To the children of the modern age and beyond
By Alan Baylis
In the past we were told that the advent of the industrial and
information ages would mean an increase in leisure time for the
workers. This was to be brought about by increasing automation in
the work environment. Many tools have now been developed to relieve
workers of their jobs and in more optimistic times it was thought
that these tools would leave the workers free to take their family
to the beach while the machines worked relentlessly to provide their
needs. This has not been the outcome. Instead, the workers made
redundant by these machines have been labeled as unemployed. Far
from being able to relax and know that the lack of work was a
deliberate push by industry itself, they are made to feel ashamed.
It is known in economics that a certain percentage of the population
is going to be unemployed at any one time. Some of these will be in
transition or absent for personal reasons such as maternity, but
most of these have been the undereducated, uncouth, or unkempt. This
seemed like natural survival of the fittest but this is no longer
the case. It appears that even the highly educated, etc, are also
out of work and unable to support themselves easily. This trend is
continuing to worsen and before long there will be extremely high
unemployment regardless of how intelligent or well dressed or spoken
the population become.
The solution suggested by government appears to be a policy of
having each person start their own small business. So we have a
situation wherein people have labored for the corporations for
generations until the corporations reach a high level of automation
and now, because there are fewer jobs, we have to compete with these
self-same businesses without any capital. I can't see many that
would be able to successfully compete with an airline or an auto
manufacturer.
Best that we just become as self sufficient as possible and buy
second hand until the corporations collapse. Then we might have a
more level playing field in which to compete. If the communities
share and barter work amongst themselves then they may have no need
for any of the over priced and poor quality products. Why should
everyone in a street have and maintain their own lawn mower when
there could be a consensus to share a mower and use it on alternate
days?
There will be no getting rich. The look of our houses and furniture
will fall but rather than being beautiful they will simply be good
and practical.
It's in the Bible. Not such a big read and I was happy to learn that
God is not an Israelite.
