The problems of utopian science fiction: The Probability Broach, by L. Neil Smith

 I need a break from these near-daily politics posts.  One would think I'm a political scientist, or something...

Time for some science fiction.  Y'all know what "utopia" means, right?  Thomas Moore invented his "utopia," and then used a word that translated, literally, to "no place."  Utopia means "no place."  As in, it doesn't exist.  As in, bullshit.  Got that?  Thomas Moore was fucking with you.  And then we stuck with the word, using it to refer to a place of ideals and perfection, not understanding the etymology.  Yet how perfect is it that a place that is perfect is denoted with a label that is, itself, denoted to mean that it doesn't exist?

Why?  Because in the real world, there are tradeoffs.  Always and forever.

The YA dystopia trend is a thing, I guess, and I'll admit that my reading tastes can be rather dark, but my starting observation for today is that there is an interesting pattern regarding utopian writing.  One of the observations I have made on several occasions is that science fiction, like many artistic outlets, is pretty much a lefty thing.  Why?  Eh.  It just is.  I have speculated, but it's just idle musing.  Yet, I try to read broadly.  I warn people about bubbles, and while it is relatively easy to find political information that isn't just isolated to one ideological perspective, finding art from different perspectives can be more challenging.  When I say that science fiction is lefty, I mean that it is really, really lefty.  You can choke on the political correctness of modern science fiction.  And it isn't healthy.  Not just because Jemisin's last book went off the deep end, but because everyone needs to read books from different perspectives.  It's just that this is really hard in science fiction, when the genre is so overwhelmingly lefty.  So, with that in mind, let us delve back a bit.  All the way back to 1980, when L. Neil Smith published The Probability Broach.

Unlike most science fiction authors, Smith was a hardcore libertarian, bordering on anarchist, and closer to Ayn Rand than Gene Roddenberry.  Why those two names?  Both wrote about utopias.  In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt gathered together the people who mattered, who were sick of being exploited by government and a bunch of leeches and they ran off to Galt's Gulch, which was basically his little, libertarian utopia.  It was, of course, quite different from the more left-wing utopia envisioned by Gene Roddenberry for Star Trek.  The Federation, until Ronald Moore came along, was basically a communist paradise of peace and equality and yadda, yadda, yadda.  That left-wing utopia envisioned by Roddenberry is actually somewhat unusual.  Most science fiction is not really utopian.  Left wing writers favor dystopian approaches, for whatever reason.  And for all of the problems I noted in Jemisin's latest, The City We Became (and really, it was not a good book), it didn't fall prey to any of the problems of utopian fiction.

Libertarian writing, though, tends to favor utopianism.  I'll have some thoughts about why.  Smith went this route, as someone clearly closer to Rand than to Roddenberry, although the direct name checks to Rand in the novel were a bit weird, and not exactly hero-worshippy.  Whatever.

Let's get into it, after that long wind-up.  Here's the basic premise.  A walking cliche of a cop named "Win" Bear (yeah) lives in a universe that is just a hair (see what I did there?) more dystopian than ours, and then science fiction-y stuff happens to zap him into a libertarian/near-anarchist paradise where everything is totally perfect because government is Norquist-sized (so small you can drown it in a bathtub).  How perfect is this world?  So perfect that the only way Smith can figure out to create conflict is to introduce characters who, for unclear reasons, want to introduce government, to do... unspecified things, and are willing to commit mass murder to do it.  If it sounds like I'm going to tell you that this is a lousy book with no comprehension of politics... I am.

Sometimes, I enjoy hate-reading from a political science perspective.  This will be a grumbly post in which I rant about political science, simplistic utopianism, the nature of voting, policy tradeoffs, and a bunch of other stuff, because I actually enjoy being grumpy.

Don't judge.

