Still Room for Hope

Kim Stanley Robinson's latest foray into "cli-fi", the sub-genre of near-term science fiction has earned itself the plaudits. From the UK paperback edition we learn it was one of Barack Obama's favourite books of the year. Who'd have thunk a centrist pin up would endorse a thinly-veiled Marxian critique of capitalism in the age of climate breakdown, and one for that matter with Negrian characteristics? For sure, The Ministry For the Future is an important work, and it's testament to Robinson's skills as a writer that some pretty radical politics are presented as commonsensical solutions to this century's most pressing problem.

That said, while Ministry is a novel, it would be more accurate to describe it as a manifesto. The plot, such as it is, is thin. Beginning with an extreme heat event that kills 20 million Indians a few years hence, a chain of events unfurl in which the world undergoes a combination of ecological modernisation, geo-engineering to prevent ice cap melt, and social revolution. Mary Murphy as head of the Ministry for the Future, a UN agency established by the Paris Climate Accords to look after the interests of the not-yet-born, is the main viewpoint through which the story proceeds. And variously the action moves from meetings with central bankers and other assorted important people to those either on the sharp end of climate disasters or at the forefront of mitigation efforts. Peppered along the way are quick, accessible dives into science, economics, and social theory.

On top of its timeliness, Ministry interests for two reasons. There is its theory of social change. As a work of sociological imagining, Robinson describes the decades-long transition from neoliberal, extractive capitalism to something else. Mostly, governments and financial institutions are tools for stripping back capital's supremacy, and are forced by popular pressure and by what Hardt and Negri refer to as 'exodus'. I.e. People cooperating and forming their own circuits of social reproduction independently of capital. This is illustrated by the repatriation of data to individual users, requiring social media platforms to hand over fees if they want access to it as per current business models, cooperatisation of swathes of industry, and the emergence of tough regulatory regimes for international finance that ties capital down and to social obligations. At the heart of this project is the introduction of the Carbon coin, which is issued in its trillions to states and multinationals for keeping their fossil fuel reserves in the ground, and is awarded to anyone and everyone who draws carbon from the atmosphere, either by traditional means (tree planting) or employing capture technologies. Also of interest is the use Robinson imagines for block chain. It effectively provides a ledger for the carbon coin, so its transactional history can be tracked. What might have Orwellian implications in the context of an authoritarian state forms a system of open surveillance, which over times works to exclude all other forms of money that remains dark. Hence speculation and tax havens become a thing of the past, and eventually limits on maximum wealth are introduced. But none of this happens because of a light bulb moment. Violence via ecoterrorism plays its part by targeting polluters, such as executive members of fossil fuel firms, and Robinson writes of attacks against air liners and container ships using legacy fuels, and sabotage on coal-fired power stations. Each encourage the take up of greener alternatives, which in turn spurs innovation that renders fossil fuelled combustion engines obsolete and expensive. Throughout the transition, Robinson never indulges a year zero moment. There are protests and revolutions, but there is no clean sweep of the Leninist imaginary. Everything is messy, everything is a struggle.

In his critique, Francis Fukuyama - he of the end of history fame - argued that Robinson's projection is unrealistic. It's too optimistic because, when all is said and done, the right political decisions are always made. Yes, but this misconstrues the point of the book. As a fictionalised manifesto, Robinson is pointing us toward a future which will be difficult but is by no means bleak. It requires we draw on our collective talents and make a concerted effort as a species to undo the climate, environmental, and species extinction impacts of the last 300-400 years. In other words, by positing the best possible outcome of our mitigation efforts, what Robinson is demonstrating is how it is possible, that we can make a better future. It is well within our powers to achieve it. Mindful of Fredric Jameson's famous "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism", Ministry - like much else of Robinson's science fiction, from his Mars Trilogy to his previous novel, Red Moon, the problem the end of capitalism is dealt with and more open, alternative futures are imagined. Here, by explicitly tying action on climate change to action on capitalist relations of production, Robinson is making the point that a sustainable society is not possible on the foundation of extractive, exploitative economics.

There is a lot to The Ministry of the Future, and it adds another weapon to our armoury. Dystopian fiction is exhausted, nihilistic, and ultimately conservative. This is its opposite. In the face of looming catastrophe, Robinson reminds us that there is still room for hope.

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