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

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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

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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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period of time. It has been generally argued, most explicitly in W. W. Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth, that the way thepoor countriescanattain thrsgoalrs to heed the lessons of history, to pass through the Western stages of growth, although hopefully at a faster pace. It is surely time we recognized the inapplicability of this policy. The rate of economic growth of most poorcountries now depends prirmrily on their being able to export enough goods to pay for their needed unports. It rs clear that the poor countries will not be able to increase exports at an adequate rate to pay for the required growth in imports and that they will not be able to attain any reasonable tate of growth. Thevast majority of the poor countries have no prospect of achieving a reasonable standard s of living so long as the present socioeconomic system continues. There are a few optimists who persist in arguing that Western man can benefit rsnmediately from the decrease rh toil promised by the computer. An analysis of conclusion suggests that those reaching it have not yet ,understood that it is typically those people whose life and educational experience ensure that they have the least adequate preparation for imaginative and constructive activities wholwill receive the largest in time not allocated to the carrying lout of conventional jobs. This group .- is composed of two main categoriesrthose with . totally inadequate' .educations ftheupoverty-cycle group j 'and those whose education and training has been slanted almost entirely ' toward conformity in order top enable them to perform tasks which will nolonget' be needed by the socioeconomic system. e Those analysts who simply 'the threat to our socioeconomy represented by the large number of mdividuals who are already mamfestmg psychopathologic symptoms as a response to loss of their roles in the system 'also generally ignore the deep-seated threat which the machines pose to ernsting individual fundamental values and motivations. This threat is not manifest in economic statistics nor even rs: sociological monographs discussing the world view of the poor, but it is already affectmgall members of society, both employed and lunemployed. It is all-pervasive as advertising, and, like it, is constantly exerting pressures upon the individual, whether he be consdous of them or not. Some comments by Jack Weinberg, a psychiatrist, illuminate this issue: Complicated machines which .perform in intricate inviaisra' .patterns v are frightening. are -beyond the- commontmansn understanding and he cannot identify 4 with them. il-le experiences. hostmty ,toward such' ia machine, as he does toward most he fails to understand. Furthermore, automation has done something that rs unthinkable to a manwho valueshrs own self and that which he produces. In a sense, it has removeduhim from the product jwhichjhe creates....Work - 'no matter how odious an implication it may have to a .person - rsan enourmously prizedand meaningful experience to man. It rs not all punishment for his transgressions, as implied biblically butlit isalso a blessing,not only for common sense economic reasons...but,also because of its varied and unifying psychological implications. . in practice report increasingly I that their patients are concemed because they feel that they function in an inferior way compared to machines: that their limbs are not acting as efficient 'l'hey also report fantasies, such as dreams in which the patient is being backed into a comer by a computer. The popular arts. - cartoons, 'comedy-routines, and folk-songs - ind'9i5iIlUly reflect these , V 1 . 1 V