Adams, Douglas. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980). How easy is it to distinguish socially useful labour from activities which are pointless, parasitic, counterproductive, or downright violent?
Perhaps not that easy. In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018), David Graeber offers an elegant approach to distinguishing "bullshit jobs." Does the person doing the job believe it has any social value? Graeber acknowledges this approach isn't perfect -- for instance, sometimes tasks are broken up and distributed in ways which disguise what they are really about. But it's probably good enough. The person doing the job probably is in the best position of anyone to know. Nobody has really worked out a convincing way to measure the social value of work (as opposed to the mere market value), so what else do we have to go on?
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe contains a sort of cautionary tale about bullshit jobs. Long ago, on a distant planet, a plan was devised to get rid of all the pointless jobs ... as well as the people who performed them. Oddly enough, this plan involved a poet, who told a tale of the coming apocalypse. The people with the pointless jobs -- mostly management types, although also some telephone-sanitizers etc. -- were packed off to colonize a backwater planet. "We'll be right behind you," everybody else shouted into space, and of course they weren't. Ha ha ha! There was no apocalypse coming after all! ... or was there?
Perhaps you can guess which planet was colonized? That's right, prehistoric Earth. And yes, we humans are the descendants of the pointless jobs people. This is demonstrated not so much by shared genetics, so much as by shared attitudes and agendas.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe contains a sort of cautionary tale about bullshit jobs. Long ago, on a distant planet, a plan was devised to get rid of all the pointless jobs ... as well as the people who performed them. Oddly enough, this plan involved a poet, who told a tale of the coming apocalypse. The people with the pointless jobs -- mostly management types, although also some telephone-sanitizers etc. -- were packed off to colonize a backwater planet. "We'll be right behind you," everybody else shouted into space, and of course they weren't. Ha ha ha! There was no apocalypse coming after all! ... or was there?
Perhaps you can guess which planet was colonized? That's right, prehistoric Earth. And yes, we humans are the descendants of the pointless jobs people. This is demonstrated not so much by shared genetics, so much as by shared attitudes and agendas.
Alcott, Louisa May. Transcendental Wild Oats
Louisa May Alcott, 'Transcendental Wild Oats: A Chapter from an Unwritten Romance' (1873).
Alcott's satire about a bungling 1840s Transcendental utopian community, and its extremely poor incentive design. It is inspired by the short-lived Fruitlands commune.
Alcott's satire about a bungling 1840s Transcendental utopian community, and its extremely poor incentive design. It is inspired by the short-lived Fruitlands commune.
Transcendental wild oats were sown broadcast that year, and the fame thereof has not yet ceased in the land; for, futile as this crop seemed to outsiders, it bore an invisible harvest, worth much to those who planted in earnest. As none of the members of this particular community have ever recounted their experiences before, a few of them may not be amiss, since the interest in these attempts has never died out and Fruitlands was the most ideal of all these castles in Spain.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale
Here's a short review of Atwood's classic over at The Guardian (by Charlotte Newman), plus Margaret Atwood's entry at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia.
And here's a snippet:
And here's a snippet:
"Sorry, he said. This number's not valid.And:
That's ridiculous, I said. it must be, I've got thousands in my account. I just got the statement two days ago. Try it again.
It's not valid, he repeated obstinately. See that red light? Means it's not valid.
You must have made a mistake, I said. Try it again.
He shrugged and gave me a fed-up smile, but he did try the number again. This time I watched his fingers, on each number, and checked the numbers that came up in the window. It was my number all right, but there was the red light again."
She got up and went to the kitchen and poured us a couple of Scotches, and came back and sat down and I tried to tell her what had happened to me. When I'd finished, she said, Tried getting anything on your Compucard today?
Yes, I said. I told her about that too.
They've frozen them, she said. Mine too. The collective's too. Any account with an F on it instead of an M. All they needed to do is push a few buttons. We're cut off.
Atwood, Margaret. MadAddam Trilogy
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003). A novel which doggedly accumulates clever choices, and touches quite a lot on the reduction of humans to economic values. That there is a lot to nitpick over and call out is, in this case, a sign of what an excellent novel it is. Two clever choices pertinent to economics are: (a) the choice of an overdetermined apocalypse -- brought about through individual agency and economic crisis and ecological crisis and technological crisis, and if it hadn't been this particular apocalypse, it probably would have been a different apocalypse; (b) the decision to largely float the whole "reduction of humans to economic values" thing as a mansplainer (who has consumed his share of child pornography, sort-of-ironically of course) explaining to a woman the tragedy of her objectification. She is not convinced:
Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. [...] but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.(JLW)
Atwood, Margaret. Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
Margaret Atwood, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (2008)
Non-fiction. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city between October and November 2008. Adapted into a film in 2012:
I found the book entertaining and commendably sprawling but also weirdly elusive. For more on debt see David Graeber and Charles Stross. (Atwood's Debt is one I really must come back to though, perhaps in an actual proper book).
