bonterfest

(edit: Spoiler Alert!!!)


in the largest city on the planet Wyst, factories were made to supply the every want of the populace (except perhaps bonter).

three types of food are produced, sufficient for nutrition: a cake, a drink and a custard. bonter (any other food, somewhat illicit, obtained from outside or distilled from the cake or the sludge that produces all three approved foods) is often discussed and much sought.

each citizen supplies 13 hours a week of labor, performing whatever is currently assigned to them. once a year they go for two days to a tapping facility where their glands are tapped for various extracts which are exported offworld.

egalitarianism reigns, the tallest nails are frowned upon. theft is common. labor units are reckoned at 1/100th of the ozol, the standard unit of Alastor cluster (1 ozol = 1 hour of labor by the average person). since no one cares to learn how to maintain the machines, etc., any specialized work is performed by outside contractors, who charge extremely high rates, live outside the city, and are managed by a higher subcaste ("Knights"?).

the citizens complain grievously about the rest of the Alastor cluster (star cluster)'s inhabitants, who are all seen as trying to come to Wyst and enjoy the fruits of the citizens' labor (unjustifiably; the city has ~13B inhabitants and the immigration rate is 1000/week).

sometimes the citizens organize ad hoc bonterfests: foraging parties into the Weirdness (wilderness) outside the city, looking for wild greens and the like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyst:_Alastor_1716

think it would work in the US?

California (Oakland, Berkeley, Santa Cruz) is too expensive. AZ too hot. where would we put this utopia?

forgot to mention the food sludge (from which the three allowed foods are made) is made from whatever detritus goes into the sewer plants, including corpses.

how about east of the Salton Sea!?!?!!!

ATY the New Messiah!

p.s., if you're looking for cultural referents, Vance wrote this book in 1978, tail end of the hippies' revolution. and yes, they do practice free love.

N.B., Soylent Green was in theaters in 1973, made in part from Harry Harrison's 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room!.

Asimov's The Caves of Steel also has related elements (re future overcrowding and how it appears from the bottom up); it was published in 1954.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&q=government+cheese&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

http://www.jewishjournal.com/images/bloggish_images/GovernmentSurplusCheeseBox-757416.jpg

PASTEURIZED PROCESS CHEDDAR CHEESE

KEEP WRAPPED AND REFRIGERATED

NET WEIGHT: 5 LBS

CONTRACT NO. A1PM.....

JUNE-JULY 1954

DONATED BY THE

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

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