content: Vonnegut (himself a socialist) may well have written the essay as a satirical piece of how non-socialists/libertarians view socialist philosophy.  It's very unlike his other works to have such straightforward characters (the plainly evil government, the overly-heroic and fiercely individual protagonist, etc.) - it's almost reminiscent of Rand, which really does make me give weight to the idea that it's satire of the sci-fi libertarian anti-government short story of that era. (Atlas Shrugged was published four years earlier, Stranger in a Strange Land was published the same year, and so on.) But here we are anyway - the essay turned out to be prescient whatever Kurt's intentions.