It has been a treat to read The Dervish House by Ian McDonald, part of my homework for speaking tomorrow at the British Library on a panel with Cory Doctorow, William Gibson and Mark Stevenson, chaired by Jon Turney. The debate, accompanying the new BL exhibition on science fiction, Out of This World, is about 'Who Owns the Story of the Future'. The story of the future is of course massively important in economics, although we label it 'expectations'.

Anyway, the novel has two passages of particular interest to economists. One has a literature professor asking for a third way in economics, between mathematical market models and models based on individual psychology, namely economics as a social sphere: “After all, a market is ultimately a social construct, isn't it?…. I can't help but think that a socially-mediated economy, one that costs in common value, trust and mutual obligation, might be the model for the 21st century.” (p178)

Another has an entrepreneur describe his vision of the late 21st century future: “Authenticity will be big. What won't sell is all this domestic tat and consumer electronics…. Everyone will have a fab, a home fabrication plant….we'll print things from proteins and semizotic plastics. When you're tired of that jacket or want new shoes you'll just let the old ones die. The fab will recycle them. Everything will be designer. When commodities are cheap, people pay for the label….Anything that hasn't been fabbed, that is genuine and has the provenance to show it, will be the thing of value. People will pay for authenticity, people will pay for experience.” (p352-353)

I was particularly excited by this because it was just what I wrote about in my first (1996) book, The Weightless World (downloadable as a pdf from Enlightenment Economics).

Meanwhile, back to my preparation for tomorrow evening's glittering event.