Good morning. Happy New Year.
Coya Falkayn explains to Eric Tamarin:
the Home Companies have become integral to the government of the Solar Commonwealth;
they have strengthened government, extending its control;
it protects them from competition and does them other favors;
however, "'This didn't happen because of any conspiracy, you realize. It just...happened.'" (pp. 177-178)
This is the truth in an sf novel. Certain parties profit from the status quo but they did not conspire to bring it about.
In a recent conversation, I repeated the standard understanding that the boom-slump cycle is inherent in the competitive economy, thus that even the most powerful billionaire or corporation does not fully control the course of events. I was informed that a small, powerful group does exercise complete control, deciding well in advance when and why there will be an economic slump...
Some people like to believe that someone controls everything, even if that control is (believed to be) malevolent.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! Many bad things happened not because of silly plots but slowly, accidentally, incrementally, gradually, etc. Not because of Freemasons, the Elders of Zion, the Jesuits, or Lizard People!
I don't think the boom/slump cycle is necessarily all bad. it's how a free enterprise system corrects mistakes and reallocates inefficiently distributed resources of all kinds. The way to lessen the pain is to let it proceed as rapidly as possible and offer temporary help for those who really need it.
Happy New Year! Sean
Belief in all-powerful conspiracies is deeply reassuring: it means that someone, even if a malevolent someone, is IN control. (Which implies that you could be, at least in theory.)
In fact, "things are in the saddle, and ride mankind".
Some people have much more power than others, but that doesn't mean they'll get what they want or that their actions will have the results they intended.
Ask Kaiser Wilhelm about that, or Adolf Hitler.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree,re the psychology behind conspiracy theories.
Napoleon was another leader of great power who famously found out the hard way he was not going to get everything he wanted!
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment