Ethics and a future economy

A science fiction fan since grade school, I find it fascinating to experience different views of the never-ending conflict between age-old human dynamics (which rarely seem to improve for any lasting length of time) and technology advances (ala Clarke's incredible RAMA series). Last summer I stumbled on to "The Ethos Effect" by L.E. Modesitt Jr. Apart from a tad too many detailed descriptions of what intergalactic pilots apparently order for dinner, I couldn't put it down.

Modesitt weaves together religion, racism, strategic management/planning issues, psychology and surprisingly, outright macro-economics. The hero of the fiction work, a black interstellar pilot named Van Albert, confronts numerous ethical dilmenas that would stop a cosmic clock. Finally faced with meancing empires -- one driven by corrupted faith , the other by secular greed -- he unexpectedly finds that he possesses the horsepower to deal with both and superimose his will upon others. But is it ethical?

Not to give away any more of the story, Modesitt's short ventures into simple micro-and macro-economics (linked by psychology) resonated pretty strongly with yours truly. A sample, where Van's mentor outlines a few things:

"Human beings are still genetically programmed or patterned to look at life in economic terms. Everything we do has economic overtones, and yet most people still want to deny that. I'm oversimplying enormously, but there are essentially two economic outlooks, again dating from our ancient roots.

"One is the 'big kill' view, and the other is the 'gatherer' view. The big kill literally comes from that kind of hunting outlook. You kill the biggest game animals possible, and then you use everything from that kill for as long as you can...[the other view is] gatherers, and later farmers, gleaning bit by bit, planning. Of course, in some cultures, farmers again went after the big kill in terms of a massive harvest of a single profitable crop -- monoculture in the extreme.

"What does this have to do with us?

"The big kill philosophy doesn't work over time. It doesn't work socially or economically. Steady managed returns work far better, and economic organizations that can develop that kind of approach actually produce higher profits and better products over time. They also instill more personal discipline.

"But they almost never produce huge windfalls, and there's always someone out there who tries to convince people that the big kill is better."

In a Donald Trump and American Idol media world, perhaps some food for thought?

Fortuna favet fortibus.