"Out of these moneyless mists"

Zach's paper idea on moneyless economies (Link's "The Hortlak," Star Trek: First Contact, Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, etc.), reminded me of a famously cranky passage of criticism that I finally have tracked down. It's from Brian W. Aldiss' classic history of science fiction, Trillion Year Spree. Aldiss argues that the great appeal of feudal fantasy landscapes is economic, and that the widespread popularity of fantasy since the 1970s is the result of economic uncertainty:

... Perhaps the most compelling attraction of a feudal background is that money never has to change hands.

We are talking, after all, when we deal with this welter of fantasy, of the dreams of our society, our capitalist society. That society works by the circulation of money. What is the adolescent reader, the typical reader of these fantasies, most short of? Money. And the power that money brings. The attractions of societies where no money changes hands are obvious. A young fantasy hero cast up on a strange planet can go straight into the nearest tavern and obtain a tankard of ale or bexjiquth. When did a fantasy hero ever fish a ten dollar bill from his pocket? When did milady seek alimony? When were travellers’ cheques needed in Atlantis or Cathay? When was the lead villain simply slung into prison for debt? When did the mortgage ever fall due on one of those labyrinthine castles? ...

In fantasies, banks –- those bastions of capitalist society –- are transformed into palaces or castles. Transactions take place in readily negotiable blood. It is not really science which yields to magic in these sagas, but the fiscal system. Hence the reason for their endless popularity. Witchcraft needs no bank loan. And, because such fantasies are always unsatisfying, it is also the reason why publishers need to keep up the supply of the drug, month by month. The Gor novels are for addicts, not adults. When economic policies weigh hardest on the people, dosages can be seen to increase. ...

Out of these moneyless mists come heroes, heroines, and gods to satisfy an insatiable demand, accompanied by wizards, warlocks, unicorns and dragons, dwarves and fairies. It is hard to understand why the contemporary world should so desperately need these antiquated props from earlier ages, unless intellect is less secure on its throne than we had hoped. ...

If we are confronting the untutored consciousness, the unembarrassed outpourings of the mind of the US as it grows towards being the globe’s dominating super-power of the Twenty-First Century –- infinitely more strong, glittering, and expensive than any previous state –- then we confront a mind almost willfully irrational, technophobic, embracing the horrid, bugged by unknown superstition, and hypnotized by the infantile fantasy of owning the universe.

-- Brian W. Aldiss with David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction. 1986. Thirsk: House of Stratus, 2001. 322-24. (From Ch. 11, “The Dawn of the Day of the Dumpbin.”)