Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [44]
Sam and Max glanced at each other ever so briefly.
“That’s what all this full-world thinking comes down to. So we’ve got to identify the new nongrowth growth markets, and get into them. Now recall that natural capital can be divided into marketable and nonmarketable. Nonmarketable natural capital is the substrate from which all marketable capital arises. Given its scarcity and the benefits that it provides, it would make sense according to standard supply/demand theory to set its price as infinite. I’m interested in anything that has a theoretically infinite price. It’s an obvious investment. Essentially it’s infrastructure investment, but at the most basic biophysical level. Infra-infrastructure, so to speak, or bioinfrastructure. And that’s what I want Praxis to start doing. We obtain and rebuild whatever bioinfrastructure has been depleted by liquidation. It’s long-term investment, but the yields will be fantastic.”
“Isn’t most bioinfrastructure publicly owned?” Art asked.
“Yes. Which means close cooperation with the governments involved. Praxis’s gross annual product is much larger than most countries’. What we need to do is find countries with small GNPs and bad CFIs.”
“CFI?” Art said.
“Country Future Index. It’s an alternative to the GNP measurement, taking into account debt, political stability, environmental health and the like. A useful cross-check on the GNP, and it helps tag countries that could use our help. We identify those, go to them and offer them a massive capital investment, plus political advice, security, whatever they need. In return we take custody of their bioinfrastructure. We also have access to their labor. It’s an obvious partnership. I think it will be the coming thing.”
“How do we fit in?” Sam asked, gesturing at the group.Diplomatic work! Art wrote in his lectern.
Fort looked at them one by one. “I’m going to give each of you a different assignment. I’ll want you to keep them confidential. You’ll be leaving here separately in any case, and going different places. You’ll all be doing diplomatic work as a Praxis liaison, as well as specific jobs involved with bioinfrastructure investment. I’ll give you the details in private. Now let’s take an early lunch, and afterward I’ll meet with you one at a time.”
• • •
He spent the afternoon wandering around the gardens, looking at the espaliered apple bushes. Apparently he was not early in the list of personal appointments with Fort. He shrugged at that. It was a cloudy day, and the flowers in the garden were wet and vibrant. It would be tough to move back to his studio under the freeway in San Jose. He wondered what Sharon was doing, whether she ever thought of him. Sailing with her vice-chairman, no doubt.
It was nearly sunset, and he was about to go back to his room and get ready for dinner when Fort appeared on the central path. “Ah, there you are,” he said. “Let’s go down to the oak.”
They sat by the big tree’s trunk. The sun was cutting under the low clouds, and everything was turning the color of the roses. “You live in a beautiful place,” Art said.
Fort didn’t appear to hear him. He was looking up at the underlit clouds billowing overhead.
After a few minutes of this contemplation he said, “We want you to acquire Mars.”
“Acquire Mars,” Art repeated.
“Yes. In the sense that I spoke about this morning. These national-transnational partnerships are the coming thing, there’s no doubt about it. The old flag-of-convenience relationships were suggestive, but they need to be taken further, so that we have more control over our investment. We did that with Sri Lanka, and we’ve had so much success in our deal there that the other big transnats are all imitating us, actively recruiting countries in trouble.”
“But Mars isn’t a country.”
“No. But it is in trouble. When the first elevator crashed, its economy was shattered. Now the new elevator is in place, and things are ready to happen. I want Praxis to be ahead of the curve. Of course the other big investors are all still there too, jockeying for position,