Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism - Arthur Dahlberg

[Shakespear]

I am forever amazed how early the problems have been spotted and quickly ignored.

FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS of the Age of Consumerism there were critics. One of the most influential was Arthur Dahlberg, whose 1932 book Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism was well known to policymakers and elected officials in Washington. Dahlberg declared that “failure to shorten the length of the working day . . . is the primary cause of our rationing of opportunity, our excess industrial plant, our enormous wastes of competition, our high pressure advertising, [and] our economic imperialism.” Since much of what industry produced was no longer aimed at satisfying human physical needs, a four-hour workday, he claimed, was necessary to prevent society from becoming disastrously materialistic. “By not shortening the working day when all the wood is in,” he suggested, the profit motive becomes “both the creator and satisfier of spiritual needs.” For when the profit motive can turn nowhere else, “it wraps our soap in pretty boxes and tries to convince us that that is solace to our souls.”

which I found here

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.p.../article/2962/

This article is a nice follow up

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8307-...ractive-buyers

[bagginz]

Re: Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism - Arthur Dahlberg

Interesting, thanks for posting Shakespear.

Shines the light into the the dark, damp corners where the cultural engineers breed their self-serving cultural control myths.

I am forever amazed how early the problems have been spotted and quickly ignored.

Indeed.

And I am often surprised at the vision, integrity and the sheer moral and intellectual superiority of some of America's earlier industrialists as compared with later versions.

Dovetails nicely with CHS' latest: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapril1...tro2-4-12.html

Also reminds me of a quote by Terence Mckenna:

"You want to free your mind.... and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured from the bones of a dying world..."

[Shakespear]

Re: Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism - Arthur Dahlberg

cultural engineers breed

That hits it on the nail.

Consider now that genetic engineering is being "normalized". That is a dangerous game changer which is not directly visible to the masses and may be able to destroy life as we now it today. The future doesn't look bright as I parse these so called stories of "Progress".

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/documents/ch27_02.htm


http://www.amazon.com/Work-Without-End-Abandoning-Shorter/dp/0877227632

“Economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied.”

[c1ue]

Re: Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism - Arthur Dahlberg

Ah, but that's where differential accumulation comes in.

As you hit maturity, the Nitzan and Bichler theory is that Capital then switches from consolidation in order to fund growth, to consolidation in order to destroy production capacity (and keep up with the Jones's).

[tsouftsaf]

Re: Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism - Arthur Dahlberg

I am forever amazed how early the problems have been spotted and quickly ignored.



which I found here

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.p.../article/2962/

Great article.

Even Keynes predicted that by 2030, we'd be working a 15-hour week, mainly thanks to greater productivity (here's a link).

And yet, today, nobody is really talking about it...

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Jobs, Machines, and Capitalism - Arthur Dahlberg

..Even Keynes predicted that by 2030, we'd be working a 15-hour week...

Personally, I'd be delighted to cut back to 40 hrs a week.