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.

I recall reading a novella a long time ago called, IIRC, "Depression Or 
Bust". It wasn't very science fictiony, and it was definitely meant a 
bit tongue in cheek, but it had an economic collapse in America as one 
of its two main threads. The other involved events in the Soviet Union 
during the same period.

The American story-thread was basically a long description of the 
economy just seizing up and grinding to a halt for no readily obvious 
reason, with employment in a self-reinforcing downward spiral that 
eventually leaves the entire country out of work. An economist with 
Unconventional Ideas finally manages to get the ear of the president, 
and convinces him that if they can just pinpoint the original cause of 
the depression and reverse it the whole system can get rebooted again. 
So they pour over the records in excruciating detail, and finally 
pinpoint the one transaction that the economist thinks set it all off; 
an ordinary guy needed to buy a washing machine but decided money was a 
bit too tight and put it off. So the Treasury Department prints a 
hundred dollar bill backed by the last few ounces of gold left in Fort 
Knox, and the two remaining Secret Service members who haven't been laid 
off yet are sent down to deliver this one piece of currency with value 
left in it to the guy so he can finally go and buy that washing machine. 
As predicted, that precision injection of cash into the system gets the 
economic wheels turning again, in a chain reaction that spreads through 
the country as people start spending again.

In the Soviet Union, they're dealing with different economic problems 
being caused by their central planning. Massive inefficiencies are 
resulting from workers who don't really care about their jobs and are 
performing poorly; one of the examples I remember was a truck driver 
delivering a truckload of frozen meat to a train station, but the train 
that was meant to pick it up wasn't there so he just emptied the meat 
out and left it to rot (he did what he'd been ordered to, nothing more). 
  A local journalist publishes a scathing criticism of the situation, 
despite knowing full well what sort of response dissent is likely to 
bring. "As he'd always expected it would, the knock at the door came in 
the middle of the night." But instead of being dragged off to vanish 
into the gulags, he's surprised to find himself brought before the 
premier himself. The premier is stumped for answers too, and when he 
read the journalist's criticism he decided on an impulse to see if this 
daring guy actually had any good ideas. He puts him in charge of fixing 
the system, under the premier's direct authority he can travel freely 
around the system and give whatever orders he sees fit.

By the end of the novella, the "troubleshooter" has been getting 
spectacularly successful results. But the premier is furious about the 
techniques he's been using; he's been basically going around turning the 
Soviet Union into a true communist society, giving workers an actual 
stake in the success of their industries and removing the wealthy elite 
from their positions of power. He orders the journalist relieved of his 
job and deported off to the gulags. But the secret police have already 
been crippled by the guy's careful cuts and he can't be found, and 
what's worse, the new overseers he's been installing around the country 
are more loyal to the ideals of communism than they are beholden to the 
premier's personal orders. The new situation has become 
self-perpetuating. The Soviet side of the story ends with the premier 
sitting alone and powerless in his office, the People now in charge of 
the country for real. The line is repeated: "As he'd always expected it 
would, the knock at the door came in the middle of the night."