Book Review: Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Climate salvation through... institutions?

Earlier this year, I attended a lecture by leading heterodox development economist Dr. Ha-Joon Chang at LSE. He argued that science fiction is profoundly useful for imagining futures beyond the limits of the economic and social institutions we employ today. Neoclassical economics assumes it is based on “laws of steel,” he argued, when, in reality, unimaginable changes in markets and institutions have happened and will again. In his closing line, Dr. Chang said, “science fiction…allow[s] us to see that the existing economic and social orders can be changed, have been changed and, most importantly, that they have been changed in the way they have only because some people dared to imagine a different world and fought for it.”  

I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, which reminded me of Dr. Chang’s lecture. Published in 2020, The Ministry for the Future imagines massive economic and political ruptures that occur in a world very similar to the one we inhabit. Robinson takes our current climate crisis as a starting point, then proceeds with a story about our near future that involves geoengineering, eco-terrorism, blockchain, and, ultimately, a global dance party. The book represents a hopeful blueprint for getting human civilization into a healthy and sustainable balance with the biosphere. Robinson’s fiction narrative is frequently interrupted by nonfiction interludes that provide the reader with context and an idea of the author’s ideological leanings. Not that I minded, the infodumps were educative, if an acquired taste.  

At the risk of falling for Dr. Chang’s trap—that is, failing to adequately account for the possibility of radical change—I cannot resist critiquing The Ministry for the Future on the basis of its economic and geopolitical implausibility. Throughout the book, people seem to face terrorism and violence not with vitriol and retribution, but with acquiescence. The assassinations of corporate executives, systematic bombing of power plants, and downing of commercial airliners (60 in one day!) by eco-terrorists somehow does not lead to militarization and a global war on eco-terrorism but instead convinces people that they should travel by sailing ships and dirigibles. Also, these instances of organized violence—including an important bureaucrat’s murder by Russian drone—are central drivers of the plot but secondary features in Robinson’s narrative. He matter-of-factly reports on these harrowing events, saving lurid detail for descriptions of meetings, conferences, and poster displays.  

But back to the larger point: the greatest innovation in Robinson’s book is not technological, political, or economic. It is psychological—he ignores the entire politics of reaction that have helped drive us to the brink of climate catastrophe. Francis Fukuyama, well-known for his “end of history” hypothesis, wrote a review of The Ministry for the Future in which he comments, “for all his seeming political sophistication, Robinson posits the most optimistic possible political developments at every turn.” After the world’s elites are kidnapped and held hostage at a Davos conference by eco-educators, they are safely released and, miraculously, onboard with the policies promoted by their kidnappers. Not to mention—the kidnapping is orchestrated by the titular Ministry for the Future, a UN agency with a so-called “black wing.” National intelligence agencies never discover the role of the Ministry in the Davos incident or other eco-terrorist plots, even years later.  

Now, on to Robinson’s economics. Despite today’s overwhelming consensus among mainstream economists against Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), by the early 2030s, “enough governments are convinced…to try it.” At the risk of over-simplification, I will try to recap MMT here—and explain why it won’t deliver planetary salvation. MMT is the idea that in countries with their own currencies (like the US), government deficits don’t matter—the government can spend the amount necessary to achieve full employment then finance their expenditures by printing money. Typically, MMT is invoked to justify expensive programs like universal healthcare or, in Robinson’s case, massive climate spending. The basic problem is that printing money is, in effect, inflation. While urgent needs—including an economic downturn—might justify creating some inflation to finance counter-cyclical spending programs, maintaining budget deficits during periods of economic expansion is a recipe for hyperinflation. In Robinson’s world, I am skeptical that governments can print money to finance the economic and ecological transformation he describes without incurring massive and politically destabilizing inflation.

In between their bombings and assassinations—and academic conferences—the Ministry for the Future also launches a global carbon e-currency backed by the blockchain (hopefully you’re already rolling your eyes). In a move of unprecedented cooperation, the world’s most powerful central banks agree to guarantee these “carbon coins,” and pay fossil fuel companies and petro-states in these coins in exchange for leaving carbon in the ground. Likewise, coins are issued to companies and individuals for anything that causes carbon sequestration. The coins overcome the macroeconomic faults that imperiled the gold standard because, well, I don’t know. Wishful thinking, maybe. According to Twitter, Robinson has admitted that he regrets including blockchain and cryptocurrency as part of the climate solution proposed by his novel.

When I started writing this review, I did not intend to be so negative. I genuinely sympathize with much of Robinson’s politics and aspirations. Likewise, I appreciate that Robinson’s vision was not a one-time global revolution, but instead foresaw gradual tweaks and innovations in our current institutions as the method for creating a new model of environmental governance. I also recognize that Robinson’s intention was not to outline a definitive strategy for overcoming the climate crisis. Perhaps instead it was to inspire like-minded people to think and blog about the right way to solve climate. On this, I will admit, he succeeded.

But still, when academic theories enter popular fiction narratives, the narratives can be criticized based on their preference for some theories and against others. Similarly, given that Robinson explores such a proximate future of Earth, so alike to the planet we exist on today, his narrative is exposed to the criticism that too much has changed, that human nature itself is unrecognizable from just a few years prior. As society exists today, I find it unlikely that we could navigate anything like the series of social, institutional, and scientific breakthroughs that Robinson proposes. Dr. Chang is right—science fiction has the potential to envision transformative and constructive change. Other times, it is just science fiction.