlithes or something. Ash, for example, is a kid, so his WHOLE WORLD revolves around Pokémon training, it's just what he's into.

But then again, there is evidence of a world outside training with all the in-game businesses and such. A large proportion the maps in the games are training related, with shops and PCs and gyms scattered around everywhere, but there are still parts of the maps that are inaccessible. In the anime it is made more clear that the Pokémon league runs on a sort of time limit, so maybe the situation is that the leagues are Olympic-type sporting events that happen every so often, and the trail you take to complete the gyms is just most efficient for your needs. There is a world outside of what you're doing.

I guess, then, that both the view that the world is all about training AND that there is an extended universe outside of training where things are normal have to be taken into consideration for this analysis.

Just bear all that in mind, willya?

Ideology 1: Anarchy

Ahh, anarchism. This is a contrived and often misused term which has become synonymous with a social circumstance of uprising or rioting where the government and police seem unable to get on top of the situation. On this page, we're talking about the anarchy of philosophers and written works.

But hang on, what exactly does this academic version entail? Well, put simply, anarchism is the belief that society should ideally have no state, "state" in this case meaning government. Yes, no government, democratic or dictatorial. Perhaps this sounds rather anti-ideological, but it is in good faith as they believe the only way the human spirit can be free and able to flourish is to have absolutely NO restrictions whatsoever: no laws, no given rights, no liberties, no obligations. Most would presume that such a society would lead to endless violence, looting, killing etc., but anarchists say that in a world of total freedom all people are equal and by human nature would be able to live in harmony. There's just one issue - there has never been an anarchist state (or anti-state) in recent history. This is largely due to anarchists not wanting to use conventional political systems such as parties to gain support, as they believe all governments are corrupt, so hope instead for revolution or protest to wither away the state.

Okay, history lesson over. Pokémon time! A stereotypical anarchic society is not like the world of Ash Ketchum. He has no problems with random killing and stealing, and that's because the government keeps everything in ord...umm, I said that they governm...mother of God...

Thus we discover the critical reason why you could argue that the world of Pokémon is anarchist: there isn't any government! At least, there is no government that is mentioned in the games or anime that runs the regions or the world as a whole. Let's think about this geographically. Obviously there are different regions, suggesting that they are different states, but they are all islands, so perhaps it is just coincidence that many never end up leaving their place. In addition, there doesn't seem to be a great level of national pride (unless you're talking about genwunners ;D) between the regions, and you often see NPCs who say stuff like, "hi, I'm from the Hoenn region" and such. So, in terms of location there doesn't seem to be much outlining the different regions, politically speaking.

Socially, the way people in the regions act seems to lack any kind of state control, or laws. Obviously the game imposes restrictions on what you can do (there's no "murder" button, for example), but the simple controls give you the ability to do things that you wouldn't in a modern democracy - run around in a wilderness full of dangerous animals at a tender young age is an one obvious one! The world also allows parents to let their kids go off and do that, which is probably worse! The core story of Pokémon is essentially one of anarchy and freedom. You can also walk straight into peoples' homoes, randomly cut down trees, capture wild animals, force them to fight and much more. This world, however, seems to be at peace, if you count Pokémon battling as a game or test, which perhaps goes to show that it is a society successfully devoid of government oppression where the people are living in harmony. Aww, that's quite sweet :3

There are some things we need to disambiguate here, though, to get into the nitty-gritty specifics. Back to the history class again. Basically, aside from the general anti-statist principles, anarchism has been split into two camps over certain issues - collectivist-anarchism and individualist-anarchism. The former proposes that humans can live best in each over's company and should collectively own things (share them, not hold them individually), while the latter gives the impression that humans should be naturally egotistical (self-centred) and allowed to make as much money as they can. Just bear this discrepancy in mind, okay?

Pokémon again! Here, we should probably say some things which could be contended as being not in line with anarchism in the Pokémon world, but can be debated the other way too. The first of these is the idea of enterprise. While there isn't exactly a government, there sure are businesses in Pokémon. Examples include the Devon Corporation, Silph Co., various mining companies in mountainous areas and the evil gangs such as Team Rocket or Team Galaxy. While business does play an important part in government, they don't have to go hand-in-hand and one can exist without the other. The idea of having a company here falls under the principles of individualist-anarchism, as they think people shouldn't be restricted from owning businesses and should be allowed to make money. There doesn't seem to be anything to say that you can't run a gang of criminals either, since the teams are only ever put down by communities when they do something bad, not for simply existing. Thus, evidence suggests that for business and trade to work the world of Pokémon must have some kind of economy, so it'd be individualist-anarchism.

Also, there is the issue of property. A famous anarchist slogan is "property is theft", which means that if the state, or anybody for that matter, takes possession of something they are stealing another person's right to use it. Property in the games and anime is pretty sparse (like, some people in the towns and cities don't even have houses), but there's no implication that any of this is actual property. The guy who coined the "property is theft" slogan, a swaggy man by the name of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, made a clear distinction between possessions and property, and even created a system of mutual exchange. So, for example, you might have a car because it's useful to get around with, but if someone seriously needed to use it in order to get to their wedding on time, it'd be immoral for you to not give it to them. This would also explain why you can just walk into people's houses - they don't actually own them. But hol' up! This sounds more like collectivist-anarchism!

