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[Raphael]

The Culture is depicted as post-scarcity. In one sense I think that places it outside of economics entirely. But I believe Banks had the idea that capitalism is about the only thing that holds back, and that socialism would automatically lead to post-scarcity; it's a misconception I've often encountered.

What strikes me is that— no, its not post-scarcity, as we can see from the books. There is always something that not everyone can have, or do. Most of Banks's characters, in fact, are some sort of lone misfit who has skills that, somehow, are uncommon in a society of hundreds of billions.

One designs Orbitals, for instance— habitats for millions of people. Free energy or not, this is not a job that millions of people can have! Yet, surely tens of thousands of those people have the skillset to do this work. How is this work allocated? Whether it's a competition or sortition or the inscrutable choice of the Minds, how can it not feel oppressive to all the people who are not allowed to do it? members or a trillion. I'm not sure any author has come up with a solution to this.

I think I vaguely remember Banks himself once saying or writing somewhere that in the Culture, "you can still have ambitions, and they can still be frustrated", but now I can't remember where or when exactly he might have said it.

[keenir]

I understand that it may not register as a problem at all, or as you say, no solution may be evident. But society wasn't always like this. Just a couple centuries ago, for instance, music wasn't really a commodity, and barely a profession.

But you can still say "X and Y are the best musicians in this valley" in any language, except mayyyybe for Piraha. (though pragmatics would make it tough for San languages)

(though i admit i wasn't looking at the problem in terms of having things as professions or commodities...i was looking at it in terms of human competitiveness)

In many cultures everyone can participate in music... indeed, if you weren't in the elite, the only way you were going to hear music was to make it yourself or with your friends.

So thats more of a "it doesn't matter if there are professional habitat-designers, because anyone can draft designs for homes of various sizes." (as everyone can participate in design)

Actually, conlanging is sort of a model. There is perhaps one superstar, but no one has to pay him homage or even consider his conlangs the best.

I did consider conlangs...though what came to my mind were the Smiley Awards; they fufil the criterion for having a victory ("make me smile") just as a chess champion does (win at chess). They're unofficial, yes, and they highlight that even noncompetitive fields of study can have award-winners.

Though, your point does raise another thought in my mind: Banks' characters who do things that few others will get to do (the designers of real habitats, the best at games, etc)...do they get lionized or given anything that we would consider homage (etc) for being the best in their fields? Or, like with conlangs, is the only reward is self-given, in their pride at having gotten to where they are and what they do?

[zompist]

Actually, conlanging is sort of a model. There is perhaps one superstar […]

Yeah, and that’s you!

That's kind of you, but I was actually thinking of David Peterson.

[bradrn]

Actually, conlanging is sort of a model. There is perhaps one superstar […]

Yeah, and that’s you!

That's kind of you, but I was actually thinking of David Peterson.

I did have a feeling that might be it.

(There’s a couple of other big names too: amongst the up-and-coming generation, one name I’ve heard is Biblaridion, apparently a YouTuber of some distinction.)

[keenir]

Wait a minute.
This keeps going through my brain, and I just realized something that you may not have intended...

I understand that it may not register as a problem at all, or as you say, no solution may be evident. But society wasn't always like this. Just a couple centuries ago, for instance, music wasn't really a commodity, and barely a profession. In many cultures everyone can participate in music... indeed, if you weren't in the elite, the only way you were going to hear music was to make it yourself or with your friends.

Therefore, because everyone can have opinions on international relations, and can talk about it with their friends (or have a "model U.N."), therefore diplomats and presidents aren't a profession?

a later thought:
So, musician isn't a profession, despite having professional musicians since at least the Bronze Age?

I hope I just misread/misunderstood you.

[Raphael]

Though, your point does raise another thought in my mind: Banks' characters who do things that few others will get to do (the designers of real habitats, the best at games, etc)...do they get lionized or given anything that we would consider homage (etc) for being the best in their fields? Or, like with conlangs, is the only reward is self-given, in their pride at having gotten to where they are and what they do?

My impression from what I've read in Player of Games is that they do get lionized, but only among people interested in their specific field. When Gurgeh gets extorted, he clearly worries about his reputation, and about having to start again from scratch in a different field. But at one point, it is briefly mentioned that he is visited by a few people (I don't remember whether a couple, a family, or some other kind of small group) who come across his house while they're on some kind of hike, and who have apparently never heard of him.

