The Ministry for the Future

by Kim Stanley Robinson

To be clear, concluding in brief: there is enough for all. So there should be no more people living in poverty. And there should be no more billionaires. Enough should be a human right, a floor below which no one can fall; also a ceiling above which no one can rise. Enough is a good as a feast—or better.

monocausotaxophilia, the love of single ideas that explain everything, one of humanity’s most common cognitive errors.

So it is that one often sees inequality as a problem judged economically; growth and innovation, it is said, are slowed when inequality is high. This is what our thinking has been reduced to: essentially a neoliberal analysis and judgment of the neoliberal situation. It’s the structure of feeling in our time; we can’t think in anything but economic terms, our ethics must be quantified and rated for the effects that our actions have on GDP. This is said to be the only thing people can agree on. Although those who say this are often economists.

Their idea of charismatic megafauna is their chocolate Lab.