Excess Capital

We have long faced, and ignored, the paradox of plenty. Progress could provide a secure and happy life for everybody. Many futures thinkers of the more optimistic 1970s described a leisure society, which had become possible by using the amazing capabilities of modern communications systems to control and expand the use of the scientific discoveries of the industrial revolution. All our physical wants can be satisfied, and the world no longer faces the need to rebuild after the mass destruction of some global conflict. But while a secure and happy life for everybody is theoretically possible, the society of the 1980s had become more unequal and existing social structures were being pulled apart. There was high unemployment rather than reduced working hours and great leisure for all. Why should this be so?
This description of 1989 holds true 30 years later, in 2021.
This book describes how the demands of the profit motive push towards ever higher levels of work activity. The current emphasis on economic growth fails to consider the value of human existence and refuses to countenance any claim for a quality of life which would enjoy the fruits of human success. Instead, Third World peoples have been pressured to borrow the excess moneys of the rich, and have been caught in a poverty trap, now paying more in interest charges than they receive in aid. Highly sophisticated communications systems are used in developed countries to persuade people to consume more and more. Social services, which were once thought to be best provided outside the marketplace, are being privatised for the generation of profit, and environmental destruction continues apace. Economies are not being allowed to settle into stable and sustainable patterns.
This book is based on a wealth of information culled from many sources; the knowledge is there, if only people can break free from the straightjacket of the current conventional wisdom. Only then might society escape from the dystopia which is forecast by futures researcher John Robinson.