Dickin' About (sigh)

Philip  K Dick's brilliance lies in his ability to weave a detailed narrative from a profound concept. There are plenty of his short stories that are the science fiction equivalent of jokes - the final twist a mere cheeky punch-line. However, when he hits his stride, as in Captive Market, he is not only predicting possible futures - a classic trope that readily degenerated into many authors becoming painfully meta about their creativity - but providing a stark analysis of complex spiritual and political issues.

Captive Market has a crack at the mentality driving capitalism. A simple plot - old lady finds a way to reach the future, and uses it for  economic gain - is deftly expanded into a meditation on how the mentality of monopolies gambles with the species' future well-being. Aside from  the temporal fun (the old lady is both past and present, the sad remnants of humanity both her future and their own present), Dick reveals the economic transactions through deft characterisations and a nuanced allegory.

The old lady clearly represented the narrow minded dictates of capitalism: her only interest is in profit. Her ability to move into the future is reduced to a chance to have a captive market. The future, meanwhile, is in bad shape: it has plenty of paper money, and an equal amount of radioactive ash. Industry has collapsed, and the only hope is to escape the  polluted atmosphere. The old lady's weekly visits provide them with the necessary supplies: since the paper money is worthless in the future, they can afford the past's shameless price gouging.

Between the typical scenes of the apocalyptic future, Dick takes the literal worthlessness of paper money and makes a sly comment on inflation. Even without a thermonuclear war, the value of currency devalues over time. It's just another version of inflation. 

The old lady isn't just parasitic: she is trading on the back of the future's paucity of resources and hope: her customers are pinned down, and her skill is using the threat of extinction to maintain her profits. The idea that all capitalism is a gamble against the future is never far away. Then, in the final scene,  her ability to control the possible paths of time insists that the capitalist present is defining a bitter future. While the story is pessimistic on a personal level, its allegory is rougher.

Dick was never explicitly anti-capitalist, but he does suggest that trade is based on an unequal relationship, and lacks moral responsibility: the survivors of the end of the world can dwindle away, so long as she gets her cash. And even in the title, Dick is recognising a brutal truth: that for the shopkeeper, the best customer is powerless and desperate - and wealthy.