Is SF anti-capitalist?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Or at least deeply uninterested in it?

Sure, there's lots of Yay Free Marketism but how often do books focus on non-malevolent companies [1]? I think Flynn's do (but I can't read him) and so do wossname's books about the immortal time salvagers (but the Company in that does not seem all cuddles and happy songs around the campfire). There's Moon, but even her business adventure series seems to have turned into MilSF.

This may be related to the dearth of people who work for a living doing anything but stealing stuff or shooting people.


1: MARKET FORCES, for example, does focus on a particular company and its stuggle to prevail but I believe that if one looks very closely, some elements could be interpreted as being critical of modern capitalism.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Counter-argument: I'd assert (based on my hazy memory of reading the books) that the corporation in question was a personal fiefdom run by one woman who was single-handedly reclaiming the nation from the Evil Commies™ who had taken it over in the wake of global warming (hey, it might be Tory SF but it's post-1980's Tory SF) and was running the company very much along lines of personal loyalty.

This might have looked kind of advanced during the middle ages, but these days we've got a name for corporations that run on patronage, personal loyalty to the [wo]man at the top, and target their enemies: they're the maf[iy]a.