Talking point:
Non-fiction. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city between October and November 2008. Adapted into a film in 2012:
I found the book entertaining and commendably sprawling but also weirdly elusive. For more on debt see David Graeber and Charles Stross. (Atwood's Debt is one I really must come back to though, perhaps in an actual proper book).
Talking point:
- Why do we have bankruptcy law? In what ways might bankruptcy law ameliorate and/or exacerbate economic injustice? (Also discuss limited liability).
Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl (2009).
Biopunk SF set in the 23rd century. It is a world in which everyone is very attuned to the calorific significance of everything that is going on around them, although the calorie hasn't quite taken over money's unit of account function.
Here is a snippet:
(JLW)
Biopunk SF set in the 23rd century. It is a world in which everyone is very attuned to the calorific significance of everything that is going on around them, although the calorie hasn't quite taken over money's unit of account function.
Here is a snippet:
Chaiyanuchit remembered the beginning of the plagues. Not many could claim that. And when Jaidee was just a young draftee, he was lucky enough to work in the man’s office, bringing dispatches.Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl (p. 120).
Chaiyanuchit understood what was at stake, and what had to be done. When the borders needed closing, when ministries needed isolating, when Phuket and Chiang Mai needed razing, he did not hesitate. When jungle blooms exploded in the north, he burned and burned and burned, and when he took to the sky in His Majesty the King’s dirigible, Jaidee was blessed to ride with him.
By then, they were only mopping up. AgriGen and PurCal and the rest were shipping their plague-resistant seeds and demanding exorbitant profits, and patriotic generippers were already working to crack the code of the calorie companies’ products, fighting to keep the Kingdom fed as Burma and the Vietnamese and the Khmers all fell. AgriGen and its ilk were threatening embargo over intellectual property infringement, but the Thai Kingdom was still alive. Against all odds, they were alive. As others were crushed under the calorie companies’ heels, the Kingdom stood strong.
(JLW)
Bajwa, Sim. HR Confidential
Sim Bajwa, 'HR Confidential' (2018)
An epistolary-in-the-broad-sense fiction comprising HR's notes and transcripts on a troublesome employee. In Shoreline of Infinity.
Elsewhere:
An epistolary-in-the-broad-sense fiction comprising HR's notes and transcripts on a troublesome employee. In Shoreline of Infinity.
Elsewhere:
Banks, Iain M. The Culture series
Iain M. Banks's Culture series. Notable for its post-scarcity civilisation: anyone can have pretty much any good or service they want. Nobody has to work unless they want to. Work has more to do with self-expression, self-fulfillment and relaxation than with toil, coercion, duty and necessity. Banks outlines the Culture's democratically planned economy in "A Few Notes on the Culture" (1994). See also Gene Roddenberry.
Here's one interesting snippet: in Banks's Look to Windward (2000), a highly desirable ticketed music event leads to a "partial" reinvention of "money."
Here's one interesting snippet: in Banks's Look to Windward (2000), a highly desirable ticketed music event leads to a "partial" reinvention of "money."
“Well, for tickets to Ziller’s concert [...] People who can’t stand other people are inviting them to dinner, booking deep-space cruises together — good grief — even agreeing to go camping with them. Camping! [...] People have traded sexual favors, they’ve agreed to pregnancies, they’ve altered their appearance to accommodate a partner’s desires, they’ve begun to change gender to please lovers; all just to get tickets [...] And they have indeed [...] come to agreements that go beyond barter to a form of liquidity regarding future considerations that sounds remarkably like money” (p.276).I wrote about this a little bit in the reflective part of my PhD. I said:
"This episode suggests a technologically privileged and sexually liberal version of commodity theory, with the same progression from inconvenient, illiquid, spot-trade barters to more conveniently liquid transactions. The tenacity of money in the Culture series, flourishing inside its homines economici like gut microbiomes [...] suggests a failure to fully erase money."(JLW)
Banks, Iain M. The Algebraist
Iain M. Banks, The Algebraist (2005). Not part of Banks's Culture sequence, although it's a space opera which overlaps in various ways with the Culture universe. In terms of economics, it's notable for its reputation currency kudos (used by the Dwellers). Here's a snippet:
Also see Abigail Nussbaum's review.