Anyway, what happened to create No Place?  Fuck it.  Let's just call it that.  No Place came about when the timelines diverged.  In the No Place timeline, Thomas Jefferson added one word to the Declaration of Independence:  "unanimous."  As in, the unanimous consent of the governed.  OK, now there is actually an interesting political science point here, and it is possible that Smith read the underlying political science and economics.  James Buchanan & Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent.  Their core observation is that any voting rule short of unanimity is exploitative.  Under majority rule, 50%+1 can infinitely exploit 50%-1.  Enslavement, murder... anything.  Yes, civil rights and civil liberties can stop that, but the whole point of civil rights and civil liberties is that they are anti-majoritarian, so every time you hear someone bemoan the lack of majoritarianism in a political system... remember that we intentionally build bulwarks against majoritarianism into the system because we recognize this basic point.  "Tyranny of the majority."  Fuck the majority.  I believe that, and so do you.  We may disagree on when the majority ought to fuck off, but we agree that they need to fuck off.

And you know what?  Make the winning threshold for a vote 99% instead of 50%+1, and 99% can infinitely exploit 1%.  Same thing.  So, Buchanan & Tullock observe that the only non-exploitative voting rule is unanimity.  Of course, that's not practical, so where Buchanan & Tullock go is what you can do to prevent exploitation.  They're really concerned with things like rent-seeking, and so forth, but there's a core observation here.

Smith, though, starts with the basic point of unanimity as the only non-exploitative voting rule.  And from a mathematical standpoint, that's kinda right.  And if you start with that premise, you wind up with a hobbled government that does nothing.  Ever.  That's where he goes.

The thing is, Smith contradicts himself in his own writing.  I'm gonna nit-pick here, because if you introduce a tiny observation about voting rules, then I, as a political scientist who writes about voting rules will pick those fucking nits.  Get back here, you fucking nit!  I will pick you to fucking death!

Anyway, there isn't a whole lot of government in the book, as you'd imagine, but there is a small sequence with the "Continental Congress."  Legislators are elected "at large," representing basically... whoeverthefuck.  If I show up to represent myself, I'm there as a legislator.  If 10,000 specific people give you their proxy, you could go, with 10,000 proxy votes.  And that's actually kind of an interesting premise.  I'll go with it!

So what happens when a resolution is introduced?  Well, their rules of order are about as incoherent and inconsistent as you'd imagine, but never mind that.  For now.  'Cuz I have a lot to say, and I want to finish this post today.  The real question you should ask is... does a resolution require unanimity for passage?  If not... Smith has contradicted himself.  After all, if you are a legislator with 200,000 proxy votes, and you vote no, but because of the other votes in the Continental Congress, the resolution passes, the people who voted for you-- your proxy votes-- who can shift in real time based on what you are doing in the Continental Congress, have an outcome imposed on them that they didn't support.

That's not unanimity.

See, here's the problem.  Smith created an electoral rule that meets his unanimity condition.  Legislators get the proxy votes of whomever will give them a proxy vote.  Nobody is represented by anyone they didn't support.  However, policy outcomes are still determined by... presumably majority or supermajority vote within the Continental Congress, but still clearly not unanimity.  Smith contradicted himself.  He was so proud of himself for creating a representative system that he thought evaded the Buchanan & Tullock problem that he ignored the fact that legislative procedure will bite him in the ass anyway.

And you know what?  If that's the case, good, ole' proportional representation evades Buchanan & Tullock to precisely the same degree!  Under proportional representation, used in many countries around the world-- most of which have bigger governments than the US-- you don't vote for a candidate.  You vote for a party.  Whatever proportion of the vote a party gets, that's the proportion of the seats that it gets in parliament.  So, each party gets basically the proxy votes of its supporters.  The math is scarcely different from Smith's Continental Congress.  Unanimity is still violated for policy creation, and in reality, those countries have bigger governments than the US, not smaller governments.  So, Smith's contention that his voting rule would reduce the size of government... no.  Just... no.  Nice try, Neil, and it's nice that you recognized that point from Buchanan & Tullock, but... no.

OK, that's just me ramblin' about voting rules.  I'z got's me bigger fish to fry.  This was one of those books that had me grumping around, and ranting.  And I like Buchanan & Tullock!  I got an award, named after Tullock, for a paper I published!  For real.  I did.  If you're losin' me on this, you have problems.

