Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth, 1955
(I)n this novel corporate lawyers… have gained a stranglehold on the world. Business Law is an extremely lucrative career, while Criminal Law pays enough to afford some of the luxuries of life but not enough to save for the future.
Success means living in a luxurious automated “bubble home” constructed by “GML”, a corporation which is nominally public but whose shares are never traded openly. All work contracts include GML housing as part of the pay scale. Not having a contract job means having to live in a community such as “Belly Rave”, originally a post-war suburban development for returning soldiers, now a slum ruled by teenage gangs. Its original name was “Belle Rêve”.
For the common people, there are bread-and-circuses entertainments in the form of gladiatorial games of various kinds, with monetary rewards for the winners. Some games pit elderly people against each other armed with padded clubs, but others are more deadly.
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(T)he “public assistance” system … ensures that nobody starves, without actually making life worth living. … (R)esidents indulge in a kind of barter, or petty theft, extortion, and gang crime, or simply anaesthetize themselves with liquor.
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Wall Street… has become a hybrid stock-market and public casino.
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The plan Bliss hatches is to bankrupt GML rather than indulge in a proxy battle. Mundin is dispatched to sabotage certain GML houses, including the model in the Smithsonian, at the same time spreading rumors through his political connections.
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(T)hey return to Wall Street where Mundin starts a run on the market by carefully selling off large chunks of the GML stock. After a while the selling takes on a life of its own.
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As the market collapses, the plotters are left with large amounts of cash, which they use to buy up GML and other companies at bargain prices. At the end they are counting their riches and savoring their triumph.
Not currently in print. Copies in very good+ condition available @ Rudy’s Books for $2.50.
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