Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 384-386

There are now more than five unemployed workers for every job opening in the United States.
…
Economists are currently spreading the word that the recession may end sometime this year, but the unemployment rate will continue to climb.
No Recovery in Sight
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times.
Published: June 26, 2009





I
live in a major city and everyone I know or have met is too busy to organise anything. Getting people to come for dinner is next to impossible, a drink is always quick, and most people's lives are a grind of marching to work and then a long commute back to home. I once lived in the third world. A place where everyone was within walking distance of each other. It was amazing! Having somebody come round for dinner was easy and spontaneous, trysts with women were easy, conversation was more meaningfull and less peppered with what was on TV last night. People in cities are like on a drug: scatty, diverted by the pace, doped up on TV and media tabloid garbage. It is sad.
I agree: people need to learn how to chill
Comment
Posted by: Bobsays on Nov 16, 2006



In the late 1960's we had a society almost completely devoid of computers and automation. Virtually everything was done manually by hand. However, it became obvious that computers and automation were going to have an enormous effect. For example, instead of having thousands of clerks doing all the processes required of a large organisation to send out bills and collect payments - over 95% of them could be replaced by computers and automated systems. Many forecast that this should bring tremendous benefits to all of society. People could be freed from repetetive, boring manual tasks. Society would redistribute wealth to result in an enormous increase in leisure time. Instead of most working 5 days a week, it should only be necessary to work 2 or 3 days a month. All this was and is completely technically feasible. The jobs that most people do serve no useful purpose whatsoever, except that people have been conditioned to behave like rodents on a hamsterwheel. The only jobs that are really required are those concerned with the provision, distribution and maintenance of basic services, like food, water, energy, shelter and health.These are the jobs that require basic traditional human practical skills - the jobs that are least valued by society.Yet most people sit in offices at a desk feeding an enormous and completely unnecessary system of bureaucracy. Most people are simply talking about work, and less than 10% are actually doing anything useful. Even where people are building things that are useful, they are building them to fail in 3 years, rather than building them to last 100 years.
RE: why do we need jobs anyway?
CommentPosted by: tony_opmoc on Jul 1, 2009