One of the things that Herbert’s Dune is praised for is the quality of the political intrigue that is seen throughout the six-book series. Some of it is off, some of it is weird, but in general there is a level of complication and depth there that has helped keep the books — especially the First — of interest to the public for more than half a century.
But, there is one area that Dune got very wrong. And that is Dune’s economics, and by extension, the ways in which economics, properly understood, would have had effects on the rest of the Dune universe’s political economy and politics.
Herbert obviously wanted spice to be an analogy for oil in the modern world and Arrakis to serve as a partial analog to the Middle East (though spice also is treated like opium which is refined from the poppy). But to compare spice to oil would be foolish. It is nothing like oil. Or if it were, it would be as if virtually all sources of industrial power, transportation, electricity, atomic power, factories, and mass production were wholly dependent on oil which was only available in one place and for which there were NO close substitutes.
Some background here: In the Universe of Dune, all of the Human race has banned any mechanical thinking machines, AI, computers, or any robots with human capabilities due to the Butlerian revolutions to overthrow control by machine logic and AI. This reduced humanity’s wealth and threw back development by centuries. Ultimately, Spice emerged as the only thing that allowed higher level civilization to return in the newly poor, post computer humanity. Some humans became Mentats who, with spice, evolved into organic computing machines rather than banned computers. Similarly, Spacers were those who could pilot FTL ships due to spice, and the Bene Gesserit’s mystical powers also came from spice, allowing their influence to grow simultaneously with the new Spacer monopoly of interstellar travel.
Thus, spice is not like oil, it is 1000x more than that. It literally has no substitute for a space going civilization. Only spice permits trade across galaxies. Only spice allows high level computation and consequently, high level tech to be made. Only spice gives the Bene Gesserit mystical powers. And the power and technology that spice gives humans access to allows them to rule the known universe, but also to have the military force to be able to enforce the ban on humanlike robotics, computers, and androids, as well as limit competition. Its rarity and the force needed to enforce the various monopolies lead to an autocratic system of large empires from disparate parts of the universe. Worlds without the permission and technology to make use of spice would literally be stuck with the industrial technology of the mid twentieth century at best, absent some trade, and would keep even a space going civilization limited to their solar system or nearby absent travel making use of the Spacers guild. Arrakis seems mostly stuck at pre-industrial technology with presumably, access to a few of the products of the empire through trade. From all accounts, they do not even have the industrial capacity of the mid 1950s industrialized nations in our universe.
Thus, refined spice should be orders of magnitude more expensive than any major resource we observe today. Faster than light (FTL) travel would be reserved only for military, political, and elite civilian use given the general costs of ships and spice plus the cost of dealing with the Spacers, who have the monopoly on FTL travel. It gives near absolute power to those who control, are able to refine, and make full use of spice. It would be as if a special, refined form of opium from a rare poppy enabled the only computers, advanced travel, technologies, and power sources that were 1000x more effective than anything we have today, but that could be grown on only an isolated planet with the inhabitants living at a very low level of development.
In such a world, extreme inequalities of power and wealth would be probable. Moreover, absent absolute dictatorship, the idea of the great houses would seem inevitable. Oligarchy, driven by the power of relatively equal kingdoms or empires from different parts of the Universe would want to come to terms to share the spice and limit wars between themselves.
However, as the novel Dune itself indicates, that structure would not be stable. Given a nearly equivalent starting point, whichever house controlled Arrakis would easily dominate the universe. In contrast, the medieval idea of multiple houses allied under a single king or emperor — which was common in our history — tended to occur only when the ruling Monarch was actually quite weak, did not have a large standing army, and required the cooperation of his nobles to wage war. A particularly strong noble could challenge the King and might tolerate his current subordinate position only because he could serve with veto power and de facto could do what he wanted within his own realm. Medieval Kings had few laws that were enforced from above with any degree of consistency throughout the kingdom unless the nobles agreed.
This was heavily due to the technology of warfare and the limitations of the state after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Absent a highly capable and strong state, there was no one to establish and enforce rules throughout most of Europe. Nor did anyone have the capacity to even make large roads and impressive public works outside of Asia that rivaled what was seen in the Roman Empire or even in Constantinople.
In terms of warfare, the improvements in use of the horse, driven by the new harness, stirrup, and saddle massively increased the power of a well trained and armored mounted warrior on an equally trained horse. They were de facto, the medieval tanks of the battlefield. But the need for long term training and the costs of feeding and equipping these elites would mean that a weak central state with no real national power led to a system where the King’s power derived heavily from the cooperation of the ruling nobles under the King. The legend of King Arthur and his knights was a metaphor or myth to show this principle of primus inter pares as was common in medieval Europe. Only the arrival of gunpowder and the subsequent development of guns and cannon began the process of breaking down the medieval system.