Anyway, Smith falls prey to the two-year-old-with-a-hammer problem.  Everything is a nail.  You see a problem?  Government caused it.  Get rid of government, and everything would be perfect!  Why?  'Cuz!

First, a stupid example.  People are driving around in not just cars, but crazy hovercrafts that are described, in the case of Lucy Kropotkin's (name check) as very difficult to control.  No licensing, or anything like that.  Traffic accidents?  Nope.  Why not!  'Cuz!  'Cuz government causes traffic accidents!  Didn'tcha know?!  Let's just let that sink in.  Smith throws a ton of those at you.  With no logic or explanation.  But I'd rather spend some time on a big one.

Pollution.  Smith actually does spill a bunch of ink on energy and pollution, and it is worth taking some time to remember when the book was published.  1980.  Three observations about 1980: a) smog was a much bigger deal in 1980 in a lot of major cities, b) we were coming off of the energy crisis of the 1970s, and c) this was before the complicated and ugly politics of climate change/climate denialism.

Smog.  Depending on where you live and how old you are, you may see some smog now and then.  "See," as in, it is clearly visible, and hard to deny, unlike long-term changes to climate.  More on that shortly.  Yet, depending on your age, you may not recognize how different the smog situation is in many locations from 1980.  Why?  Um... sorry, Neil, but the answer is, in part, government.  The other part is technology.  We have increasing fuel efficiency requirements and standards, and technology has developed, and between policy and technology changes, places like Los Angeles look very different today from 40 years ago.  Government, though, played a big part.  Sorry, Neil.  Of course, Neil didn't see that, having written in 1980, and with zero evidence, he would say that without government, technology would have developed faster, and everything would have gotten better faster, but... that's not what actually happened in the real world.  Moving on.

The energy crisis.  Smith described his dystopian parallel to our world as having shortages and rationing, all of which were extrapolations from the energy crisis.  Smith wanted to put all of this on government, because everything bad is government.  Of course, here we are in 2020.  Government didn't disappear.  Fuel efficiency got better, and nobody stands in line for gasoline.  There is a lot more I could say, but it is just important to note that Smith's perspective was tied to the energy crisis, and a specific moment in time.  Yet, that crisis was not about the US government anyway.  Complex Middle Eastern politics...

Finally, Smith actually wrote from the perspective of someone concerned with the environment and pollution.  1980.  Someone of this disposition, writing today, would likely be a climate denialist.  In 1980, climate change wasn't really the thing, though.  What was?  Well, smog was a bigger point of discussion.  And like I said, you can see smog.  So, Smith saw it as a legitimate point to address.  Today, with less smog to see, Smith wouldn't think about how or why that happened.  Instead, he'd go around denying climate change.  Me hypothesizin', here.  Hardcore libertarians tend to be climate denialists these days.

But how Smith talked about pollution gives an important window into his utopian thinking.  In the dystopian parallel to our world, pollution was even worse, because everything was worse.  In No Place?  Everything was perfect.  Of course.  Why?  No government!  D'uh!  How does "no government" prevent pollution?

There is an exchange in which a character looks at Win's world through the "broach" and sees all of the pollution, and wonders how it can happen?  Why not just sue the polluters?

And here's how the cockamamie "court" system of No Place works.  First, it's all a private, for-profit system, of course.  When parties have any grievance, they are brought in, and may even do an arrest-type thing, with bonds 'n stuff if deemed appropriate.  The parties mutually agree on a judge.  (Has Smith ever studied anything about jury selection?  No.  Obviously not.)  The judge will determine the outcome, with limited appeal possibilities.  Restitution is only for direct monetary damages.  Make it square, and that's it.

OK, so let's think this through.  Someone with feelings of inadequacy drives by with a Hummer.  Let's say we have the pseudo-legal system of No Place.  What do I do?  How do I prove, by their rules, direct monetary loss, to me, of that insecure douche driving a Hummer?  Can I prove how many particles of emissions entered my lungs?  Nope.  Can I, in practical terms, sue every single douche in an SUV?  What, for a fraction of a penny a piece, if that?  The math doesn't work, even if I could prove monetary damages by their courts' rules, which I couldn't.  Why not?  Because it is an aggregate effect, not the effect of one car.