[WeepingElf]

I have the feeling that socialism, rather than leading to post-scarcity, requires it to work. And how do we achieve post-scarcity in a finite world? We are already over-exploiting our planet now. Space colonization? Hardly feasible. There actually is nowhere to go and live in our solar system, at most we can mine some rare metals or such (and even then, the landfills on Earth are a cheaper and more accessible source) and interstellar travel requires unforeseen breakthroughs in physics and engineering to become viable, and then, apart from the ethical questions, alien biospheres are probably incompatible to ours (depending on how restrictive the preconditions for life are - perhaps they are so narrow that all biospheres are similar enough to each other to be compatible, but I won't bet on that), so we can't eat the lifeforms we'll find there, and crops brought in from Earth won't thrive in the alien soils. And terraforming, given the mismanagement of our own biosphere, doesn't sound very promising either. Planetary biospheres are too complex to engineer them like that.

What I am more optimistic about is the prospect of a post-poverty society, as well as a post-tyranny one - both IMHO go together and cannot be separated from each other. Western European countries at least get close already. I am planning to write stories set in such a society, and collecting ideas for such stories.

[zompist]

I understand that it may not register as a problem at all, or as you say, no solution may be evident. But society wasn't always like this. Just a couple centuries ago, for instance, music wasn't really a commodity, and barely a profession. In many cultures everyone can participate in music... indeed, if you weren't in the elite, the only way you were going to hear music was to make it yourself or with your friends.

Therefore, because everyone can have opinions on international relations, and can talk about it with their friends (or have a "model U.N."), therefore diplomats and presidents aren't a profession?

I don't understand this at all.

a later thought:
So, musician isn't a profession, despite having professional musicians since at least the Bronze Age?

Well, to start with, you should not take "barely" to mean "not".

How many people made a living through music alone, in premodern times? Not a lot, to my knowledge, and they were vastly outnumbered by amateurs. This isn't a moral judgment or a value judgment.

Taleb's point was about what jobs can and can't scale. Some can't: you can't be a surgeon, a barber, a masseur, or a CPA to a million people. You can however provide a book or a rock album to ten or a million people, and in a galactic society to a trillion. That gives the arts a vertiginous class structure, with our present ways of doing things. What I'm pointing out is that music went from non-scaleable to scaleable. Even Mozart couldn't give a concert for a million people; but a Mozart recording can be sold to that many.

[keenir]

I understand that it may not register as a problem at all, or as you say, no solution may be evident. But society wasn't always like this. Just a couple centuries ago, for instance, music wasn't really a commodity, and barely a profession. In many cultures everyone can participate in music... indeed, if you weren't in the elite, the only way you were going to hear music was to make it yourself or with your friends.

Therefore, because everyone can have opinions on international relations, and can talk about it with their friends (or have a "model U.N."), therefore diplomats and presidents aren't a profession?

I don't understand this at all.

Admittedly, its a bad analogy on my part; what I was trying to get at, was the bizarreness of what seemed to be the claim that, because anyone can make music, no matter what their social status, that music isn't a commodity or a profession.

Now, w may not agree fully on if music is either of those...but musicians were definately a commodity -- like painters, kings would send them to other courts, to improve diplomatic relations.

a later thought:
So, musician isn't a profession, despite having professional musicians since at least the Bronze Age?

Well, to start with, you should not take "barely" to mean "not".

How many people made a living through music alone, in premodern times? Not a lot, to my knowledge, and they were vastly outnumbered by amateurs.

We don't have many people who make a living just through being astronauts, either; and every one of the US Presidents failed to make a living just at their job (they always started elsewhere, and some were employed elsewhere afterwards), and they're both outnumbered by amateurs (ie, people who live in space suits on habitats in Hawaii, actors in roles of either profession, etc)

This is the first time I've ever heard or read anyone suggesting that we define what is/isn't a profession, by if it scales.

What I'm pointing out is that music went from non-scaleable to scaleable. Even Mozart couldn't give a concert for a million people; but a Mozart recording can be sold to that many.

Ah; I had thought you were arguing that, because anyone can make music - however good or badly - therefore, Mozart wasn't a real musician.

[keenir]

Here's where I think my mental roadbump lies:

Initially, the discussion was about the rarity of certain jobs in I.Banks' books, and if that was fair to the vast population of The Culture, that only those very very few people got to engage in things like designing habitats...from there, the conversation went to discuss how to fix that problem, if it could be fixed, and why do such rare jobs exist in The Culture in the first place?

Then entered questions of scale and scaleability(sp), with issues of if a person can make a living at a given job. (before this conversation today, I hadn't considered that both supportability and scaleability were required for something to be considered a profession; mea culpa)

Given that I'm not aware of any of Banks' characters having a second job, then I presume the answer is "yes"...though the above issues of fairness still apply. Banks' characters get to be like the musicians and painters in the courts of pre-modern elites; and because anyone can make designs of habitats (even though nothing comes of it), the analogy is furthered.

While ideally both would be attained, is it more important to be able to make a living in the job, or to have a job which scales well?



