- [!] Status Log - status-updated: [[2021-03-24]] - current-status:: #used/external # 5 Unconventional Economic Systems & the SFF Stories that Showcase Them The modern world runs on money. No matter one's opinions of capitalism, that is an unavoidable fact. Fiction, though—particularly speculative fiction like science fiction and fantasy—is perfect for *escapism,* for helping us set aside dreary reality and imagine other sorts of economies. Economics is a complicated concept, for all that we like to simplify it. In a perfect world, perhaps money would represent a straightforward relationship between dollars and time, or effort, or our contributions to the world. Maybe once, that was true—but it hasn't been like that for a long time. Like, a *long* time. ## Hunting & Herding Economy The ability to vastly increase the size of a pastoral herd, such as cattle or sheep or horses, can have an enormous impact on a society's economy — because pastoral economies are often less about coinage or currency than of herd sizes. Around 3300 BCE, the [[Yamnaya]] herders of the Pontic steppe began to increase their herd sizes, thanks to the invention of the wheel allowing for a mobile pastoral economy. [^1] [^1]: [[The Horse The Wheel And Language by David Anthony]] In the early centuries of the first millennium CE, when high value goods were still rare in cattle-keeping parts of Africa, being a clan chief had relatively little practical effect. But during the Nuer expansion, chiefs were able to use their position as community judges to build up their own herds and redistribute cattle to their followers. This economy, centered around control of cattle rather than currency or coinage, led to enormous social changes. [^2] [^2]: [[The Civilizations of Africa by Christopher Ehret]] A lot of books when they involve pastoral herders, also involve regular coin economy. The nightsheep herders of L. E. Modesitt's Corean Chronicles have to buy equipment for processing the nightsilk, barrels and guns and other goods, using money just ranchers in the American west would have. A truly pastoral economy is different; a pastoral economy uses the number of animals in one's herd as the measure of wealth itself. ( Borderland of Sol by Larry Niven ) But what if the animals themselves are the ones partaking in the economy? Larry Niven's known space series shows an example of just that in **Borderland of Sol**, which won the 1976 Hugo Award for best novellette. Hearkening back to ancient traditions of clan chiefs being given half a hunter's trophy upon completion of a prize hunt in thanks for their work serving as adjudicators of disputes in the clan, the sentient Bandersnatchi of the Jinx system allow *themselves* to be hunted by humans in exchange for specialized tools. ## Barter economy Speaking of specialized tools, Ilona Andrew's Dina relies on barter economy to get the specialty items she needed to defend her Inn in *Clean Sweep*. Nuan Cee at a place known as Baha-char. Baha-char is a grand bazaar. It is in its most simple form, a place to buy things. But Baha-char is part of the Node, a great crossroads like the Swahili Coast or Syria[^4] were in their heyday. It is place where you can find anything you are looking for. And Nuan Cee is a cut above a regular trader; he's a powerful Merchant who deals in rare goods. Simple currency means nothing to someone like Nuan Cee; uniqueness and rarity are prized. Dina manages to barter a jar of honey from Yemen — worth about $250 — for an item she desperately needs to defend her Inn. ^2b004c [^4]: [[Brotherhood of Kings by Amanda Podany]] The thing about barter economies, though? [Pre-money ones might be just as fictional as Baha-char](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/). Adam Smith's idea that primitive people would have bartered for goods before the invention of currency has been thoroughly debunked by anthropologists like David Graeber — evidence suggestions that barter economies came *after* the invention of money — similar to how Ilona Andrew's more popular series, Kate Daniels' world, uses ammunition in lieu of dollars after the crumbling of the US federal government. ## Contribution & Status Economy The Inca were able to construct one of the greatest imperial states in human history without money or marketplaces. The state economy functioned via "supply on demand" and the concept of *mit'a* — mandatory public service. The state might demand labor from a family, but they would give equal value in return. A similar system was used by the Egyptians for their public infrastructure projects. For most of Egypt's history, particularly during the Bronze Age, international trade was sponsored by the Pharaoh. There *was* no merchant class; Bronze Age rulers in the Levant gained status through a complex web of luxury gifts, diplomacy, and war. In *Children of Time* by Adrian Tchaikovsky, female spiders function as the nobility, the warrior class, the priestesses, the scholars. They expect the males to follow one of two paths: an industrious male might make himself useful performing maintenance and be fed in exchange, or engage in the easier (but more dangerous) work of courtship and flattery. The young are provided for by the "state" until they are old enough to be useful, then they must work to earn food, learning trades and gaining specialties. The spider metropolises are run by functional anarchy with social hierarchies determined by contribution. Favors and gifts are determined by power, gained through contribution to the whole, and females form into peer groups of friends that essentially work together to pool their resources and status. ## Contract Economy Capitalism certainly plays a role in Anne Bishop's *The Others* series— but only insofar as human civilization exists in the background. The *terra indigene,* sentient non-humans who take various elemental and shapeshifting forms, have only just begun to practice direct purchases with currency at the time the books are set. *The Others* — beginning with *Written in Red* — are setting out to understand humans better and build a better relationship with humanity, which very much exists on sufferance in the *terra indigene* territory. Technically,*terra indigene* lease land to humans in exchange for manufactured goods. Human communities provide these luxury supplies on a recurring basis, for example leaving boxes of supplies at the edges of their settlements. Humans pay for water rights, they pay for right-of-way access to the roads, they pay for the land they build their cities on — in perpetuity. The land belongs to the *terra indigene,* who accumulate wealth as via contract because they have no other reason to permit humans onto land they control. No matter what the "Humans First and Last" organizations believe, the *terra indigene* are exponentially more powerful than the human governments, and as established by Frank Herbert in Dune — the ability to destroy something is the ability to control it absolutely. ## Balanced Reciprocity In Anne Bishop's more well-known *Black Jewels* series (which also features a tribute economy), there is an oft-repeated phrase, *"Everything has a price."* A similar sentient shows up in the Goblin Market of *In An Absent Dream* by Seanan McGuire: an economic system known as balanced reciprocity. Though the Incan state controlled the economy on the macro level, on the interpersonal level, balanced reciprocity was key. [^6] A member of the community might ask for help plowing a field of potatoes and then, in a later season, be expected to pay back that favor by helping someone else shear their llama. The Quechua concepts of *mit'a* (mandatory public service — the Egyptians used something similar for public infrastructure projects) and *minka* (asking for help by promising something) were critical to the social stability of the Inca. [^6]: _The Articulated Peasant_ by Enrique Mayer. <aside> For a great novel with close parallels to Inca culture, check out *Black Sun* by Rebecca Roanhorse.</aside> *In An Absent Dream* offers a much darker example of this system. It's balanced reciprocity enforced by the magic of the Market itself. In the Goblin Market, it is unwise to ask for anything at all unless you can offer fair value, and if you cannot, well, then you go into debt. As in the *Black Jewels* series, costs can be tangible or intangible — or both. The Market distinguishes between being deliberately cheated and when a person is working as hard as they can to settle a debt, and appears gentler with those who cannot yet be expected to know all of the nuances of its rules. But debt, in the Goblin Market, slowly turns you into a bird. —- ## References 1. https://www.fictionunbound.com/blog/what-if-life-were-fair-in-an-absent-dream-seanan-mcguire 2. https://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2020/05/22/the-goblin-market-awaits-seanan-mcguire-in-an-absent-dream/