Those Crazy Jasoomians!

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking on the occasion of World Water Day, suggests that capitalism brought about the end of life on Mars.

Astronomers were probably a little surprised to hear this, given that no proof of life on Mars has ever been found. Consulting with the relevant texts, though, we find several different economic systems on Barsoom, the name given to Mars by the native inhabitants.

The four-armed green Martians seem to hold most items in common among their different tribes except for their personal weaponry and some other possessions. They barter jewels, precious metals and possibly slaves, but they do not have any kind of currency as far as we can tell. Further, most of them are nomadic tribes and they lack any major industry or manufacturing facilities save those dedicated to weapons. These may be bartered for, but seem more often to be acquired through defeating their former owner in mortal combat. Both the permanent residence of a small leadership cadre and the temporary camping grounds of the majority of the tribespeople are in ancient abandoned cities. The green Martians do not have any independent housing or transportation manufacturing industries, although they resemble Earthly nomadic tribes in their production and raising of livestock for transportation, cargo hauling and food.

We have little knowledge of the economic systems of the isolated remnants of the ancient races of white and black Martians. Both the white Martians (called "Therns") and black Martians (called "First-Born") exist primarily using wealth, possessions and property of others. These items may be scavenged, in the case of the Therns who collect such property from those killed when they enter the Thern lands at the Valley Dor. Or they may be simply stolen, apparently the primary source of obtaining property among the First Born's buccaneering culture. However, since the First Born are the only Barsoomians who live on or near a large body of water and their airships can also navigate on this water, some form of manufacturing probably exists in order to either modify captured vessels or construct aquatic-capable craft. But given the prevalence of slave-owning in this culture as well as many others on Mars, we should probably not be quick to infer the existence of a labor class from this fact. We have no knowledge of the economic system among the remnants of the ancient yellow-skinned Martians of Okar.

The dominant red race of the planet does have an economic system that more closely resembles capitalism, with coined money and other forms of currency that can be exchanged for goods and services. Large-scale manufacturing may be assumed, as the red Martians live in cities they themselves have built rather than in older ones abandoned by earlier civilizations. They also use aircraft and ground vehicles, all of which seem to be mass-produced, and these factors suggest the presence of a labor/working class as well as a class of classic "capitalists" or those who own the means of production. However some important distinctions between this economic system and Earthly capitalism -- such as the existence of private paper currency issued by individuals rather than the state -- indicate that a strict one-to-one comparison may not be possible. Also, political systems vary among the different city-states of the red Barsoomians. Some, like the great nation of Helium, are apparently constitutional monarchies. But others, such as Tul Axtar's Jahar, seem to be much more totalitarian, even to the level of state control of reproduction.

We must also realize that the different Martian civilizations face ever-shrinking resources and this pressure has already built some communal aspects into them. Martian medical advances have led to virtual immortality, and although the violent culture often serves to reduce the number of Martians using the planet's dwindling natural resources, many more survive the different wars and attacks. These persons often voluntarily leave their society sometime around their 1,000th year, journeying via the River Iss to the Valley Dor and thus reducing the burden on Mars' supplies of air, water and food. The green Martians strictly control reproduction in order to keep their tribes at the same population.

Thus, it seems unlikely that the current absence of civilized life on Mars allows us -- even if we are of the kind of intellect possessed by the president of Venezuela -- to infer that this absence was somehow caused by conditions or systems like those we have on Earth, or Jasoom, as the Martians name it. Differences in biology, available natural resources, political and social systems, technology and many other areas leave us without enough comparison points to draw useful parallels.

(PS: Is the above monumentally silly? Yes, it is. But I'm not the chief executive of a country and one should not waste the opportunity to mock a flippin' loon who happens to be just that when such an opportunity becomes available.)