Eco-economics

Eco-economics, otherwise known as the caloric theory of value is an economic system developed by Marina Tokareva and Vlad Taneev that was applied to Mars in the 2120s and triggered the Accelerando.

Red Mars
The development of eco-economics began at Acheron where Marina and Vlad began applying concepts of energy transfer between organisms to economics. Concluding that most big businesses took in more resources than they produced for society at large and created imbalances that were harmful to society.

Green Mars
After Marina and Vlad hid in Zygote to escape persecution, their theories became popular with some economists and ecologists, with a small annual conference being held at Acheron. It was prominent enough even for TransNat CEOs like William Fort to take notice. Marina and Vlad were heavily influenced by observing the gift economy that had developed in the Underground and working with Arabic researchers, who informed them of traditional concepts within gift economies. They began to realize that a pure gift economy would not work because of problems with scarcity, hoarding and guilt. So they worked a hydrogen peroxide and nitrogen-based currency into the system.

Blue Mars
Marina and Vlad, after working on eco-economics for almost 70 years, had concluded that all of Mars' resources needed to be owned in common and stewarded by groups with permission, that by law only cooperatives could exist and that they all must contribute taxes to pay for public goods like healthcare and education. Cooperative associations and industry guilds would specialize in regulating credit, capital and trade. These ideas were written into the Martian Constitution and were very successful, triggering the Accelerando.

Trivia

 * Eco-economics draws inspiration from Market Socialism, Social Democracy, Georgism and Ecological Economics.