The first chapter of A Better Earth begins with the words,
A bribe, a simple bribe. An extra-legal payment for an extra-legal action. That is what Vallen wanted.
The second begins
Filgard Meldon did not plan to become a revolutionary; he tried to raise money from venture capitalists.
The novel shows each life; Filgard succeeds; Vallen does not. In addition, it shows the beginnings of a utopia and includes a small war.
Initially, Vallen appears more successful, and in spite of the bribes he receives and the two murders for which he pays, he is sympathetic.
Filgard is a professor of engineering. He and his team invented and built a recorder of material objects -- a very good recorder -- and seeks to innovate. The venture capital firm that would fund further work refuses, but offers to pay a little, an amount that is more than Filgard's annual budget.
Both Filgard and Vallen think long term. Filgard is much more foolish about the short term than Vallen.
Filgard pokes around all sides of a problem. As he says, "A person can be honest, wise, competent, benevolent and trustworthy, but ... if he or she does not determine reality, then it become impossible to protect, preserve, prepare, or provide, except by accident."
Vallen pokes around many sides of a problem, yet fails to poke enough. So he does not see solutions and continues disillusioned. He has a much smaller sense of `us'; his group consists of family and some people at work.
Vallen Dundel is a senior manager. He seeks and receives a bribe, which he hides successfully. His company sees him as a successful and rising manager and invites him on a cruise, during which he does well on a test posed by the company's president. We see him being tough on a contractor whose product is not as good as it should be. But he is willing to teach the man how to be better. As a hobby, he carves drift wood.
Vallen is promoted to run a profitable, small division. At the same time, his company extends his time horizon. To be successful over the longer time, to negotiate better, Vallen sees himself as needing to gain more of a reputation for ruthless.
So he hires a hit man to murder Filgard, who Vallen thinks is important to the company with whom he will negotiate. The hit man murders wrong person. (The reason for the mistake is explained in the first chapter ... the explanation appears to the reader as small talk designed to show Filgard's character.)
Vallen decides it is not safe to murder again; instead, he decides to sponsor a small innovation from Filgard. Since Vallen's company supports initiative, they fund the project.
Meanwhile, one of Filgard's former students, Peter, creates a nano-assembler. In combination with Filgard's recorder, it can rapidly replicate any material object, including itself. Together, the two machines make for a revolution in business. Vallen sees them as impoverishing him.
So Vallen rehires the hit man to murder Peter. This time, the assassin succeeds but his shot is heard. The assassin is soon caught and commits suicide. Vallen is not implicated, is cheered by the murder, and becomes more vigorous.
Then Vallen discovers that Peter is not important to profits. The murder was a mistake. A living Peter might have helped Vallen in his old age or Vallen's children. Vallen permits himself to die when he cuts himself carving.
In another thread, we learn of Eltis Akthorn, a visiting speaker. Peter is attracted to her. (At this time he is still a graduate student.) Fairta, Filgard's wife, suggests that the Meldon's host her next time. She puts Eltis and Peter together, under the excuse that he is going to help evaluate Eltis' newer speeches.
To provide thoughts for Eltis and Filgard to mull over, Fairta introduces the combination of ancient temperaments with an anthropologist's idea concerning perceived social structures. She also starts Eltis making lists with English-language alliteration, such as `the four Ps of politics', protect, preserve, prepare, and provide.
Fairta dies of natural causes. Before she dies, Filgard speaks to her lying in bed, talking about the reward for "... those who perceive reality ..." and wondering whether he has been sufficiently "... positive about this culture, even when I think it is better than alternatives I know."
Filgard then becomes a gardener. While cultivating, he meets a neighbor, James. The man is a professor of astronomy who is out walking the pigs he raises as a hobby. James worries about repeatability. He fears that in the long run, without sustainability, soil and trees will not feed humans or provide them breathable air.
At the same time, James recognizes that parts of the environment do not last long, like his pigs. So he argues for two types of organization: businesses, which evaluate opportunities with positive interest rates, and non-profits, which evaluate opportunities with zero interest rates. (Anything expected to last less than a couple of generations requires a positive interest rate. The proposed non-profits will use other criteria for evaluation.) It takes a while for Filgard and later for Eltis to wrap their minds around the concept.
