See Obsolete Uniform and combox. Will an advanced technological civilization in a remote future still have vast accumulations of wealth and property protected by laws so that there is still "crime," i.e., the breaking of those laws. In my opinion, not necessarily. However, do these familiar economic and social conditions still exist in the future period of Poul Anderson's "Starfog"? Yes:
"'No individual quadrillionaire, no foundation, no government, no consortium could pay the cost...'" (p. 771)
Apparently, governments are merely planetary in scope. Foundations remind us of Asimov and of how far Poul Anderson's future histories go beyond his. That single word, "quadrillionaire," means a money economy with currencies, wages, salaries, commodities, investments, banks, financial institutions, speculation etc. We want to see how this works for people living in it but it is all implied and off-stage. The narrative action is all adventure at the galactic frontier.
For previous discussion, see here. (Scroll down.)
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
IMO, yes, necessarily. Because all human societies need laws, rules, regulations, taboos, whatever you want to call them, simply to function. Laws and ordinances define what is permissible and specify the penalties for violating them. Ranging from the harshest punishments for the most serious crimes to mild penalties for minor offenses.
Money is just shorthand. It's easier to use money for buying a pair of shoes than swapping two chickens for those shoes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But must there always be laws, police forces, courts and prisons protecting the property of "quadrillionaires" against another section of the population that owns little or no property and some of whose members are motivated to steal?
With fusion power, solar energy, new sources of energy and advanced technology, each new generation of society can collectively inherit immense wealth so that, in order to acquire a pair of shoes, it will not be necessary to hand over either money or two chickens to anyone else. Everybody will already own the automated shoe factory.
We have to change our mind-sets about future possibilities.
Paul.
Also, of course, in our kind of economy, money has become so much more than just a convenient mechanism for transactions of exchange. Banks lend money that is not theirs, lend more than is in their possession and charge interest on it. Money becomes a speculative commodity in its own right. Someone who controls a lot of money controls the labour of a lot of other people. Yet Nicholas van Rijn objected to trade unions controlling the pension funds of their members.
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