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Q2, 96 #320 ->
Which Myth Can You Believe?
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Technocracy Digest ->
Q2, 96 #320 ->
Which Myth Can You Believe?
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``Economists say technology always created, and will always create, more jobs than it destroys.'' -- USA TODAY, July 28, 1995.
Technology has NEVER created more jobs than it destroys, PERIOD...Technology has created many NEW and DIFFERENT jobs -- but it always ends up adding to the total efficiency of the social mechanism, which eliminates jobs. More jobs have been created by an ever more rapidly expanding economy, resulting, in part, from an increasing population, and, in part, from starting from a position of extreme scarcity. And, of course, plus the planned obsolescence -- which has wasted natural resources and increased sales. If technology created more jobs, on average, there would be no point in its use. Every business man who buys technological equipment does so because he knows it will save labor costs.
If technology created more jobs than it destroys, then how was it possible to reduce average working hours to one half of the pre- technological levels, while, at the same time, the ability to produce has increased some 40 times per capita? How could people be so gullible as to believe such a ridiculous myth when it's so obvious that it isn't so? Could it be, that, if one accepts the fact that technology reduces manhours of human labor, one must also admit that an economic system based on human labor has been antiquated by technology?
This country's economy is already in the process of maturation, and the population increase, at least in the U.S. and Canada, is leveling off. And further, anyone can see, by the loaded shelves in all the stores, and all the automobiles on the streets, and the big advertising campaigns in progress, that the pre-technological scarcities no longer exist. As a result, any further increase in technological efficiency will increase under-employment. Therefore, it will become ever more difficult to distribute sufficient purchasing power as a reward for human labor. This indicates that it is increasingly necessary to design methods to overcome this problem.
Among the many OTHER myths handed down so recklessly to the citizens of North America, and elsewhere, is that: nothing should be done about the population explosion. While such growth has slowed in some parts of the world, the overall increase is now 100 million per year, a growth of a billion people each 10 years. At the same time the 6.7 square miles of arable soil of 1989 is decreasing due to erosion, careless management, and over-grazing the grasslands. Only 0.8 acres of arable soil per capita is not enough for a decent living standard. If the present 5.7 billion people continue to double each 40 years, by the end of 2400, there will be one person for each square meter (a little over a square yard) of arable soil, even without a further decline in the quality of the soil. And, in the meantime, the two people per second who are now starving will be on the increase.
Another myth, is that the federal deficit can be reduced simply by avoiding ``excessive'' expenditures. What a sad joke! The fact is, in the U.S., the debt has tripled in the past 15 years, and is now increasing by a quarter of a trillion dollars per year. With the present $4.9 trillion debt, the interest payments are the second highest of all federal expenditures. This debt is being used to supply an income for millions of people and corporations in an attempt to create jobs that technology has already replaced.
This Unbalanced Budget was the method used to get us out of the great depression of the 1930s, and an ever-increasing deficit has been required ever since to keep us out. It must be admitted that this debt can never be paid, and the sooner the money system crashes the better. Lying to ourselves and to each other, serves only to misrepresent the facts, and to postpone the necessary action required to solve problems, and allowing them to deteriorate even further, makes the condition become ever more serious and dangerous.
How many times have this Continent's citizens been told that voting for the `right' politician would solve our problems? How many of us still believe in this myth? Slowly -- far too slowly -- North Americans are becoming aware that there are no `right' politicians, and about half of the `voters' no longer waste their time at the polls.
The political method itself is based on the assumption that beliefs and opinions, traditions and superstitions, can provide the `leadership' with the information required to operate and control the most highly complex, computer-controlled technological mechanism in the history of mankind. This is a mechanism which requires an ever greater mass of factual information, more extraneous energy, and less human labor as it produces an ever greater volume of everything needed by North American citizens. History hasn't prepared us to understand such conditions -- because they have never occurred before.
As technological growth continues at its rapid pace, it continues to outgrow any possible expansion of an economy designed for the dark ages. And the political method becomes more and more irrelevant, and less capable of solving the resulting problems. For example, what important problem has been solved in the past decade by politicians without the aid of science and technology?