Sue the manufacturer?  They aren't driving the cars, so they aren't producing the pollution.  By the court rules of No Place, that will mean the manufacturer gets away scot-free.  Those courts are really limited in their views of liability.  Why?  Libertarians hate lawsuits!  Have you listened to these people?  Smith created a pseudo-legal system in which this can't work.  Why not?  Because you can't do this one lawsuit at a time.  You know how you can handle environmental cleanup?

Fuckin' government.  Why?  Let's talk about two key economic concepts that libertarians are ideologically bound to refuse to learn:  externalities, and public goods.

An externality occurs when someone not engaged in an economic transaction is affected by that transaction.  When a negative externality occurs, someone who is "external" to a transaction is hurt by that transaction.  In an unregulated market, the market overproduces goods with negative externalities.  Now do you see why libertarians don't want to talk about negative externalities?  (And don't fuckin' try it with Coase.  I've yet to meet a libertarian who really understands Coase.)  If a bunch of... inadequate douchebags buy SUVs to make themselves feel... bigger, does that affect me?  Yes.  It doesn't affect me if they choose to buy 2% milk like barbarians instead of skim milk, like civilized people, because I can still have my skim, and the unwashed masses of knuckle-dragging, shit-flinging monkeys can have their 2%, and don't get me started on the apes in The Probability Broach, but if a bunch of those shit-flinging monkeys drive SUVs, they affect me.  By polluting the atmosphere, and perpetuating climate change.  That hurts me.  I don't care about you, or anyone else, but I care about me.  So I care when those idiots drive SUVs.  They are imposing something on me.  That's a negative externality.

Public goods.  A public good is a good that is non-depletable, and non-excludable.  Technical terms.  Non-depletable means that if you use the good, you don't prevent me from using the good.  Non-excludable means that if the good is provided, nobody can prevent anyone from using the good.  The problem of a public good is that if it is costly to provide, no rational individual will contribute to its provision.  Why not?  Well, if my contribution will not be determinative, why bother?  If it's there, you can't stop me from taking advantage of it (non-excludability), and the non-depletability component means nobody will even notice if I do take advantage of it.  So, everyone free-rides.  The closely related problem, particularly in environmental politics, is the tragedy of the commons.  When a resource is depletable by increments, but non-excludable, it will be depleted.  Everyone will act rationally by taking a small, and unnoticed share.  Eventually, the resource goes away.

In the context of a negative externality-- like goods that pollute-- we have a governmental solution.  Many, actually.  In Smith's world, the worst thing ever is a tax.  'Cuz.  But when there are negative externalities, taxes actually do the math of bringing the adjusted supply and demand curve into an efficient equilibrium with no deadweight loss.  If you produce a good that imposes a cost on me, the tax forces you to pay that cost.  There are related policies, but that's one way to do it.  Public goods?  Tragedy of the commons?  You kind of need government to solve the collective action problem.  Why?  Rationality!  It is irrational for anyone to contribute to the provision of a public good, or refrain from depleting a good that is depletable under the tragedy of the commons, without the imposition of penalties.

And yeah, there's a fuckin' cost!  A cost of liberty.  So here we come to the crux of the matter.  Tradeoffs.  Environmental regulation comes with a loss of liberty.  Taxes, regulation... all of this stuff involves a loss of liberty.

When you stop seeing the tradeoff, you are lost.  When you refuse to accept the idea that there can be a tradeoff, you are lost.

There are two ways to stop seeing the tradeoff.  One is the L. Neil Smith way.  He goes so far in the libertarian-anarchist direction that he decided getting rid of government would make pollution get better.  No.  Government is necessary, if you want to deal with this shit.  Period.  Smith is off his fucking rocker.  What happened?  Smith's brain can't deal with the concept of a tradeoff.  Government=bad, in his Smith-brain.  Pollution=bad!  If you don't like the idea of a tradeoff, you will twist yourself into foolish knots trying to make it so that getting rid of government will solve pollution, no matter how idiotic your argument gets.  This is what happens when you refuse to accept the concept of a tradeoff.