(JLW)
Bribing creatures who found the concept of money merely amusing tended to tax even the most enterprising and talented arbitrageur. The Dwellers clove to a system in which power was distributed, well, more or less randomly, it sometimes seemed, and authority and influence depended almost entirely on one's age; little leverage there.
Alternatively, every now and again a species would attempt to take by force of arms what those involved in Dweller Studies attempted to wrest from the Dwellers by polite but dogged inquiry. Force, it had been discovered - independently, amazingly often - did not really work with Dwellers. They felt no pain, held their own continued survival (and that of others, given the slightest provocation) to be of relatively little consequence and seemed to embody, apparently at the cellular level, the belief that all that really mattered, ever, was a value unique to themselves which they defined as a particular kind of kudos, one of whose guiding principles appeared to be that if any outside influence attempted to mess with them they had to resist it to the last breath in the bodies of all concerned, regardless.And another:
The problem was that to the Dwellers all professions were in effect hobbies, all posts and positions sinecures. This tailor that Y'sul and the City Administrator were babbling on about would have had no real need to be a tailor, he was just somebody who'd found he possessed an aptitude for the pastime (or, more likely, for the gossiping and fussing generally associated with it). He would take on clients to increase his kudos, the level of which would increase proportionally the more powerful were the people he tailored for, so that somebody in a position of civil power would constitute a favoured client, even if that position of power had come about through a lottery, some arcanely complicated rota system or plain old coercive voting - jobs like that of City Administrator were subject to all those regimes and more, depending on the band or zone concerned, or just which city was involved. The City Administrator, in return, would be able to drop casually into just the right conversations the fact she had such a well-known, high-kudos tailor. Obviously Y'sul had had sufficient kudos of his own to be able to engage the services of this alpha-outfitter too. People further down the pecking order would have employed less well-connected tailors, or just got their clothes from Common, which was Dweller for, in this particular case, off-the-peg, and in general just meant mass-produced, kudos-free, available-as-a-matter-of-right-just-because you're-a-Dweller . . . well, pretty much anything, up to and including spaceships.Kudos makes for some interesting comparisons with Cory Doctorow's Whuffie, Karen Lord's social credit, and the trust "currency" of Michael Swanwick's millies.
Also see Abigail Nussbaum's review.
(JLW)
Beckbessinger, Sam. Undercurrency
Sam Beckbessinger, 'Undercurrency' (2021).
Part of a whole collection of financial futures. The story relates to a futuristic biofuel kelp farm pilot, located beyond the shallows with the help of drones that drag the kelp up to soak up the sun in the day, down to the sea bed to soak up nutrients in the night. In this new environment, a new subspecies of giant sea snail is thriving. The story explores the economics of environmental management, and in particular conflicts between decarbonisation and preserving biodiversity.
She believes in the market. How its invisible hand can solve the most complex problems, as long as everything has been priced in. Carbon tax treaties. Pollution fines. The costs your business doesn’t have to bear, the benefits they didn’t have to pay for. Her economics professor back in business school called them “externalities”. Her Ouma used to call it “leaving your mess for the fairies to pick up”.
Wole Talabi comments:
A brilliant story focused on climate change, energy transition and sustainable investment, “Undercurrency” follows a South African woman’s attempt to build her company, growing underwater kelp for biofuel on the coast while falling in love and learning about the complexity of doing the right thing in a world of complex and competing drivers. The voice in the story is strong, the description of the romance, while quick, feels natural and the descriptions of the science and the diving are vivid, accurate and wonderful. Full disclosure: I am an engineer in the energy industry and an avid diver, therefore naturally biased or as we say in Nigeria, I am the story’s target market. Consider me sold. Highly Recommended.
The choice of a giant sea snail offers a faint echo of the landmark snail darter conservation case of the 1970s. The Endangered Species Act is an intriguing mix of anthropocentric and ecocentric motivations. Kaitlin Bakken suggests: "If it were not for the human interest in protecting the land, the snail darter fish would not have been considered. [...] Conversely, where human interests are superior, wildlife species are generally unprotected."
The story is able to wrap up quickly and satisfyingly (in a way) with carbon credits as the deus ex machina. Instead of harvesting the kelp as biofuel, the fields are sold to the fossil fuel industry to offset carbon emissions. It works narratively, but it relies on a catastrophically rosy picture of how carbon credit trading has worked in practice.
“Prop up the oil companies?”
“That’s one way to see it.”
That is pretty much the correct way to see it.
Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward: 2000-1887
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888). Bellamy's utopian novel-- it's the old-fashioned kind you might charitably call "heavy on worldbuilding" -- deals extensively with economics. Bellamy advocates an egalitarian command economy, with everyone taking an equal share of non-transferable credit. The individual spends their credit to claim their share of the national product. The rations are so generous, however, that individuals often find they have credits left over at the end of the year; these are then spent on public goods (such as making everywhere look beautiful).
Although everybody's "wages" are fixed at the same level by a ferocious egalitarian principle, there is something which sounds rather a lot like market mechanisms -- or at least, like a command economy simulating market mechanisms -- mediatized not by money, but by leisure time. You could look at it like this: workers are (in a way) paid different hourly rates, but hours that they work are carefully regulated to ensure that all total incomes are equal:
Although everybody's "wages" are fixed at the same level by a ferocious egalitarian principle, there is something which sounds rather a lot like market mechanisms -- or at least, like a command economy simulating market mechanisms -- mediatized not by money, but by leisure time. You could look at it like this: workers are (in a way) paid different hourly rates, but hours that they work are carefully regulated to ensure that all total incomes are equal:
"The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal the demand," replied Dr. Leete. "It is the business of the administration to see that this is the case. The rate of volunteering for each trade is closely watched. If there be a noticeably greater excess of volunteers over men needed in any trade, it is inferred that the trade offers greater attractions than others. On the other hand, if the number of volunteers for a trade tends to drop below the demand, it is inferred that it is thought more arduous. It is the business of the administration to seek constantly to equalize the attractions of the trades, so far as the conditions of labor in them are concerned, so that all trades shall be equally attractive to persons having natural tastes for them. This is done by making the hours of labor in different trades to differ according to their arduousness. The lighter trades, prosecuted under the most agreeable circumstances, have in this way the longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, has very short hours. There is no theory, no a priori rule, by which the respective attractiveness of industries is determined. The administration, in taking burdens off one class of workers and adding them to other classes, simply follows the fluctuations of opinion among the workers themselves as indicated by the rate of volunteering [...]"
Beukes, Lauren. Moxyland
Lauren Beukes, Moxyland (2008). Review originally appeared on Aargh and doesn't just focus on the economic aspects.
If you are going to write an archetypically bursting-at-the-seams first novel, then cyberpunk is an excellent genre in which (and bursting slightly out of which) to write it.
We get four narrators: Kendra, a Z-list schleb photographer, interested in the aesthetics of both obsolete and prototype technologies; Toby, a vile trustafarian with a magic vlogcaster suit; Tendeka, a slightly naïve community organizer and political activist; and Lerato, an AIDS orphan done good as a hacker with a snazzy corporate day-job. They roll around, exemplifying themselves and their world, occasionally explicitly brushing against each other, occasionally suggesting some more obscure, behind-the-scenes connections, until a horrific police crack-down on a rather intricate scene of civil disorder draws their four narratives together for the final act.
One of them melts.
Bogdanov, Alexander. Red Star
Alexander Bogdanov, Red Star (1908).
As well as co-founding the Bolsheviks with Lenin, Bogdanov wrote this Martian utopia (and its prequel, Engineer Menni). It was published in 1908, shortly before Bogdanov's expulsion; translated into German in 1923, Esperanto in 1929, and English 1982.
This snippet of Red Star explains the division and allocation of productive labour. It anticipates themes of Bogdanov's Tektology: Universal Organization Science (1912-1917) and later the social and organizational cybernetics and systems theory of people like Stafford Beer, Margaret Mead, Niklas Luhmann.
As well as co-founding the Bolsheviks with Lenin, Bogdanov wrote this Martian utopia (and its prequel, Engineer Menni). It was published in 1908, shortly before Bogdanov's expulsion; translated into German in 1923, Esperanto in 1929, and English 1982.
This snippet of Red Star explains the division and allocation of productive labour. It anticipates themes of Bogdanov's Tektology: Universal Organization Science (1912-1917) and later the social and organizational cybernetics and systems theory of people like Stafford Beer, Margaret Mead, Niklas Luhmann.
Borenstein, Greg. @SpeculativeCash
Automatic text generation has been around since c.forever, and so has recombinant artwork. But both these things have turned a corner with the rise of Twitter bots. The critical language and tools for understanding Twitter bots, who are both poets and poems, both cultural producers and cultural products, is still pretty incipient. Nevertheless, if anything deserves entry to a database of economic speculative fiction, it's Greg Borenstein's @speculativecash bot. Borenstein's bot does one thing, constantly: invents new forms of money.
Disempowerment Wage— Speculative Currency (@speculativecash) October 2, 2016
A digital currency based on the act of disempowering
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