Liner Notes for Circumventing Obstacles
Liner Notes for Circumventing Obstacles
Time for a bit of politics, which in this case starts with economics. What do I mean by a post-scarcity economy? Well a couple of things. It’s an economy able to easily provide basic necessities for those who live within it. Maintaining the infrastructure and providing resources can be done as a part time job. Leaving the people with time to do… other things.
Surplus in an economy. A little talked about problem is what to do with the surplus in an economy, what’s left over once we’ve finished replicating the society the economy is embedded in. For example the phrase “bread and circuses,” usually used to talk about keeping a population content. Yet in this context we can see this in economic terms; people are contented by having their basic needs met, and then a surplus is used for entertainment.
The potlatch of North West Pacific Coast Native Americans, a gift-giving feast in which leading members of the community distribute their surplus is an example. As is large expenditure on wedding feasts or other festivals. The building of temples and expensive acts of worship. And outfitting armies and navies for war has always been a popular way to use the surplus.
In modern times a welfare state and piling up surplus for investment funds to buy up housing stock and invest in increasingly extraordinary technological enterprises have been two favoured means. If I seem dismissive, as though I find these efforts ridiculous or self-defeating then yes, but also I acknowledge that this is a problem that people don’t consider a problem. How will we pay for this, comes the cry, and the answer is, we are already paying for things we don’t need, there is surplus, we can afford things. If we choose to. If we have the will.
Anyway, this is a fantasy of people on space stations with machines that can make any common necessity out of asteroid materials being given the revelation that they can accept that and build a life. They don’t need to struggle, they don’t need authorities, they can make up their own minds.
Am I satirising or valorising anarchism with all this talk of working groups and volunteer committees? The answer, of course, is “yes”.
Why are they building walls? A wall surrounds us, defining a community, keeping it safe. Every community is defined by those who are part of it, and therefore those who are not. Hence some internal opposition. Despite the revelations of the Space Angel there are those who reject the utopian, communalist, harmonious ideals. They have other priorities, other responsibilities. They look outward.
Building walls on a space station to divide disagreeing factions is funny. Literalising the conflict in concrete terms.
The slugs are funny too, and I wanted a shorthand weird element that the Space Angel could introduce.
One element that those of you following along from the start might note is the relationship between Gunn and Quintilius and how it’s changed. Quintilius is in charge now; sometimes he took the lead in previous stories when it was his speciality. Now he’s responsible for it all. He’s choosing to be if anything blunter in his truth-telling than Gunn ever was. Gunn would try and soften it with charm. Here Gunn finds himself the light-hearted sidekick. Perhaps the role he was born to play.
