The Good Old Days! -- May we never see them again!

Editor

1996

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 1st quarter 1996, No. 319

Sometimes, some older folk have lapses of memory as they recall some aspect or event of `the good old days', and yearn that life could still be the same as it was when they were young. They forget that much of their life at that time was anything but pleasant. If they were among the minority of people then who were financially secure, these may have been sublime years for them. There was little crime -- perhaps, because there were fewer people then, or we never heard about it, or because cities were not so large and there were more rural areas. ``We never had to lock our doors,'' they say, as they discuss the horrors of the crime scene today. ``We had different values then,'' they say. Did we?

Most people then were very poor, whether they lived on the farms or in the cities. And yes, even though they lived in poverty, they can recall something that they wish had never changed. But, for the most part, they remember the disadvantages and stress that poverty heaped upon them. Life was made hopeless for so many of them.

For people living on the farms, it meant very hard work, with always the threat of unpredictable weather that destroyed their crops, and the weather patterns at that time seemed to see to this, year after year. Many of them in the dust bowls of the Prairie provinces of Canada, lost their homesteads, so they headed north, packing their belongings in covered wagons, like the Old West depictions, driving their stock ahead of them. Once in the north, they had to start all over again, wresting the rocks and stumps out of unbroken land.

In the United States, there have been innumerable heartbreaking narratives of the treks from States -- like Oklahoma, to California -- when many people starved to death, and the remainder discovered that California was not the golden State, as terrible hardships still had to be borne.

Those who stuck it out on their farms, at least had food, but there was little hope for further education or opportunities for themselves or their children. Most of the rural schools could barely pay their teachers (and sometimes didn't) let alone provide education beyond Grade eight. Many children had to quit school at that grade anyway, to help on the farm, or hire out to another farmer for barely subsistence wages. It wasn't a joyful outlook. In the cities, life's blows were much harder. Many had barely enough to eat; many had nothing to eat; many subsisted on hand-outs from relatives or friends or passers-by on the streets. ``Brother, can you spare a dime?'' Do you remember that one? Many young people, and older also, couldn't even afford the 10-cent cup of coffee or the two-bit hamburger, as they trudged the streets looking for any kind of work, unable even to afford the street-car fare.

Working girls, if they were lucky enough to get work -- waitresses, stenographers, store clerks -- didn't live in apartments in those days. As many as four or six of them shared the rent in one or two bare rooms, furnished only with as many beds as were needed, a sofa which made up into a bed, a table, chairs, and a hot plate to cook on, and perhaps a sink, and that was it. The bathroom, shared by many people, was down the hall.

Of course, there were many people living on the streets then too. Whole shanty towns sprang up where families lived in shacks made of cardboard and discarded metal sheets. (Shamefully, these shanties could still be seen in the early fifties -- by people driving the highway from Los Angeles to the gambling cities of Las Vegas and Reno. And even more shamefully, there are many more in existence now, and are in evidence in every city and town, and in them, people huddled for warmth.)

There was crime then too -- thievery, bootlegging, prostitution, and there were gangs -- Ma Barker, Bonny and Clyde, the Mafia -- all documented one way or another. Young people were drawn to them because of poverty. There was no work for them, and the gangsters seemed to be leading an exciting and prosperous life. Jail was usually where they ended up, and so began an endless circle of crime.

Or, they `rode the rails' -- and were called ``bums'' or ``hoboes'' -- begging for food from people in small towns where they shared food for a few days with other `hoboes', and shivered in their bedrolls at night, under the starry sky, or a makeshift rain cover cardboard shelter, in a ``hobo jungle.''

Oh, yes, `them were the days' alright. There was very little `relief' (welfare) then, and some people were too proud to ask for help, that they would even starve to death. If people were sick, they just suffered it out all their lives, or died in the attempt. They couldn't afford even to see the doctor, and many doctors also suffered hard times. The country doctors, again, fared a little better than city doctors, because people were, at least, able to pay them with vegetables and chickens.

Then, in 1939, there was an abrupt change. War was declared. It was like money came out of thin air. Young men, by the thousands, joined the army. They were given food, money to spend; the lads envisioned an exciting life of travel and adventure, with no thought of death.

Factories, to build war materiel, sprang up, and women, and men unable to join the army, were hired; their wages were more than they had ever envisioned. Patriotism was encouraged by propaganda, and no thought was given then to the cost everyone would eventually pay, from the loss of our brave young people, and the exploitation of our natural resources, and as we later found out, the exploitation of all of us.

For awhile, after World War II, the economy boomed. Natural resources, like minerals and forests, were gouged out, and huge multi-nationals flourished and ran the world. But people had more money than they had ever had in the Dirty '30s. They were able to have comfortable homes and educate their children. Any warnings made about pollution or eventual poverty, went unheeded. Since then there have been smaller `depressions' in the economy, but these have been propped up by other wars -- the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, and other skirmishes -- and people, unbelievably, even after ``the War that was to end all wars'', sent their young people into battle again and again -- even to as late as 1992, propagandized again into wearing yellow ribbons as they sent their young into Desert Storm.

A change of values? What change would that be?

People's ways are still guided by a wish for monetary gain. They still believe that we must have money -- that's the law to live by. They have been taught to believe this -- in other words, they believe the propaganda that has been fed them for years and years. To this day, little children, at home and in school, are taught ``the value of money.''

The only organization that has tried to explain that: money has no value, is Technocracy. Our organization, for over 60 years has tried to explain that. As long as we have the natural resources, the expertise to make use of them, and not mis-use them, the technicians and engineers to keep our high energy mechanism running, who needs money? Everything we need, can be provided, without using money.

Change of values? Nothing has changed in the make-up of the human being in the last million years. He is basically the same person he was then. The only thing that has changed in the last 100 years or so, is our environment. As more and more people find it increasingly difficult to maintain a reasonable standard of living within the framework of what we call a Price System, you may expect the kind of behaviour with which we are concerned today, as it starts to manifest itself.

When, once people are prosperous and fully employed; when they have a virtual degree of certainty that things will continue this way for them, most people are content, and the society is well ordered. When, once people realize that all the things they need on a day-to-day basis will be supplied by virtue of their personal needs, they would then look for more satisfying ways of expressing themselves. When acquisitiveness is taken out of our society, the standard of life would increase. THAT would be a real change of values.

-- Editor.