Kim Stanley Robinson’s book Ministry for the Future is a must read. It’s a very long book and I’m not sure it’s really a novel. However he’s such a major writer that he can play around with the form in whatever way he wants. A kind of Picasso whose shown the world he can draw and paint anything he wants. He’s now at the point in his career where he can blend fiction and non fiction successfully, and write a kick ass, incredibly important, well-written plan for how we avoid the god awful effects of climate change. Graphically described in the first chapter of his book as millions of people try to cool off and end up poaching themselves to death in an over-heated lake.

In Ministry for the Future he comes up with some great economic strategies for turning around the massive capitalist ship that we’re on, which is heading rapidly towards the iceberg of climate change and all its horrendous effects. His vision for how it’s done is through the Central banks issuing carbon coin that is publicly held, among many other rational and complex economic theories. Like me he’s a Keynesian and also a committed democratic socialist. However, he flavors his Keynesian economics beautifully, and makes them exciting so his explanations are never boring to read or dull. That is why it’s so much more helpful to have a novelist explain complex economics than an economist.

One of my close friends is a Galbraithian/Keynesian who teaches at Harvard. He was the one in…