In the civilization served by the Commonalty, pioneers build low whereas later generations with larger populations build higher, preserve wilderness, limit births and encourage emigration. Other civilizations live differently.
Ten million planets have a significant number of Commonalty members. Unable to plan economies, they rely on the market which, according to Ranger Daven Laure, is as automatic, efficient, impersonal and ruthless as gravity:
"'...but we didn't make this universe. We only live in it.'" (p. 771)
Human beings did not make their natural environment but we do make our social environment of cooperation, competition, conventions, cultures, languages, laws etc. A storm or an earthquake is a natural event, or an "act of God," whereas a war or an economic crisis is a large number of human actions which, however, confront and overwhelm individuals with the apparent inevitability of natural phenomena. We know that there are different ways to manage or manipulate markets, perhaps none of them satisfactory, so I think that it is disingenuous to present the abstract "market" as if it were no different from a natural law like gravity.
The civilization is big, diverse and busy with its own affairs, including many other cases of need. To help the Kirkasanters, there is no tax mechanism and no way to contact enough people to ask them to make free-will donations. Again, the size and complexity of the civilization is merely stated. A library of novels would be necessary to make this real.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And it has been noticed, in the real world, how in the most advanced nations population growth tends to flatten out, and even to start declining. And such trends can go too far and lead to dangerously low levels of population.
When it's allowed to function properly the market economy works--and nothing suggested as replacing it has. If free enterprise economics is the only kind of economy that WORKS for human beings, then that comes pretty close to being "natural law" for mankind.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it's not the only method that works, it's just the one that works -best-, in terms of encouraging lots of output.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That states or makes the point I was trying to express more clearly.
Ad astra! Sean
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