The costs of maintaining an antiquated economic system and its political control techniques is rapidly becoming impossible to afford, as well as a hazard to human health. If this is not correct, then why the debt, why so much misinformation, why an increasing poverty in the midst of plenty? To expect North Americans to believe such myths is to assume they are stupid enough to accept them as facts. But, unfortunately, to date, they have generally done so.
And, we are told that more jails and more law enforcement will reduce crime. What it will do is increase employment in the construction industry and in police departments -- enough to notice if one looks closely. However, the fact is, a failing economic system will continue to provide the chief incentive for an increasing crime rate, and until an efficient economy is in operation, crime will not be reduced, regardless of the number of jails.
Unfortunately, the greatest crimes today are entirely legal. For example, telling people that technology creates more jobs than it destroys. This kind of myth reduces the chances that workable solutions can be found, and understood, before we have reached a point of no return --in both economic and environmental conditions. If this is allowed to continue, we will be in deep, really deep, trouble.
Now that a new world of technology has been achieved as a result of the increasing knowledge of science, it has completely antiquated the ancient politico-economic system -- a system which is completely different from this new world of technology. It is within this area that most of our problems lie. Debt is an economic problem. Increasing crime is an economic problem. Poverty in the midst of plenty is an economic problem. ``Political science'' is ``the plotting or scheming of those seeking personal power, glory, position, or the like,'' and wrapped in the flag to make it look patriotic -- and that is an economic problem.
Technology can produce plenty for all North American citizens with the present natural resources and the trained operating personnel now existing on this Continent. It is the economic system, and its political control mechanism, which can't allow that plenty to be distributed except to the few people who own most of the country.
An alternative system, scientifically designed for this Continent's special economic and technological needs, has been the best kept secret since either before or after the Manhattan Project in the U.S. during WWII. Keeping this information secret is another major crime -- which is legal.
This antiquated economic system, and its political `leadership,' with its pre-technological methods of buying cheap and selling dear, cheating and stealing, lying and politicking, never served mankind any too well, but since the advent of technology on a large scale, it is rapidly becoming impossible to make it work at all.
Previously, attempts to improve society's condition were always made by, first, determining what was thought to be desirable, then, trying to make the physical world, and its inhabitants, conform to those desires. Since the use of the scientific method was initiated, the physical requirements having been determined, attempts were then made to fit the desires to the physical realities. Except, of course, in the social and economic fields, where the old methods continue to be used, which has resulted in the mess we see around us today.
The very fact that this highly complex technological mechanism exists today on this Continent should be sufficient proof that the scientific method works, and that it should be used in designing the economic system and its control technique.
Technocracy is the result of the application of scientific techniques in an economic design with the control methods which fit. And its going to have to be used. People may not like what is new and so different, before they understand it, but when they find that it will be far better than the chaos now developing with the present system, they will like it just fine, and wish they had thought of it long ago.
So -- Which Myth Can You Believe? Don't believe any! Learn to recognize, for yourself, the difference between myths and facts. Learn to understand, and overcome, the non-factual information being distributed so recklessly today.
All the statistics and information to indicate the direction of today's society are available in any good public library. The Statistical Abstract of the U.S., publications by the ``Population Reference Bureau,'' ``The Worldwatch Institute,'' ``The Club of Rome,'' books like Jeremy Rifkin's ``The End of Work,'' are samples, among many others, which clearly indicate FACTUAL EVIDENCE of the road we are traveling. Even the daily press is a good source of information concerning current crime and political activities, which demonstrate the need for a major social change. All these sources point out the symptoms of our ailing society. Unfortunately, they do not give solutions, or know the solutions -- which have been determined by the physical requirements of the job to be done.
One must investigate Technocracy to obtain the only solution available. Technocracy is the short-cut to the information required. Technocracy Study Classes are presented by people who have gone the long route; in fact, some 75 years have been devoted to this project.
Of course, we realize that only a few have the will, at this time, to study seriously -- in an attempt to replace their myths with facts. However, we must point out that Technology is the greatest instigator of social change in history. And social change is in the process of occurring, and will continue to occur, whether we like it or not. But, if we are ready for it, we may be able to direct that change away from social chaos. Never before has a social change been so complex, requiring as much human understanding, as a result of that complexity. This is the change which will move us out of the scarcity age of all past history, into an age of peace and plenty. And if we fail to make the transition, social chaos will be the result. That is our choice, and our chance.
May we have the intelligence to make the most of it.