Speculations on the Future of Economic Models in the Wake of Trans/Posthuman Sentient Evolution in Charles Stross’s SF Novel “Accelerando”

Abstract

Economy, understood as a domain of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, has been unquestionably comprehended as a social activity, the purpose of which is to satisfy first of all vital material, but also immaterial, needs of the biological natural human being. Whatever the underlying ideology—whether protectionist mercantilism, the physiocrats’ laissez-faire policy, Adam Smith’s free-market capitalism, Karl Marx’s socialist economics, Keynesian state interventionism, or present day neoliberalism—economic considerations have been invariably driven by the fundamental problem of scarcity. The objective of the proposed paper is to present Charles Stross’s speculative predictions, made in his SF novel Accelerando, about the future of economic models in light of trans/posthuman evolution hailed by, among others, Ray Kurzweil, Max More, and Hans Moravec.