Man, Economy and Space

Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card recently edited Future on Ice (Tor, 1998, 432 pages), an anthology of futurist fiction. His preface compares the current state of our culture with Star Wars, an us against them, rebel vs. empire world in which we overlook the faults of those on our own side and demonize any good the other side may contain, simply because we're on opposing teams. The point is well-taken, although Card strains the analogy to make it consistently apply. The real surprise in this essay is an out-of-place smear of economic theory, tarring Marxism and the free market with the same stroke. His main criticism of Marxism is one that applies to economics in general, "that human beings act only for economic reasons." Unfortunately, he proceeds to explicitly equate economic incentive with finance, then asks, "When economists make love, are their motives really financial? How do pre-fiscal primates manage to survive, having no motive to produce?"

If Card had a rudimentary understanding of economic theory, he would realize that, as David Friedman put it in Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, "economics is not about money." Instead, economics studies incentives of all types, relying on the assumption that people have reasons for the ways they behave. With sufficient observation of the ways people react to various incentives, behavior can be predicted. Economists often use money in their analyses because it's a handy medium, but economists could theoretically use anything else as a measurement of incentives and choices: apples, pencils, backrubs, sunsets, even time itself. When dealing with pre-fiscal primates, economists would predict their behavior through measurements that are applicable to primates.

Card goes on to compare economics to religion: "The new post-Marxist religion calls itself Free Market Capitalism, but in their ignorant and impenetrable unconnection with the reality of human life, they are the equal of the most ardent Marxist, and their meddling with law is as ignorant and maliciously indifferent to the true yearnings of individuals."

Believable science fiction rests on an understanding of scientific principles as a departure for stories based on speculative science; all fiction, including Card's, would become more believable with a thorough grounding in economic science. Far from a lack of connection to reality, serious free-market economists have a concrete understanding of people's "true yearnings," as revealed consistently through behavior. —Eric D. Dixon

(Printed in Liberty, February 1999 issue.)