Friday 17 October 2014

The T'Kelan Solution

See here.

(i) Van Rijn shows the T'Kelans that they cannot trust each other and therefore need armed but benign Earthmen to keep the peace.

(ii) Solar Spice and Liquors will build nitrogen-fixing plants, produce ammonia and nitrates and exchange them for wine and furs.

(iii) T'Kelans will use ammonia and nitrates to enrich their soil and will cultivate nitrogen-fixing bacteria to increase crop yields to buy more ammonia and nitrates.

(iv) They will buy guns because they are hunters but will also buy other modern tools and machines that will gradually civilize them.

(v) Carnivorous T'Kelans do not understand charity but will understand profit-making and will even be happy to swindle SSL on the price of wine.

(vi) SSL will not disempower the established intelligentsia, the Ancients, first because they will employ young Ancients as agents and clerks and secondly because they will build oil wells and electrolyzer plants, then sell these on long-term mortgage to the Ancients.

(vii) The electrolyzer plants will sell hydrogen to the ammonia plants and the oil industry will sell electricity.

Van Rijn makes a market economy sound good for everybody. It is not always like that in practice as Anderson shows later in the Technic History.

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