It is
always about jobs, jobs, jobs and rarely about how to deal with the condition of
widespread automation.
arthur
It's something the prolific Jeremy Rifkin dealt with in
"The End of Work". But if I recall correctly, he argued that we would no
be unduly upset by living in an automated, low employment economy.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 9:23
AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] The consumer
economy terrifies me.
I
believe that after WW2 the US adopted a full employment act. Coming out
of the depression of the 30s and wishing to guaranty jobs, it became part of
national policy. I don't have the citation.
It
was more about keeping the political situation stable (this during the time of
cold war) and less about creating a consumer economy. The net effect,
though, is as Barry says to delay "...the need to reassess the role of human labor
in an automated economy. "
It
is always about jobs, jobs, jobs and rarely about how to deal with the
condition of widespread automation.
arthur
Barry,
The consumer society terrifies me, too, but I believe
you are wrong where you write:
At 16:04 21/10/2003 -0500, you
wrote:
Some wealthy people, with the
ambition and means to rule, cleverly created the consumer economy to
provide jobs after world war two, thus delaying the need to reassess the
role of human labor in an automated economy.
Not so, I
think. We have been in a consumer society ever since early man started
long-distance trading in pigments and ochres for personal adornment 75,000+
years ago -- an imaginative use of possessions in order to exhibit status
ranking. The latter is behaviour that is deeply predisposed in the genes of
all primate species. This imaginative ability to impute status in almost
everything we buy (except food, clothing and basic shelter) is a product of
our frontal lobes -- something that other primates have little of. "Some
wealthy people" (as you put it) take advantage of this but they are not the
cause; it's ever-present in all of us.
The only thing that will check
the consumer society is sheer exhaustion of time and/or effort and/or space,
and I believe that some societies are already close to this despite the
efforts of governments, business and opinion-moulders to promote consumer
spending (e.g. in Japan, Germany). Promotion has been much more successful
in America and the UK, even to the extent of most consumers being deeply in
debt and at the mercy of the slightest rise in interest rates. Here it is
likely that their economies will not stagnate but collapse catastrophically.
Anytime soon, I suggest.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson,
Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
|
