By the time it came out, Banks had already published three essentially realistic mainstream novels. The first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas, appeared in 1987.

The only limiting factor is individual consent.

In the absence of resource constraints or inevitable death, most people can do pretty much anything they want, as long as they are not coercing others in the process. Most are equipped with special drug glands that allow them to alter their moods, attitudes, and sensory experiences with a mere thought. Powerful artificial beings known as Minds work with humans to solve large social problems, but governing groups are formed and managed on a mostly ad hoc basis.Ĭulture humans have dramatically extended lifespans, occasionally thousands of years long. It's a functioning anarchist society with no government, no laws, and no money. The Culture series can be read as a sprawling, intergalactic left-libertarian thought experiment. For a quarter century, he offered a sweeping science-fiction vision of how those ideals might survive a brilliantly imaginative series of practical and moral tests. Banks may have hated libertarians, but the fictional worlds he built were founded on fundamentally libertarian ideals and morality. An avowed anti-Thatcherite and outspoken critic of New Labour, Banks was prone to unprompted rants about the 'greedism' and 'marketology' advocated by the 'intellectually facile.' 'It really gets my hackles up, the right wing cover of libertarianism,' he told Wired in 2012.Īnd yet Banks' science fiction novels drew heavily from the universe of libertarian interests, particularly in his Culture novels, a long-running set of loosely connected space operas that deal with a high-tech post-scarcity society comprised mainly of biologically advanced human beings and artificial intelligences. It's safe to say that Banks, who died in June at age 59, shared this opinion. Banks has the story's voice of wisdom describe libertarianism as 'a simple-minded right wing ideology ideally suited to those unable or unwilling to see past their own self-regard.' Toward the end of his 2009 novel Transition, the late Scottish author Iain M.

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