Filgard finally fits James' notions with Fairta's explanation of temperament. He argues that "... one distinction is between those who prefer to focus on other people and those who prefer to focus on getting a task done. ..." and another is between "... short term and long term thinking." ("As a practical matter," he also says, "people lie on a continuum, some at one end, some at the other, and many in the middle. But let us presume the continuum has been cut ...")
He claims that two of the four temperaments produced by the distinctions favor a positive rate of interest. He also points out that at least two of the ancient, major religions tried to end it.
The religion that is familiar to Filgard, Christianity, failed to end it. He says, "... in my upbringing, authoritative Christians emphasized Matthew 25:26. They interpreted a zero interest rate investment as `wicked' ..."
Meanwhile we meet another character, Taffod, who becomes very important in the second volume. Taffod is an adventurer whom Eltis knows can be very diplomatic. So she has him part of a team who copy history.
Eltis goes from simply asking her listening audience to "press for the future" to organizing a political group, the "Melior Movement" (from the Latin word `melior', better). She considers and rejects colonies on Earth or in the solar system. After Peter's murder she loses hope. "The future looks bleak."
Then Tuppak Nassik and his team invent rebirth, with himself (a dying man) as its first test. Rebirth requires Filgard's recorder and Tuppak's development of a force-grown clone. The new body lacks mental activity until the reborn memories are pressed upon the brain.
Since Filgard's recorder creates data that can be stored in very small data packs, Tuppak's work enables slow, interstellar travel -- during the trip, people remain dead for a very long time.
An artificial intelligence, the first, grows at Filgard's university. Although not necessary for the colony, the AI "... will make it easier ...", as Eltis says, and at her request is smuggled by Filgard to a space launch site.
The Melian's departure is interrupted by an attack on them by the `The Conservators of Earth', who do not believe they will actually leave. Filgard and Tuppak plan an operation that fails directly, but succeeds indirectly. It causes other Earth powers to defeat `The Conservators'.
The Melians leave the solar system. An epilogue has Eltis and the rest arriving at the Melior system, one hundred twenty years later.
Although not expressed as such, the novel is about the dangers of pollution, global warming, and of a rentier economy that does not handle them.
For example, bigger human ecological impacts invalidate old understanding of private property; they require additional, not necessarily pleasant, actions of government.
Pollution and global warming are background. They are hardly mentioned. In a rentier economy, as Filgard says, "The measure of merit changes. Rather than reward those who perceive reality -- all of it, not simply intriguingly useful parts -- and who know what to do with reality ... [it rewards] those good at persuading or forcing others to give up resources to them."
Vallen strives to gain more rentier income, but has not got enough.
Eltis is busy trying to work a way out, hence, the Melior Movement.
People who like ideas will enjoy the novel, since it discusses the old social technologies of politics, the four Ps in particular, protect, preserve, prepare, and provide, as well as other kinds of social technology, such as the unifying effect of a common language. It employs future physical technologies, too, like rapidly replicating Von Neumann machines and rebirth.
At the same time, the book shows a type of character that is seldom depicted, Filgard, Eltis, James, and Peter. They are all `Rationals', as Plato called them. In addition, it shows more common characters, such as Taffod and Fairta.
For people who think in English, Fairta suggests alliterative criteria, since they are easier to remember. Eltis adopts them for her speeches. Thus, Fairta introduces the `four Ps of politics,' the criteria for evaluating politicans and their proposals. Filgard illustrates use of these criteria to James. Fairta also introduces the `five Rs'. As she said, "Responsibility and reliability determine reality with reason and rigor." For the Movement, these become aids to judgment.
Eltis invents the `three Ls', law, legitimacy, and light, where `light' stands for transparent, truthful, and competent. However, she only mentions these once.
Also, Filgard figures out three Rs which tell us what an individual can do on his or her own: research, repair, or reveal. Later he invents a sentence with seven Rs, "Repeatably reveal reality reliably, rigorously, reasonably, and responsibly." Eltis says they are too many,
At the end, the Utopians are leaving Earth.