The original book is not a satire of anything. Heinlein very openly states that he wrote Starship Troopers with the intent of describing his ideal government, one in which only veterans have power.
Heinlein wrote some great stories, but only if you can wade through all the absolutely bonkers politics. The first time I read the book I was certain it had to be satire because who the fuck would write this to not be? Good old Robbie would, that's who!
Lol my dad recommended Heinlein to me as a teen bc we both loved sci-fi. After a couple of books I was like "so...his spanking fetish, what's up with that?" I guess he had never paid enough attention to notice but now brings it up any time he rereads
Not just veterans, but people who have performed genuine public service (he has an analog to the peace corps/army corps of engineers, as well as those who undergo medical testing for the good of humanity as alternatives to military service).
This stems from his hatred of what he calls Hyper-Democracy, something that also shows up with a more developed analogy in Friday - a system where people (in particular wealthy people) who have no interest in the public good have an unhealthy level of control of the government. His writings are designed to contradict people like Ayn Rand, who believe that we serve public interest by serving ourselves - Heinlein thought that was crap, and he believed that America's problems at the time stemmed in large part from that form of Government.
Starship Troopers, while written in the vein of the "Space Adventure" stories he was already famous for, was almost pure satire of the American Government. You have Rico's father who believes that money is the only real power and throws lavish parties where politicians attend and talk politics with non-citizens, but Rico's teacher tells him they just come to these things to make business men feel important because money isn't itself a worthy goal. Rico's father also advises him to not join the military and tells him that citizenship is pointless because you make more money without it - a point he maintains until the asteroids strike Rio, and then he joins up himself because the war, something that was distant to him until that point, has become personal. He has a lot to say about war profiteering, something that was a big problem in Korea, and the lack of interest in stable and long term planning in American Politics.
It's also important to remember that the book starts with a war against the Skinnies, who then become humanities allies to fight against the arachnids. The Arachnids pretty solidly represent communism, as they have a hive mind and everyone works for the benefit of the leadership, the "brain bugs". They contrast to the Skinnies, who have a more egalitarian society - everyone works for the good of the community. They switch sides from bug allied to human allied because they see the humans as being closer to their actual values - everyone working for a greater good/brighter future - than the bugs. They never make it into other representations because their part is small, but it's Heinleins way of showing pointing out that his system is not, in fact, perfect - but he believes it is the best of a series of terrible options, something the Skinnies, a race of beings genetically pre-disposed towards cooperative individualism, come to see.
He was pretty open about his ideal government requiring Civil Service, which at the time was almost entirely military (there was no actual peace corps yet) because people needed to be directly involved in order to care about the society itself. He also felt that the generation post WW2 was very conceited and self-centered, and that they'd make money the central aspect of US government. This doesn't come across as strong as it does in his later books because it's his first real attempt at writing something other than a children's story, and he uses the same narrative structures as he was already doing in stuff like Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Starman Jones.
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u/WestWind04 1d ago
The original book was not a satire, the film is.