Ideas

(I don't like this cover but it is the issue that contained Poul Anderson's "Margin of Profit.")

The previous post moved from a passage in SM Stirling's The Given Sacrifice to a discussion of philosophy. This post continues the discussion of philosophy, then moves to "Margin of Profit."

Philosophy was standing on its head because philosophers, like everyone else, thought that ideas preceded life and action. Materialist philosophers stood philosophy on its feet when they recognized that people had to eat before they could think. How we earn our livings determines how we relate to each other and therefore also determines how we think about society, social values and reality in general. When social labour had produced a (small) surplus and when the priestly elite that administered that surplus had begun to rule the majority whose labour produced the surplus, then it came to be thought that the rulers' ideas, not productive labour, were the driving force of society. This led to more refined forms of idealism, e.g., the belief that the idea of Man, preceding particular men, had existed from eternity in the mind of God or in an ideal realm.

"It is a truism that the structure of a society is basically determined by its technology. Not in an absolute sense - there may be totally different cultures using identical tools - but the tools settle the possibilities: you can't have interstellar trade without spaceships. A race limited to a single planet, possessing a high knowledge of mechanics but with its basic machines of industry and war requiring a large capital investment, will inevitably tend toward collectivism under one name or another. Free enterprise needs elbow room."
-Poul Anderson, "Margin of Profit" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 135-173 AT p. 145.

Anderson, or at least his omniscient narrator, agrees that technology basically determines social structure. I have to agree that different cultures can use identical tools. But I think that the nature of the tools limits the range of possible ideas? Anderson refers to "...collectivism under one name or another."

He goes on to list the conditions that make the "exuberent capitalism" (p. 146) of the Polesotechnic League possible:

automation and the mineral wealth of the Solar System make the manufacure of most goods cheap;
small, clean, simple fusion units make energy cheap;
gravitics leads to the hyperdrive, making interstellar exploitation and emigration possible;
interstellar distances and cultural differences prevent political union;
but there is little reason for armed conflict;
the colonies want the luxuries of home;
home wants colonial products;
older civilizations have much to exchange;
imports are cheaper than synthetics or substitutes;
companies compete but must also arbitrate and present a common front to the governments;
governments limited to a few planetary systems cannot control interstellar traders;
they are also bribed and coerced;
the League became a loose supergovernment;
QED.