"'...a man must either earn a living or go on the public freeloading roll...which I don't want to do.'" (p. 84)
No wonder there are social problems in the twenty-first century in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. Attitudes appropriate to a previous age are carried forward into the present age. If manmade technology provides, and more than provides, for a large population with only a minority of that population having to engage in the kind of activity that we call "work," then why should members of the non-working majority feel or be made to feel that they are "freeloading"? What are they supposed to do? They are fully entitled to enjoy the fruits of collective labour. We all inherit from previous generations. That is what all the labour was for. We work to provide for ourselves, for our families, for our extended families, for those who need it, for those too young to work, too old to work, too unwell to work and by extension those whose work is no longer needed.
If the technology fails, then we are all obliged to cooperate to survive. Unfortunately, if conditions go seriously into reverse, then we will probably compete to survive but will still usually cooperate within one group competing against others. Cooperation is more basic than conflict. Care for human infants requires cooperation. Human beings hunt and gather cooperatively, not solitarily. Language, which differentiates human beings, is inherently cooperative. We cooperate by agreeing the meanings of words while disagreeing in what we use them to say.
My idea of the optimum human being is one who enjoys all the fruits of culture and technology and who certainly does not need to "earn a living" but who, at the same time, is equipped with all the survival and organizational skills that would become necessary if the technology suddenly failed. Society is a long way from producing this kind of "optimum human being" and I am certainly not it.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I disagree with some of what you say here
Most of us are simply not made to handle well an idleness (or leisure, if you like) created by the kind of technological advances seen in Anderson's Psychotechnic stories. Without a sense of NECESSARY PURPOSE it is my cast iron belief that huge numbers of people of only average abilities will succumb to despair, ennui, frustrated anger, etc. And seek relief from this in drink, drugs, crime, radical politics, etc. You are not addressing that basic problem, lack of a sense of necessary purpose.
And I don't understand what you mean by "collective labor."
Ideally, we work for ourselves. And take thought for the future by saving and investing--which is what I have done for many, many years. Because I don't want to depend only on a rather minimal income from a pension and "Social Security." I consider the latter far too much of a Ponzi scam dependent on the fickle winds of politics to be trusted.
Again, I disagree with the hostility you seem to have for "competition." In economics competition has been the best means found by humans to make the most efficient use possible for resources of all kinds. BECAUSE free enterprise economics is also cooperative.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Is collective labour difficult to understand? We work together. Your job is not something that you do on your own without reference to anyone else. You sit on a chair at a desk. You have not made the chair or the desk or built the office building. You use a phone, a computer, pens and paper. You post letters and documents through the postal service. Large numbers of men work together to make highways and skyscrapers, cars, aircraft and ocean liners.
There are very few jobs where only one person works completely alone and has made all his tools himself from raw materials. We inherit the products of the labour of all past generations. We are entitled to this just as our descendants will be entitled to inherit whatever we have made for them.
Paul.
Paul:
"You sit on a chair at a desk. You have not made the chair or the desk or built the office building."
-- the chair, desk, computer, etc., have been -paid for-.
That zeros it out.
You don't owe anyone anything once you've paid for the goods or services involved. Nor do they have any claim for the object or service once they've received the agreed payment.
There's no question of an 'inheritance' when things are bought and sold; it's an -exchange-.
The only value a good or service has is what someone else is willing to pay for it; once that's been given, that's it. Exchange value is value, period.(*)
So there is no residual obligation once payment has been maid. And nobody owes -you- anything either.
(*) any other theory assumes that something can have -absolute- or -inherent- value, which when you think about it is mystical gibberish.
Mr Stirling,
Agreed those items were paid for. No residual obligation. But the construction of our built-up environment remains a collective effort. And surely we inherit cities, cathedrals, roads, literature etc from previous generations? We all have an equal share in this heritage, I think.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still disagree. Everything I have has been purchased and paid for. Once that exchange has been made I owe nothing to whoever made my chattel goods. And the same applies to whatever I might have inherited. The chair I'm literally sitting on was inherited from my parents, but I owe nothing to whoever made that chair many, many years ago.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But I did not say that you owed anything. I said that most of our work is cooperative/collaborative/collective/social, not merely individual.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Broadly speaking, I can agree with that "cooperative/collaborative/collective/social," even tho it seems so broad that I don't think it can apply to everything.
Ad astra! Sean
Note also that conflict, beyond the mere individual level -requires- cooperation.
So conflict and cooperation are aspects of the same phenomenon, not opposites.
The capacity to identify with a group -- in most of human history, nearly everyone you knew would be a relative -- almost certainly evolved to the human level as a -tool- of conflict.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree that organized conflicts requires cooperation if it is to be effective. But that seems so bad, wrong, ODD to many people that the necessary element, cooperation, is easy to overlook.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it only seems odd to those who've never seen much conflict. How could an army (or any other group organized for serious struggle) operate without a strong sense of collective solidarity?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I agree with you! I'm only saying there are people who think like that.
Ad astra! Sean
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