7
votes
"Xi's world order - July 2024" (Economics and speculative fiction - a sampling from this week's Economist)
Link information
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- Title
- Xi's world order: July 2024
- Published
- Jul 7 2018
- Word count
- 1717 words
See also, "Run, TaskRabbit, Run".
The first story posits a breakdown of international rules-based order that permits generalized espionage, which precipitates an economic crisis. The second story models a future of "corporations" which are nothing but algorithms pulling profit from decentralized, casual labor. These aren't complete works of literature, so much as "if this goes on"-style fictionalized Economist stories, but they're carefully reasoned, plausible and well-structured examples.
There are a few notable economists who've mentioned that they read science fiction, and it makes perfect sense since science fiction often contains speculative economic models in narrative form.
Does anyone have other suggestions for economic speculative fiction, or commentary on the linked stories?
I kinda like the Economist's speculative fictions too. Their episode How the slow death of Labour might happen had some witty gems and a jab against Trump.
On economic speculative fiction, I often hear tech people cite Manna. I think J.G. Ballard's High Rise had a substantial economic dimension in it. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin might be fairly overt about economics among her Ecumen stories.
About the story itself, I feel that it has a quality in common with other good speculative fictions: it's more plausible than speculative. However I'd have liked to see more focus on how the Chinese people are affected and how they react on different levels.
In some way, the future is already here, just unevenly distributed. Cybertotalitarianism is already a reality in China, and there's no hidden ambition in the current regime's efforts in exporting its ideology and structural formations, its vision for a Grand-Inquisitor-like future.
With great trepidation, I'll mention Philip Jose' Farmer's novella, Riders of the Purple Wage, for a somewhat ludicrous and sexualized brief vision of basic income, with some satirical nods to the style of Jame Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. It's intent is more social criticism than economic exploration.