Southeastern Massachusetts University - Scrimshaw Yearbook (North Dartmouth, MA)

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It is for this reason that businesses of all sizes, economists of almost all persuasions, and politicians of all parties agree that it is necessary to keep effective demand growing as fast as potential supply, that those who are still able to act as adequate consumers, because they are still abtaining sufficient incomes from their jobs, be encouraged to consume more and more of the kind of products that the economic system is presently organized to produce. Our economy is dependent on compulsive consumption in the words of Professor Gomberg, and manufacturers spend ever-increasing sums on consumer seduction to persuade the consumer that he needs an ever-wider variety of products. All of us have our favorite story about the evils of advertising. But a new dimension is being added to the diabolic in advertising by means of new techniques using programmed computers and automatic equipment: for example, a system has already been developed and -is presently in use, at least on the West Coast and in Washington, where, in .ga 'given neighborhood every phone will ring'and.af tape-recorded sales message will be played when the phone ispicked up., I 3 7 Pressures from the attempt -to keep ,supply and ,demand in balance not limited to the mere constant irritative pressure to be aware of sales messages: there is a second type, of consequence which is even more serious for itacts. to prevent any effective control of the drive toward unlimited productive power. Paul A. Samuelson, a highly respected conventional economist, has expressed the new reality in the following extreme terms: In the super-affluent society, where nothing is any longer useful, the greatest threat in the world comes from anything which undermines our addiction to expenditures on things that are useless. It is for this reason that it is difficult to close down obsolete military bases, to limit cigarette consumption, in fact to slow down any form of activity which might in any way create demand or jobs. In these conditions, the need for ever-higher demand will almost inevitably have priority over the needsdescribed by the social worker, the sociologist and the philosopher.. , ' V p ' Whatever we do, we can only succeed in I-delaying the inevitable: theattempt to keep demand growing as fast as supply and thus create enough conventional jobs will inevitably exceed our capacity to Create jobs. e l Q i Even while we continue our effort to maintain the present 'socioeconomic system, the situation will deteriorate. We will'see a continuation of the trends of the past years during which the position of the unskilled and the uneducated has worsened, the plight 'of the poor has become ever more hopeless. Professor Charles Killingsworth, one of the leading experts on unemployment statistics, has shown that in 1950, the unemployment rate for the poorest educated group was four times the rate for the most educated group, by 1960 the 'real' rate for the bottom group was 12 times the rate for the top group. In a parallel , I tr W. , 'Sf if E e xg!

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fl both predictable and unpredictable, in many parts of the existing socioeconomic system and culture. It is now clear that the impact ofthe computer is destroying the industrial-age balance between the economy and the society. We continue, however, to assume that after a period of apparent disorganization, a new favorable socioeconomic balance will become evident, we have further assumed that JT it becomes clear that a satisfactory balance is not emerging, we will be able to intervene at the last moment ot correct unfavorable trends. These kinds of assumptions are analogous to 'the pre-cybernetics industrial-age economic theories of laissez-faire and, later of pre-crisis intervention in the economy. But these theories were based on the imposibility of prediction and resulted in the establishment of a polity of remedial, not preventative, action. Today, the avialability of the computer enables us to spot trends long before they would otherwise be visible, to carry out the necessary discussion and to prepare any required programs before the need for action develops. We can thus use these systems to control their own effects. Using information provided by computer systems, we can speed up the observation-discussion-action process so that we can keep up with the developments in our own technology So long as we preserve our present socioeconomic system, internal economic stability is only possible if the amount poeple and institutions are willing and able to buy rises a fast as the amount that we are able to produce. It is necessary that effective demand keep up with potential supply. This necessity follows from the fact that the viability of our present scarcity socioeconomic system is based on a very simple relationship: it is assumed that it is possible for the overwhelming - proportion of those seeking jobs to find them and that the income received from these jobs will enable the job-holder to act as an adequate consumer. The successful functioning of the present socioeconomic system is therefore completely dependent on an ability to provide enough jobs to go round. a continuing failure to achieve this invalidates our present mechanism for income distribution, which operates only so long as scarcity persists. So long as the present socioeconomic system is not changed, abundance is a ,cancer and the various parts of the system must continue to do their best to inhibit its growth.

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development, the percentage of income received by the poorest 2096 of the population has fallen from 4.996 to 4.796. Continuation of present trends will lead to a new type of organzhation of the socio economic system, within which incomes and non-work time will vary in inverse proportion. Starting at the bottom of the scale, there be a large number of totally unemployed workers subsisting inadequately on resources derived from government schemes merely designed to ensure survival, the greatest proportion of the population will work considerably shorter ,hours than at present and receive wages and salaries which will provide for necessities and even some conveniences, but will not encourage them to develop a meaningful pattern of activity, and a small number of people with the highest levels of education and training will work excessively long hours for high salaries, The effects of the drive toward unlimited productive power will, of course, not only be internal but will also affect the prospects of the poor countries. It is now clear that the gap between the rich and the poor countries is continuing to widen and that there is no possible way to reverse this -trend until we change the existing socioeconomic system. It is shocking to realize that we have now reached the point where the annual per capita increase in income in the United States is equal to the total income per capita in some of the poor countries. .The reasons for this disparity are illustrated by the following quotations. First, from the United Nations Development Decade report: Taken as a group, the rate of progress of the under-developed countries measured by income per capita has been painfully slow, more of the order of 1 percent per annum than 2 percent. Most indications of social progress show similar slow and spotty improvement. And from a statement discussing the situation in India by B. R. Shenly, director of the School of Social Sciences at Gujerat University: Per capita consumption of food grains averaged 15.8 ounces per day in 1958, below the usual jail ration of 16 ounces, the army ration of 19 ounces and the current economic plan's target of 18 ounces. Since then, the average has fluctuated downward. Between 1955 and 1960, the annual per capita use of cloth fell from 14.7 metres to 13.9 metres. The expressed policy of the Westem powers is to aid the poor countries to catch up to the rich within an acceptable