How to Create an Optopia? – Kim Stanley Robinson's “Ministry for the Future” and the Politics of Hope

Abstract

Kim Stanley Robinson—award-winning science fiction writer—has warned us that our current history is a choice between utopia or catastrophe. In this interview and in the following reflections, we explore the implications of this existential choice for the social science disciplines; in particular, economics, finance, accounting, and management. Our goals are to build a provocation and develop some propositions about the direction of capitalism and the purpose of management research in an age of climate crisis. Against the backdrop of dread and greed and the specter of plutocratic capitalism, we offer a politics of hope. We envision a green capitalism in which corporations are held accountable for environmental and social stewardship. Rather than falling back on government or the corporation as an “either/or” choice, we urge a “both/and” approach and call for the active inclusion of communities and citizens in climate response through democratic, polycentric governance structures. Within this agenda, we envision a new role for the academy as “Ministry”; namely, giving voice to future generations and the silent (or silenced) victims of the present and, by embracing pragmatic realism, inspiring a liveable future—an optopia—that we can still forge from where we are.

Imagining Desirable Futures: A call for prospective theorizing with speculative rigour

“…For the shift towards imagination, scholars could effectively consider imaginatory forms of data, for instance, by focusing on deliberative instantiations of how real-world problems could be solved. This could involve interdisciplinary work at the intersection between science and fiction (Mikes & New, 2023;Negarestani, 2008;Robinson, 2021;Savage et al, 2018) and by accepting not only data that is, but data that is not (yet). Consider the challenge of theorizing the goal of COP28 of 'transitioning away' from fossil fuels, which illustrates the limitations of theorizing from existing data; not only does a fossil-free society that could be studied not exist, but existing carbon lock-ins limit our ability to even envision a truly decarbonized future.…”