Re: Economic meltdowns in SF

Mark_Reichert@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
> I know I should be avoiding reality here, but given the implications
> of Bear Stearns if the other investment banks are just as ridiculously
> leveraged, I was wondering what SF stories have which SF stories have
> had economic bad times as background and which have actually dealt
> with the economics as subject material.

One such short story, written during the Cold War, was "Bookworm, Run!" 
by Vernor Vinge.
In it, the advent of inexpensive personal fusion power packs had 
completely up-ended the world's fossil-fuel economy.  The U.S. 
government institutes various social programs to ease the transition to 
a fusion economy.  But the Soviet Union's bureaucracies prove too 
brittle to accommodate themselves to this technological revolution, and 
that country collapses.

It was one of the few stories I had read in the 1960s that had a true 
inkling of how the Cold War would eventually end--with a Soviet economic 
collapse due to major technological and social changes, but no nuclear
war.

Yet oddly enough, that economic scenario, interesting in itself, was not 
the main plot of the story. The main plot dealt with mind links to 
computer data banks and talking animals and other strangenesses.

Others:

I'm not sure if it qualifies as "science fiction" or just "speculative 
fiction"--but the novel "War Day," about a post-nuclear-war America, 
focused on the economic aftermath.  Specifically what happens to the 
American economy when it's electronically erased by Electromagnetic 
Pulse and the destruction of vital records.  The money supply contracts 
even more than in the 1930s, so we get into an even worse economic 
depression than the 1930s.

Finally, the second volume in the Foundation series, "Foundation and 
Empire,"  had the Traders, such as Hober Mallow, conducting economic 
warfare (trade wars) to help advance the Foundation's interests.


-- 
Steven L.
Email:  sdlitvin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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