Arthur Cordell wrote,
> Tom's writing and quote of Marcuse caused me to rummage through some old > notes and papers to find a quote of Robert Heilbroner dating to 1975. > (Challenge Magazine, May-June, 1975) Rings ever more true today. > > "The malaise, I have come more and more to believe, lies in the industrial > foundation on which our civilization is based. Economic growth and > technical achievement, the greatest triumphs of our epoch of history, have > shown themselves to be inadequate sources for collective contentment and > hope. Material advance, the most profoundly distinguishing attribute of > industrial capitalism and socialism alike, has proved unable to satisfy the > human spirit. Not only the quest for profit but the cult of efficiency have > shown themselves ultimately corrosive for human well-being. A society > dominated by the machine process, dependent on factory and office routine, > celebrating itself in the act of individual consumption, is finally > insufficient to retain our loyalty." The notion of loyalty to a society is an odd one, but it is both implied and hidden by industrial civilization and exchange economy. Aglietta and Orlean elaborate in "La monnaie souveraine" "The monetary veil is interposed between exchangers and allows them to act as isolated individuals, outside any traditional social ties. Nevertheless, it is only by virtue of this very particular relation to the community as a totality that individuals can behave as though the relation to the totality did not exist." It is difficult to retain one's loyalty to something while one is behaving as though it didn't exist.
