One of the ways you know a book is good is how it makes you think about it long after you've read it. There were plenty of elements to Dani & Eytan Kollin's freshman work that does not recommend itself, in my opinion. But there is also plenty there that does.
This book won the Prometheus Award in 2010 (see the link for full details of what this is), an award granted to Libertarian-leaning works of Science Fiction. In it, it posits a future where, after a great calamity, those left over holding the pieces reshapes civilization along their own ideals. In this future, the government is legally emasculated, and people are "Incorporated," meaning that like a business venture, people have a stock they can float -- in themselves -- to raise money or advantages. Thus they sell off a bit of their liberty (like a corporation, the stockholders get a vote) for economic advantage.
When I had first read this book, I couldn't figure out if it was a parody, or written "straight." There are quite a few elements that I call "Libertarian Canards" (the aforementioned emasculated government, private ownership of just about everything, etc), which no doubt appeal to Libertarians, as much as they make Liberals cringe.
That being said, while I agree this is a libertarian novel (note the lack of capitalization) but perhaps not a Libertarian novel.
Let's take a look at the central premise. The idea of incorporation is one of those ideas I could easily imagine being floated at the local Libertarian political action meeting. On the face of things, it certainly has it's appeal. Own controlling stock in yourself and you are completely free within the bounds of what law exists. Or you can sacrifice your freedom in hopes of economic advantage (i.e. gaining enough money to invest in an education, or raise capital for a business venture.
In the book, however, this is the tyranny of un-freedom the main character has to strive against. Although there has been criticism that the book does not confront the negative aspects of this society quite enough (although it is in there), the point is made that when your value as a human being is directly monetized, if you do not have much value, it is just as much a struggle (or a matter of luck) to move beyond this situation. And if someone owns controlling stock in you, they can hold a vote (or worse, conduct an audit of your actions), and force you to engage in activities you might not want, but the stockholders deem advantageous. Want to marry your girlfriend? Sorry, you've got to scrub rocket exhaust nozzles off Jupiter; need to get that return in investment...
In addition the government is emasculated to the point of ineffectiveness. Government employees are incompetent and next to useless, and if you want a reasonable time in the legal courts, hire yourself a private (i.e. "for profit") judge. And all of this is by design from the framers of the government. This is one of those "Canards" I talked about before, and when I read it, I couldn't help but do the old "eyes roll" routine. One thing I realized later is that this can be taken as a criticism of such a limited government (i.e. "So small you can drown it in a bathtub"). In the book you have a government so limited, it is incapable of defending the freedoms of the people from the predation of private sources of power. So it comes to the point that the only way to break the system and restore individual liberty is not through the law system, but through violent revolution.
There is another element I found intriguing going on here. Science Fiction usually is a predictor (or cautionary tale) of a possible future. That is no less true here. However, Science Fiction is often a commentary on the times as well. Movies like "Soylent Green," "Planet of the Apes," and "Logan's Run" were as much commentary on their own times of the 1970's as they were of a possible future. Similarly, I think The Unincorporated Man does something similar. Where the tyranny of the future is where others can own a part of you, I am a bit struck that this can also be taken as a commentary of our times, where people go deep into debt for things like an education. This recently struck me when I looked at my student loan balance, and bemoaned that it didn't seem to really be going down by much (I pay almost $200 a month towards those loans, and the economic prosperity a college education promised didn't pan out the way it was sold to me). But instead of stockholders limiting freedom, it's debt.
I suppose if I was Incorporated, the stockholders could have forced me to take that degree in Accounting I never really wanted, however..
In the end, anyone who reads a book will take away different things from it. I appreciated that the authors wrote this book in such a way that I can see it as a lampshade of some of the more off-the-wall hard Right leaning ideas.
