The Solar Union And Latin America

Here, I compared the Solar Union in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History to Latin America but there are differences. In Latin America:

"...the major source of threat and conflict is securocratic, stemming from social unrest and crime linked to poverty, and the operations of major crime organizations, drug cartels in particular."
-Jeff Halper, War Against The People (New York, 2015), p. 220.

In the Solar Union, there is no poverty. Instead, there is a comfortable life for all. Further, it is difficult to see how there could be organized crime in that society. In any case, it is not mentioned. There is social unrest because the majority who had been accustomed to working for their livings can no longer do so. But they no longer need to do so. Many would regard this as a release. And the next generation would not grow up with any expectation that they should work for their living. Instead, they could be offered cultural activities to address every taste: every kind of sport and art; travel; study etc.

Those who remained dissatisfied would hardly constitute a force capable of waging global war as described in "Cold Victory." Thus, I find the historical transition from "Quixote and the Windmill" to "Cold Victory" implausible. If the psychotechnicians could allow, or even inadvertently cause, that to happen, then their science did indeed count for nothing. I think that there is another timeline in which the Humanists were an ineffectual sect while the utopian economy went from strength to strength.

The Solar Union: Unemployment III

In some works of speculative fiction, a representative of a future society explains that society to a time traveler or to a returned relativistic space traveler. In Poul Anderson's "Quixote and the Windmill," two drunks explain their society to each other. Their social positions differ so their perspectives are complementary:

"'Machines do all the routine work, all of it, they produce so much that the basic necessities of life are free.'
"'The hell. They want money for everything.'
"'Not much. And you get your citizen's allowance, which is just a convenient way of making your needs free.'"
-Poul Anderson, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), pp. 20-21.

So what is the role of money? The machines are not paid a wage or salary. However, human servotechnicians and their managers are. So who pays them? In an earlier post, I listed the human beings who still work:

highly skilled and trained engineers and technicians;
scientific geniuses;
painters;
writers;
musicians;
spacemen;
tavern keepers.

Several of these groups might be self-employed? The Solar Union government might easily employ the rest. So no longer any private employers?

Brady was bored as a servotechnician but is not bright enough to be employed as a mathematician although he has studied that subject as hard as possible. But why should he be employed in order to continue the study and application of mathematics? To satisfy the needs, not just the physical needs, of its citizens, the Union should allocate resources to enable people like Brady to engage with their preferred areas of study as long as they live. If artificial intelligences are doing "'...independent research...[a]t a higher level than the human brain can operate...'" (p. 23), then human beings can spend life-times stretching their own abilities and discussing the AI's discoveries.

The Solar Union: Unemployment

The issues change as we proceed through Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:

in Vol I, who is the protean enemy of human unity?;

in Vol II, what can possibly go wrong in an apparently perfect economy?;

in Vol III, is it possible to coordinate a civilization confronting cosmic complexity?

In "Quixote and the Windmill," the opening story of Vol II, machines do all the:

manual work;
routine computation;
independent research.

Therefore, the only human beings guaranteed employment are:

highly skilled and trained engineers and technicians;
scientific geniuses;
painters;
writers;
musicians;
spacemen;
tavern keepers.

Citizen's allowance covers basic necessities, including drink. A former industrial worker, disliking concerts and paintings, must settle for drink, women and stereo-film. His drinking companion, a genius but not a first rank genius, did find work as a servo-technician but was unable to tolerate its dreary routine.

Population is kept small and static and is adapting to its changed social environment. I think that, after at most three generations, the transitional problems would be resolved and there would be neither need nor incentive for the Humanist Revolution, fifty years later according to the Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series.

The Solar Union Economy

See here.

The first story in Poul Anderson's Cold Victory (New York, 1982), "Quixote and the Windmill," confirms the picture of a utopian economy, helped by the literary device of the pathetic fallacy:

the first robot, i.e., "...independent, volitional, nonspecialized machine..." (p. 16);
green hills;
sunlight flashing off polished metal;
a bright summer sky;
sunlit fields;
groves dancing in the wind;
widely distributed, self-servicing houses;
a large, almost automatic food factory;
quiet, self-piloting carplanes;
sun-tanned people in loose bright clothes;
a colorist with a new chromatic harmony;
a composer with an omniplayer;
engineers in a transparent laboratory;
short work periods;
most people at recreation most of the time;
a picnic, a dance, a concert and children at play;
oldsters in hammocks enjoying beer and books;
live talent preferred to TV;
a gardened, colonnaded tavern with autodispensors and two drunk men;
we are about to learn what can go wrong...