Newly thought:
Though, Alice Kober was a schoolteacher, and I think Derek Bickerton is one as well. Is teaching the usual 2nd job for linguists, or do i have that impression because of sampling bias: the ones I've heard of (and know the background of) held that occupation.

[KathTheDragon]

I have the feeling that socialism, rather than leading to post-scarcity, requires it to work. And how do we achieve post-scarcity in a finite world? We are already over-exploiting our planet now.

I don't know if this is a full solution, but a good start would be to stop imposing artificial scarcity for the sake of profit! We already produce more than enough food to feed all of humanity, we already have the technology to produce enough energy to power the whole planet, and we have the means to provide housing to everyone who doesn't have it. The main and perhaps only reason we're not doing any of these things is that it's profitable not to.

[Travis B.]

I have the feeling that socialism, rather than leading to post-scarcity, requires it to work. And how do we achieve post-scarcity in a finite world? We are already over-exploiting our planet now.

I don't know if this is a full solution, but a good start would be to stop imposing artificial scarcity for the sake of profit! We already produce more than enough food to feed all of humanity, we already have the technology to produce enough energy to power the whole planet, and we have the means to provide housing to everyone who doesn't have it. The main and perhaps only reason we're not doing any of these things is that it's profitable not to.

Agreed. The failures of the economy are not necessarily so but are rather due to the failures of capitalism in particular. The business cycle is due to capitalism, and is not an intrinsic feature of the world. Poverty is not an essential part of the world but rather is due to the failures of capitalism to serve the needs of society.

Of course, the problem with many supposedly post-scarcity forms of socialism is the calculation problem, and your centralized economies have shown themselves to be highly inefficient in practice. This is why I am for market socialism rather than central planning, albeit with significant regulation by a directly democratic government, and with significant limitations upon enterprises' ability to make a profit (so enterprises put surplus income into paying the workers, into investing further into the enterprise, or into investing further in society as a whole).

[Ares Land]

It's been something like twenty years since I read that book... But wasn't Gurgeh portrayed as kind of antisocial anyway? I remember getting the idea that his competitiveness was really weird for a Culture citizen.

Iain Banks did like to play with various ideas related to scarcity and scaleability. I think it was in Look to Windward that a plot point revolves around a piece of music that can only be performed at a specific time in specific place.

[Ares Land]

Bank's intention was of course that the Culture is post-scarcity in terms of basics: food, nice houses, entertainment options. Which is better than some people not having those things! But I feel that sf should think a little deeper. Is it actually healthy to continue celebrity culture in an sf utopia? There can only be one ultra-champion in chess, only one top-selling rock band, one most-produced playwright, whether a civ has 10,000 members or a trillion. I'm not sure any author has come up with a solution to this.

Funny because I just read a piece in the local paper that implied that sports amateurs are moving away from pure competition these days. Apparently trail running enthusiasts and marathon amateurs now celebrate all 'finishers' and don't care that much about the winner anymore.

(I can't really comment on that. I personally believe running is something you should do only in dire circumstances, like being pursued by a bear.)

[WeepingElf]

The idea of companies owned by the employees who democratically elect their management is very attractive, but it is not without problems. Each employee joining the company would have to buy into it, which may be a serious obstacle for a fresh graduate who seeks his first employment. In a pre-industrial economy, where an employee needs only a handful of simple tools, this cost would be manageable; it would also work with some post-industrial businesses where he's only have to bring in a personal computer. But what about a capital-heavy industry where each employee works with machines costing more than he can expect to earn in his whole lifetime? That just won't work.

[zompist]

The idea of companies owned by the employees who democratically elect their management is very attractive, but it is not without problems. Each employee joining the company would have to buy into it, [...]

What? I've never heard of a plan for worker management that requires that workers pay to join.

This isn't just theoretical— look at the Mondragon corporation, which is a network of cooperatives with 70,000 workers.

[Raphael]

It's been something like twenty years since I read that book... But wasn't Gurgeh portrayed as kind of antisocial anyway? I remember getting the idea that his competitiveness was really weird for a Culture citizen.

Yes, that's at least hinted at on various occasions.

Funny because I just read a piece in the local paper that implied that sports amateurs are moving away from pure competition these days. Apparently trail running enthusiasts and marathon amateurs now celebrate all 'finishers' and don't care that much about the winner anymore.

For what it's worth, I remember reading somewhere that back when gymnastics was still really big in Germany, and was associated with the German extreme nationalism of the time, there were intense arguments about whether there should be gymnastics competitions. Apparently, many thought that this violated the purity of gymnastics, and that gymnastics should only be done for the sake of getting exercise.

(I can't really comment on that. I personally believe running is something you should do only in dire circumstances, like being pursued by a bear.)

I guess that's one set of circumstances where it won't do you much good...