There is a warning to the left, of course.  There is a faction of the left that doesn't see the tradeoffs to taxes or regulation.  There is a faction that sees taxation as an intrinsic good.  Because wealth is bad.  These people... scare the fuck out of me.  They are every bit as blinkered as L. Neil Smith.  When you stop seeing tradeoffs, that deep end just keeps getting deeper.

But this isn't a post about how people like Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk make me cozy up to L. Neil Smith in frustration.  (Learn to spot the cranks and charlatans on your own side, people.  Otherwise, there will be a left-wing Trump.)

There is a deeper point here about utopianism.  Left-wing science fiction is quite common, and rarely utopian.  Roddenberry's original conception of Star Trek was utopian, but starting with Ronald Moore, it went another way.  I'll still say that "In the Pale Moonlight," in which Sisko betrayed every principle of the Federation to bring the Romulans into the war against the Dominion was not just the best thing in Star Trek ever, but that it stands up with any great science fiction, even though it was a total rejection of Roddenberry.  Lefties favor dystopianism.  Yet, what few conservative and libertarian political writers there are somehow feel the need to write their No Places.  Why?  Why the asymmetry?  Or, why this additional asymmetry?  Why the consistent need to present a Galt's Gulch?

There is an irony here, going back to state of nature theorists.  Hobbes and Rousseau.  Generally speaking, where would you rather live:  Hobbes's head, or Rousseau's?  And generally speaking, you may encounter the claim that conservatism is rooted more in Hobbes, and liberalism is rooted more in Rousseau.  So, why are the lefties going dystopia?

For the libertarian perspective as opposed to the conservative perspective-- and it is easy to confuse the two since every conservative in the country has been trained to spout libertarian rhetoric, without believing in the principles-- we can ask an empirical question.  If not this, then what?  Given the options, the libertarian must grope for a hypothetical, so why not go utopian?  It is political pitch anyway, once posed in response to the question, "if not this, then what?"  As an ideology outside the mainstream, it is groping for a spot at the table, and doing so with a promise, or at least a hope.  Bullshit, yes, but from the perspective of a non-mainstream ideology, you won't get very far saying, "yeah, we're fucked no matter what, but here's a different set of tradeoffs in a world beset by tradeoffs."

Which is kind of what I'm saying.

The puzzle, then, is that there are plenty of far lefties who don't really see tradeoffs.  And yet, they don't just write utopian fiction.  They believe that the world would be perfect, if only, if only, if only...  Yet the worlds they write are brutal and ugly.  See, The City We Became, which was about a brutal, ugly world, and also a very bad book about how much Jemisin hates white people, and white women in particular.

Is that merely because lefties already have a seat at the table?

So what's missing?  Conservative science fiction?  I'm addressing libertarian science fiction, with conservatism being something different, despite the decades of rhetorical dishonesty by conservatives attempting to portray themselves as the advocates of small government.  The thing is, conservative science fiction is harder to find than libertarian science fiction.  Conservative authors?  Sure.  Orson Scott Card!  Yet, his social conservatism has generally not been a big theme in his books.  Conservative authors tend towards other genres.  That doesn't leave a lot to discuss, or at least, not a lot that I know and read.  Tom Clancy certainly doesn't write utopian stuff.  Nor really anything anymore, being more of a franchise than an author these days, but that's beside the point.  Yet, I come back to the odd observation of utopianism.  It plays a consistent role in libertarian science fiction, separate from left-wing science fiction that isn't easy to explain.

Consistent doesn't mean absolute.  There's Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which isn't exactly utopian, but Heinlein was also inconsistent, and a weirdo.  Smith was an activist.  Another difference.

Anyway, I'm not really coming to conclusions here, as is often the case.  I'm just ramblin' on a Sunday morning because I read a bad book, which made me grumpy.  Read Heinlein instead.