Eight science fiction titles with lessons for economics

"Science fiction can remake the realm of economic possibility, whether by dreaming up new currencies or experimenting with radically different systems of exchange," writes Saanya Jain at Lit Hub. She tagged eight books that "engage in this kind of narrative speculation and offer glimpses of a more sustainable and just society," including:

Cory Doctorow, Walkaway

Set in the recent future, Doctorow’s spin on the post-scarcity tradition hits closer to home that most. The need to work has been eliminated thanks to 3D printers that can produce all essentials, but global ecological catastrophe has created refugee crises and extreme inequality. The title refers to those who abandon mainstream society, known as “Default”—a clever play on words both in the economic sense and as a reminder that the world as given is not the only possible one.

The novel follows three such walkaways who build a small-scale society in rural Canada. They develop a gift-based economy in which everything is freely given instead of being exchanged or valued at a set price. Their existence threatens the urban elites, who don’t take kindly to the alternative to markets that the walkaways’ way of life represents.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue