The Politics of Robert Heinlein: For Us the Living

We wrap up the Heinlein series with a look at For Us the Living: A Comedy of Customs. From social credit to privacy rights, what does Heinlein's first novel tell us about how his politics evolved (or didn't) over time?

Notes:

1:51 - Background of the novel.

4:55 - A brief plot overview.

5:00 - For those not familiar, Rip Van Winkle is the titular character of a short story by Washington Irving about a man who sleeps for twenty               years, missing the American Revolution.

8:33 - The politics of For Us the Living.

8:45 - Talking about social credit

9:00 - Cannot stress enough that this has nothing to do with the social credit system the Chinese government is currently experimenting                   with. 

10:40 - Slightly oversimplifying economic views on factors of production. While classical economists focused on land, labor, and capital,                       subsequent schools of thought have examined other variables. Still, it's probably fair to say those three receive the most attention.

15:24 - John Maynard Keynes has been referenced on this podcast before (the Warhammer: Factions episode). Check it out for a little more               background on Keynes and what he'd say about the tooth-based economy of Orks. 

17:13 - Explaining Heinlein's Heritage Check System.

21:28 - Discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI).

21:49 - UBI leads to an Andrew Yang reference.

27:09 - For competing libertarian views of UBI see https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/why-did-hayek-support-basic-income and                         https://reason.com/2018/05/13/universal-basic-income-still-fails/

27:48 - F.A. Hayek was an accomplished and highly influential Austrian economist and political theorist. He is, perhaps, best known for his                   book The Road to Serfdom which warned of the dangers of socialism and is still required reading for free-market advocates.

29:36 - Other political themes in For Us the Living. 

36:33 - Wrapping up. The core Heinlein philosophy. 

38:16 - Side Rant. 

Intro and outro music: "Swim below as Leviathans" by Fireproof_Babies (featuring Ben Shewmaker) is licensed under CC BY.