The historical switch to powerful states ruled by a dominant central administration came with the rise of reliable guns and artillery and the need to have a full-time standing army, both to enforce control, but also to withstand invasion from neighbors who also had strong armies. Having reasonably reliable guns that were not completely accurate but were deadly in volley, led to the need for well-trained troops who could fight in formation, and stay together under fire, promoted the need for a standing army with more and more professional training. The rise of the large, well-trained standing army was the final nail that ended dying feudal systems by the 1600s, though many systems hung on in limited form in poorer areas till the early 19th century.
The central states continued to grow and become more centralized with industrialization. Even in the 19th century US, with its initial Federation of independent states, we saw states’ rights eroding at an accelerated pace, from the Civil War to the present day as the military power and administrative reach of the central government rose. All major productive and military technologies have encouraged concentration of state power till today. Subordinate regions everywhere have found it hard to resist a powerful central state, with industrial military capacity, huge revenues, and the willingness to create, maintain, and use its military and state administration to expand and maintain power. Smaller states rely on alliance with a great power. And the continued existence of the modern state system is still vulnerable to great power attacks as we have seen in Ukraine, despite the naive and utopian view that the end of the Cold War meant the end of major .
What does this mean for understanding Dune?
Even if we assumed the initial starting position of the houses was as described at the start of the novel, every leading house would have been worried about any house that temporarily controlled the spice, and would ensure that they could prevent that house from seizing the spice and declaring itself Ruler of the Known Universe. They would have anticipated the kind of power grab the Harkonnens engaged in by attacking the House Atreides. Although FTL travel would ensure the ability to quickly move across space time, there would be enough delays in travel, especially after getting to near space and returning to sub-light speed that each House would know that it had to keep local garrisons in place permanently on Arrakis, both to protect the Spice against incompetence, and to guard against any attempts by the current House in charge of Arrakis from making any attempt to monopolize this totally unique, irreplaceable commodity. If the Emperor is assumed to have had the most power, he naively neither exploited said power, nor made defensive preparations essential to a successful multi-galactic Emperor.
Furthermore, to create and sustain the machines needed for productive and military purposes would require establishment of factories and workers and communities to supply most of the needs of the large populations of workers and soldiers at or near the spice mines. In fact, there should be a thriving factory city or two on Arrakis, all able to provide services such as education, training, medicine and entertainment. Workers would need to be well paid or well compensated — even if there were some slaves — just to ensure high quality compliance for such an essential task. Furthermore, one should expect some kind of heavily developed community at least on nearby worlds or large moons that would both serve the needs of Arrakis for goods and technology, as well as benefit economically from being the main stopover/support on the way to Arrakis. Again, the value of spice would probably spill over modestly to such a place. But remember that “modestly”, when it comes to the value of spice would mean such a world would be vastly richer and more technologically advanced, than many of the poorer worlds in the various empires. Entertainment and food services would be extensive, since those would be the cheapest and easiest ways for the Houses to compensate workers and management who remain in or near Arrakis.
Finally, the area surrounding the mines should be totally impregnable fortresses, with multiple layers of defense. In the movie, all you see are a few structures that seem less defensible than the biggest castles in medieval times, barring their shields. But realistically, there should have been multiple layers of defense in place, with energy shields serving as one of the last barriers to be overcome in terms of invasion or rebellion. They should be fully prepared to defend against any of the most powerful Houses, let alone technologically backward Fremen. If some or all areas to the South are thought to be inhabitable and yet prove to have people who supply the revolution, ruthless houses like the Harkonnens as well as the Emperor, would have immediately destroyed or even nuked those areas as they were inessential to production of spice (or so they thought) and would minimize the costs of dealing with an uprising. In our world, social, moral, and political constraints make such thoughts unthinkable. But the Dune universe is much harsher and these are isolated peoples with minimal direct contact or trade with the great Houses. The Houses have seen far worse things than the destruction of a sparsely populated planet, with people that they don’t even consider like themselves. Since they see nothing wrong with eliminating huge sections of their own populations that they consider troublesome, and have done it on various worlds, dealing with the Fremen would be as easy as the modern US Navy dealing with attacks by early Viking ships.
Of course, the story could not have proceeded without violating this logic. But I think a more careful working through of the implications of spice’s value in the Universe would have made Herbert write a more plausible justification for the success of the Fremen revolt, as well as allowed him to enrich the rest of his novels in a universe that took more seriously the value of spice, and the unique position enabled to those with access to true faster than light travel. Yet, he has done so much for his readers, that I am glad for Herbert’s Dune, warts and all. The fact that it has inspired so many to devote so much attention to his universe, including the recent movie masterpiece Dune 2 from Denis Villeneuve, as well as my humble essay, is a testament to this beautiful and terrifying product of Frank Herbert’s imagination.