Footwear economics in fantastic fiction

So, you might think that footwear as economic theory would be unlikely to crop up once, let alone twice in fantasy fiction. But that's the case. The more recent version I'm aware of is over on the Discworld - the Samual 'Boots' Vimes theory of economic unfairness. From the book Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.

And Pratchett then goes on (in later books) to use Vimes' thin soled cheap boots as a recurring plot device, which is a direction we are not going in.

Unless a reader knows otherwise, there's one other example of science fiction footwear economics, which, once examined, seems to lead off in all directions. Before Pratchett came Douglas Adams with his 'Shoe Event Horizon'.

[But first a digression. Now the primary problem with Adams work is what is the definitive text of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, given its reverse development and reconstructions from radio to book to TV to film. So there's multiple 'authoritative' versions.]

This is the text from the Hitch Hiker's book, The Restaurant at the end of the Universe where (in chapter 10) one of the characters has the abandoned planet he's on explained to him:

'Many years ago this was a thriving, happy planet - people, cities, shops, a normal world. Except that on the high streets of these cities there were slightly more shoe shops than one might have thought necessary. And slowly, insidiously, the numbers of these shoe shops were increasing. It's a well known economic phenomenon but tragic to see it in operation, for the more shoe shops there were, the more shoes they had to make and the worse and more unwearable they became. And the worse they were to wear, the more people had to buy to keep themselves shod, and the more the shops proliferated, until the whole economy of the place passed what I believe is termed the Shoe Event Horizon, and it became no longer economically possible to build anything other than shoe shops. Result - collapse, ruin and famine. Most of the population died out. Those few who had the right kind of genetic instability mutated into birds - you've seen one of them – who cursed their feet, cursed the ground, and vowed that none should walk on it again. Unhappy lot.'

For those who want more, there's the longer, more detailed version from the (original-original) radio series, transcribed here.

All that seems a bit, well, science fiction, doesn't it? Don't worry, that nice Berlusconi chap in Italy brings it back to a kind of 'reality' (as much as Italian politics is ever 'real'). From the 'In the Dark' blog, the blogger finishes a post on current economic and academic crises:

Looking around for a bit of good news, I could only manage this. If you’re worried about the future of UK universities and scientific research then consider how lucky you are that you’re not Italian. Owing to budget cuts imposed by the Berlusconi regime, several Italian institutions will no longer be able to pay scientists’ wages. Responding to this situation the Italian premier replied with all his usual tact and intelligence:

"Why do we need to pay scientists when we make the best shoes in the world?"

It's not just Berlusconi's looks that are superficial and bizarre.

Of course like much of Adams' writing it had a solid anchor in his experience. According to this website, Adams:

...had gone to London's Oxford Street where, quoting him, "You can't throw a brick without breaking a shoe shop window". Despite every shop stocking thousands of shoes, none had a pair which was the right size, price, or colour, or which was comfortable, durable or stylish without being outrageous.

Working off his frustration, Adams invented the planet Brontitall, whose civilization had collapsed into the Shoe Event Horizon. Not content with one poke at the industry, Adams also invented the predatory Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation, whose name is created by taking syllables from the names of well-known London shoe stores: "Dolcis"; "Freeman, Hardy and Willis"; "Saxone"; and "Lilley and Skinner".

All these stores were owned at the time by the British Shoe Corporation which dominated the UK footwear market and was the largest footwear retail company in the world.

For those that remember Oxford Street and those brands, suddenly Adams idea doesn't sound quite so far fetched - or funny - after all. For those not paying attention to this shoe-shop economics (most of us) they went through a convoluted economic disaster and collapsed - although not triggering the global financial crisis (as far as I've been able to establish. So far).

Extra: meanwhile, reality does seem to be trying to catch up, with this article in the New York Times picked up by Fledgling Otaku, who provided the earlier transcription of the Hitch Hiker's radio version. In America:

For months now, consumers have been hunkering down in an economic storm, buying only what they need to survive, like groceries, diapers, medicine — and shoes.

Shoes?

The American public, it would seem, cannot carry on without new shoes. Boots, booties, sneakers, pumps — for the last few months they have all been selling well as the broader economy struggles toward recovery.

… Among the more curious explanations proffered for the relative strength of shoe sales is that women — who make up the lion’s share of the American shoe market — get an emotional lift from shoe shopping in a way they do not when trying on jeans and cocktail dresses.

What a bizarre journey. I'd just thought it an interesting coincidence in writing tropes, unlikely to be or become a core theme (unlike the intergalactic credit, or 'little did he know') yet it turns out that there's a lot more to it than we thought.

James

Images extracted from the photo of a shoe sale sign, Melbourne, 30 July 2010. 'End of Civilisation' Sale?