¶ Earning A Living Sequence (1)
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Index Entry
Earning A Living Sequence:
"As we study industrialization we see that we cannot have mass production unless we have mass consumption. This was effected evolutionarily by the great social struggles of labor to increase wages and spread the benefits and prevent the reduction of the numbers of workers employed. The labor movement made possible mass purchasing; ergo, mass production; ergo, low prices on vastly improved products and services which have altogether established entirely new and higher standards of humanity’s living.
“Our labor world and all salaried workers, including school teachers and college professors, are now, at least subconsciously if not consciously, afraid that automation will take away their jobs. They are afraid they won’t be able to do what is called ‘earning a living,’ which is short for earning the right to live. This term implies that normally we are supposed to die prematurely and that it is abnormal to be able to earn a living. It is paradoxical that only the abnormal or exceptional are entitled to prosper. Yesterday the term even implied that success was so very abnormal that only divinely ordained kings and nobles were entitled to eat fairly regularly.”
¶ Citations
- OPERATING MANUAL FOR SPACESHIP EARTH,pp. 117-118, 1969
