The third stated reason for social breakdown is mass unemployment, 75% of the adult population, but we have discussed this issue more than once on the blog.
In "Holmgang," we were told that asteroidal prospectors and miners were the last practitioners of private enterprise in the Solar System so what is the driving force of the global economy on Earth? If it remains competition between big corporations, then those corporations compete to hire the labor of less than 25% of the population because presumably a fair number of these geniuses (that is how they are described) work for the global government.
We are told that "Of course....," (p. 177) the citizen's allowance is not a mere pittance but is enough to ensure quite comfortable living. Do corporations profit by selling to the 75% commodities produced by the mental (not manual) labor of less than the remaining 25% of the population? Does it not sound as if the economy needs to be reorganized instead for the purpose of addressing not only the physical but also the social and psychological needs of the entire population?
If competing corporations do still rule economically, then there will continue to be a boom-slump cycle although maybe the pyschotechnicians really can now predict and manage that cycle?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I suspect that what happened on the Earth of THE SNOWS OF GANYMEDE/"Quixote And The Windmill" was a partial merging of the UN gov't with these large corporations (not all of whom have to be giants). And that a mix of Psychotechnic methods and advanced technology was what made this "citizens credit" possible. And I strongly think any kind of rejiggering that you might propose would not work.
Ad astra! Sean
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