[zompist]

Now, w may not agree fully on if music is either of those...but musicians were definately a commodity -- like painters, kings would send them to other courts, to improve diplomatic relations.

There were musicians who made a living playing for the elite, of course. But you didn't have today's superstar economy.
1. The elite was small: there was no mass market for paid musicianship. You weren't going to become fabulously rich by playing music.
2. It was not scaleable: even a top musician can only play for the people in one building.
3. For the majority, if they wanted music, they had to make it themselves, and did.

I may be wrong, but my impression is that music as a career picked up with the invention of printing, which allowed printed music and discussions of music to circulate widely. E.g. the first secular conservatory was founded in Paris in 1784. (The word derives from an Italian practice of teaching music to orphans, conservati.)

This is the first time I've ever heard or read anyone suggesting that we define what is/isn't a profession, by if it scales.

That's not what I said at all! Again, does "barely" mean "not" to you? If someone is "barely alive", do you put them in a coffin?

Scaleability is just a matter of how much reach your work can have. Can you apply it to millions of people with not much more effort than the dozens you can reach personally?

It has nothing to do with what is a "profession", though it does affect the size of a profession. Surgery is certainly a profession, but has to be done personally and doesn't scale.

The problem with scaleablity is the class structure it creates. Only a minority can be at the top, so you get a small number of fabulously rich people, and a vast long tail of struggling people and hobbyists.

Maybe the problem is liveable when, say, the maximum album sells 70 million copies. I think it becomes a bigger moral problem in an avowedly socialist and egalitarian galactic society. Is it OK if Gurgeh's Youtube channel has 700 billion subscribers, he has about a hundred peers in the entire galaxy, and everyone else can't even get monetized? (Sure, the socialist galactic state has a guaranteed income so they can all eat. But a superstar culture has other non-egalitarian effects, like all the art sounding or looking the same, and not being open to new influences.)

Banks is dead, so I'm not waiting for the Culture to address this. I think sf writers should think about it, however. Personally I suspect the solution is a cultural change: a really advanced civ just doesn't like superstars, much as the Khoisan don't like braggart hunters.

[Ares Land]

The idea of companies owned by the employees who democratically elect their management is very attractive, but it is not without problems. Each employee joining the company would have to buy into it, which may be a serious obstacle for a fresh graduate who seeks his first employment. In a pre-industrial economy, where an employee needs only a handful of simple tools, this cost would be manageable; it would also work with some post-industrial businesses where he's only have to bring in a personal computer. But what about a capital-heavy industry where each employee works with machines costing more than he can expect to earn in his whole lifetime? That just won't work.

In France we have a type of company called SCOPs, basically co-ops. They're not exactly common, but there's an increasing number of them and they seem to be doing okay. The usual scenario seems to be that you can start out as an employee and can become an associate after a year. You do have to bring capital but typically they ask for a pretty symbolic amount.
One way around the difficulty you describe is that under the SCOP status each associate gets one vote -- not matter how much stock they own.
So the decision-making power of an employee is unrelated to how much stock they own.

There are many technical/legal issues surrounding investors though -- some of them have been fixed; others remain. One big issue (related to the objection you raise) is that legally employees/associates must own 51% of the company; this means any kind of huge outside investment must be matched by the employees.
Generally raising capital will be a difficulty (which is why most SCOPs seem fairly small-scale, I think.)
I think this could be solved with an ecosystem of investors; these could be cooperative as well, or state actors. The key issue, really, is how to bootstrap such a cooperative/public ecosystem -- which is going to be difficult until we have the political will to match -- so basically this means electing socialists.

On that last point, I'm actually reasonably hopeful in the long run (as far as Europe is concerned, anyway). No one really believes in the neoliberal consensus anymore and it looks like even the wealthiest (at least, the smart ones) are beginning to worry.

What? I've never heard of a plan for worker management that requires that workers pay to join.

SCOPs do but what they require is pretty small. The one I just checked for reference asks for a minimum contribution of 100 euros and 1% of future wages.

[Ares Land]

I think sf writers should think about it, however. Personally I suspect the solution is a cultural change: a really advanced civ just doesn't like superstars, much as the Khoisan don't like braggart hunters.

We're so deeply influenced by our culture that it's hard, even for SF writers, to escape unchecked assumptions.

While we're picking on socialist SF writers, here's one case I just noticed. In The Dispossessed, the scientist hero, Shevek has a hard time on Anarres because his scientific pursuits are inherently individualistic. But Le Guin is just going with our cultural expectation of the scientists as a lone genius there, and that particular expectation is a myth, with no basis in fact: scientific research is really a matter of teamwork. There's no way a lone genius could come up with the Grand Theory of Everything (a scientific commune run on anarchistic lines would really be better equipped for that!)