"'...what you do produce has to be spread thinner each year: more people. Of course, there's no longer any pretense at equal sharing. If we tried that, everybody would be down on Lowlevel. Instead, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.'" (2, p. 18)
Hold on there, Wolfe. (Theron Wolfe is the speaker.) Advanced technology can enable life styles that reduce family sizes. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer - in relation to each other - is a feature of our present economic system. There have been three stages of economic development:
no surplus;
a small surplus;
a large surplus.
A small surplus equally shared would reduce everyone to "Lowlevel" but what of a large surplus, especially the many times larger surplus that becomes possible with automation and robotic production?
Next, the philosopher, Torvald Anker, writes that the Federation government has decided to eliminate Constitutionalism by:
'...absorbing the next generation into the general ruck." (3, p. 24)
Excuse me, Anker. That "general ruck" is the human race! Have you nothing to say to them? Does your philosophy address only an elite who can afford to "Get the hell out," (ibid.) leaving the "ruck" to their predetermined fate? We need better social philosophers than that.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
But Anderson wanted to show us a dystopian setup on the Earth of ORBIT UNLIMITED. And, given the premises of the story, it made sense to show us only a small group, the Constitutionalists, being able and WILLING to leave, at that time.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment