The Solar Union: Unemployment II

"...only some twenty-five percent of the adult population of Earth were even partially employed. Of course, no one starved, a citizen's allowance was enough to ensure living quite comfortably, but the genius class which could still work and get extra money for it was hated and envied. Yet the geniuses had to be paid, or not enough of them would have accepted the positions which still had to be filled by humans."
-Poul Anderson, The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), Chapter 5, pp. 49-50.

There are several issues here. First, I envisage a future society where:

everyone lives comfortably;
everyone is helped by education and training to do whatever fulfills them - in harmony with others;
thus, there will no longer be a distinction between work and leisure;
"geniuses" will not have to be induced to do whatever they do best by an offer of extra money;
indeed, money will have become redundant as a means of exchange or distribution.

Clearly, the Solar Union does not operate on that advanced level yet. However, hopefully, it could be in transition to it. For James Blish's and Norman L Knight's account of a high energy society with mass unemployment, see here.

Secondly, who pays the few who work? My understanding is that anyone who works for pay produces more than the value of that pay. Otherwise they would not be employed. If the employer is private, then the surplus value is profit. If the employer is the state, then there is still surplus value although it may be called something else. The only alternative is workers working not for any employer but for themselves, collectively.

So are the geniuses employed by competing companies or by the monolithic state of the Solar Union? If the latter, then the Union has no external competitor although it maintains the massive armed force of the Solar Guard. However, it has an internal "protean enemy." Here is a contemporary equivalent:

"...one of the glaring contradictions in the political life of [Latin America] is the prominence of the military despite the lack of threats from neighboring states. Instead, the major source of threat and conflict is securocratic, stemming from social unrest..."
-Jeff Halper, War Against The People (London, 2015), p. 220.

Outlaws

In Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede, Planetary Engineers investigating Ganymede deduce that the colony leaders could eradicate the Outlaws but do not want to. An external enemy is too useful for controlling their own population. A book that I received as a Christmas present argues that some existing regimes find it expedient to practice surveillance of external enemies because this gives them a means to control their own populations. Thus, there is a parallel between two texts, only one of them fictional.

This could be a controversial discussion! Imagine an argument between two Ganymedeans. One, supporting the colonial regime, believes that the Outlaws are simply a threat that must be eradicated. The other replies that:

some of the Outlaws oppose injustices within the regime;

the regime does not want to eradicate the Outlaws because vilification of them helps to unite the population and maintain the regime.

Now transfer that argument to an existing situation.

Meanwhile, back in an earlier sf novel, 1984, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are permanently at war in mutually agreed battle zones but never attack each others' home territories although the prole populations are continually propagandized with the threat that invasion is imminent. This deception maintains social order, hence the Party slogan: "War is Peace."

The Abbey

The Abbey:

is the Order of Planetary Engineers headquarters and school, perched on the heights of Archimedes Crater on the Moon (see image);

has towers and thick walls of native stone, a local landing field, a spaceport and hidden weapons;

looks ancient;

is approached by a winding road;

burrows deep underground;

can be made self-sufficient;

comprises passages, storerooms, laboratories, bedrooms, refectories, assembly halls and recreation facilities.

Poul Anderson, The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), Chapter 2, p. 9.

Coordinators

(Ganymede.)

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History is a succession of proto-series:

Un-men;
Sensitive Men;
Planetary Engineers;
interstellar exploration teams;
Nomads;
Traders (see "Teucan");
Coordination Service field agents;
Galactics.

"...Archimedes Academy, headquarters and training school of the Order of Planetary Engineers...," (The Snows Of Ganymede, Chapter 2, p. 9) could be the setting for any number of Engineers stories. In fact, it reads as if it is being set up for that purpose. See here.

Does anyone else notice similarities between the conclusions of Snows... and of "Esau"?

I have found another concealed continuity in the Psychotechnic History:

after the outlawing of the Psychotechnic Institute, the Planetary Engineers preserve psychotechnic training and the head of their Order has the title, "Coordinator";

there are Galactic Coordinators in the period of early faster than light interstellar exploration;

the Stellar Union Coordination Service uses computers called Integrators;

some Coordinators leave the Service to join the Nomads, giving them direction and restraint without disrupting their spirit;

the Nomads preserve knowledge after the collapse of the Stellar Union;

the later Galactic civilization employs psychotechnicians and uses Integrators.

Thus, three sets of Coordinators link the Institute to the Galactics.

Organizations

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History is an "organizations" future history, far more so than its successor, the Technic History. The Polesotechnic League is not so much an organization as a den of thieves - and honest traders!

A Planetary Engineer compares his Order to an earlier organization:

"'The medieval Church was another supranational organization. Its attempts to interfere with separate states led only to trouble and ultimate failure, but in its character as the friend of all mankind it was honored and powerful. When that power began to be used for personal and local ends, the Church broke up. It's an example we might all bear in mind.'" (The Snows Of Ganymede, pp. 13-14)

The omniscient narrator compares the Psychotechnic Institute to the same earlier organization:

"Somewhat as the medieval Church nurtured Western civilization, the Institute was a kind of placenta for Technic society." (p. 47)

After the Humanist Revolution has overthrown the Institute:

"Analogies to post-Reformation Europe are tempting..." (p. 51)

This period is described as:

"...the adolescence of Technic civilization..." (ibid.)

- so that phrase is used in this earlier series.

Finally, another Engineer, discussing the outlawed Institute, says:

"'Look, oh, say at the Christian Church. It started with a noble ideal, maybe the noblest man has ever seen, a universal brotherhood of love. After a few centuries, it was burning people alive for disputing its authority.'" (p. 52)

The Church did not start with that ideal. It started with the proclamation of a resurrection, a divine intervention to reverse death. Since such a belief could not be proved, the Church had to resort to enforcing its authority.

Field Dynamics

(Ganymede, the setting of Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958).)

Psychodynamics grew out of:

games theory;
communications theory;
general semantics;
the principle of last (least?) effort;
generalized epistemology. (p. 48)

"The original Psychotechnic Institute eventually absorbed all similar groups. Devoting itself to study, it came up with some fundamental equations describing human relations. The approach was that of field dynamics. Its discoveries about the psychometrics of the individual were of even greater ultimate importance, but centuries would pass before those bore full fruit." (ibid.)

Three interesting points:

field dynamics;
discoveries about individual psychology ultimately more important;
these discoveries bearing fruit centuries later - in the Stellar Union period?

The Institute is destroyed but psychotechnics is not.