Do you see the contention here? Apart from making my (relatively pointless) job harder, it means the supposed anarchist anti-state of Pokémon is split between two different ideas. It at once proposes that business and capital is okay, but largely implies that property is bad. However, to draw conclusions, it seems that the Pokémon-anarchist argument is more leaning towards individualism and liberal freedom than anything else. I mean, look at the core systems of the game: you earn money by pitching your team against others, all the Pokémon you capture are your possessions and can't be taken by others (& vice versa), in the games at least you travel alone around the world, you form bonds with what Pokémon you possess (but according anarchism they aren't yours entirely). Hell, it's even a single player game only really on handheld consoles, so most of the time I end up playing it on my own in a dark room. If that's not individualist I don't know what is.

But, of course, now we get into the sad part. This why anarchism is NOT compatible with the world of Pokémon (these have counter arguments to but are mainly sided against anarchy). The first reason comes right from the first plot-point of the game - you've just reached the age to become a Pokémon trainer, so you go to the lab and get...Wait a minute, if there isn't a state to dish out laws, then why should there be a restriction on how old you can be to become a trainer, huh? Punk? FIGHT THE POWER! This actually always seemed odd to me, as the streets are crawling with "youngsters" who look wwwaaayyy younger than you. Oh well. Perhaps it's just social stigma.

A bigger reason is that there seems to be a lot of organisations that wouldn't really work unless there was a government. One is the police force. There are a lot of Officer Jenny's in the anime, who usually put down evil bicycle gangs (lol), and there are also cops in some areas of the games. This is a problem. Cops impose laws - law are bad - cops are bad - why do we have cops again? The police force also usually work as a subsection of the judiciary, which is the courts and stuff, but the judiciary is one of the main branches of...government! Haha, gotcha. The police force could, however, be an independent group run by regular citizens in the interest of not allowing the restriction of anyone's freedom, although to work in an anarchist world that would mean lot's of contracts voluntarily signed by citizens and mutual understanding and...we don't even want to go into it. Remember, freedom to prosper also comes with the freedom to fail.

Another state organisation is the army. Okay, there isn't any army in the present setting of the games and anime, but there are veteran characters such as Lt. Surge and references to some kind of war in the past. There's no way you can organise the armed forces without state control, not with people riding around in tanks. Also, the fact that there was a war implies people were divided into groups, not living in harmony with each over. One theory I thought of to bypass this would be that there used to be an army, back in the days when there was a state, but there was a military coup that overthrew the state and imposed anarchy. I guess that works. Maybe I'll write a story about it one day...

There are also services that help trainers get along, such as the Trainer Schools and Pokémon Centres. These imply some kind of state involvement as they appear in every region (perhaps owned by an international body), and are free to use, suggesting taht they are funded from elsewhere other than their own profits. I highly doubt that a society geared towards Pokémon training would contain enough charitable people donating freely to the Pokémon Centres to keep them up and running (despite how nice most people are in the games), so they'd probably cover their bills most efficiently through state funding. In the anime they're kinda like hostels, though, providing (supposedly) free bed and board, which is all a little communist. The trainer schools would probably be easier to organise, with voluntary contracts and such, but issues with the curriculum and exams would be unavoidable.

Outside of state-funded organisations, a final aspect I thought of was the religious element of Pokémon. Anarchists are opposed to organised religion as it implies authority in the Gods and tries to impose a set of morals onto people, when in anarchist terms they should be free. This doesn't explain the way people seem to admire legendary Pokémon and have a mythological background for them. Nuh-uh, not allowed here. There are also religious sites in the game such as frequent graveyards and a church in the Sinnoh region.

Conclusion: Anarchy

I'd say that the Pokémon world holds anarchic principles to a sort of medium extent. The overriding strength in the argument that there isn't a state at all, the main principle of anarchism, is impossible to ignore. The arguments I'm making are pieced together from what effects a possible government have had on the societies of the regions, but even the mention that there in fact is a state would put this argument to shame. So, it's fair enough to say that it is plausible because GameFreak have never sought to mention it :)

However, the idea becomes pretty thin once you enter other aspects of society, mainly being strong counter arguments and weak proposals. Still, you can sort of worm your way around it. As opposed to saying there IS ANARCHY, it feels better to conclude that there ISN'T MUCH STATE. The world is definitely not fascist, say, because that would prompt a much greater presence of government forces, but there is too much evidence of such forces to consider the people fully free. At least, we can agree the government, if there indeed is one, is highly minimal or influenced by left-wing ideas enough to be almost indistinguishable. Libertarianism? Maybe...

Cheers for reading this / scrolling down the page :)

If you have any ideas or opinions to contribute, or even comments on my accuracy in talking about ideologies, write it in the review section of PM me.

Reviews commenting on writing skills are also welcome :D