The Fifties Fuckup
Were the Luddites Right?

I'm tapping away at a keyboard attached to a computer more powerful than the one used to hurl some astronauts onto the moon; on the wall a simple printout goobs from Hackers - Trust your technolust, and has a quote from William Gibson - "The future has already happened." (from the man who inspired cyberpunk on a manual typewriter). I like technology. When someone showed me a demo (as in demoscene demo) I didn't ask what the point was - i could feel it in my guts. I knew, although i probably couldn't ever adequately describe it. I enjoy using it, at least when it's working :) and am quite comfortable with it. So why would i say that the Luddites may have been right? Well, i think they had something there when they smashed knitting machines. Although they were being extremist and over-reactionary, their fears would one day be realised - canonically in the 50s.

See, to me the 50s is when society really started to go off the rails... at least from what i know. WWII was over, we weren't quite up to Vietnam, everyone was shiny happy and baby-booming. Rampant consumerism was fostered, particularly in America... it was the time of the American Dream(tm), when the woman's place was in the home to Provide For Her Family(tm) and the man of the house should go off to his wonderful job in the family car to Be The Breadwinner(tm); before coming home to smoke his pipe, eat the meal cooked by his wife, ask Johnny about football then retire to the bedroom with his wife (generally unrelated to whether she wanted to, but that's another story)(and someone else's cause).

The idea was to create the perfect home for everyone to enjoy the wonderful new lifestyle that labour-saving devices and new-found modest affluence offered. This is the root of a society that would eventually have its children killing themselves in plague proportions and record levels of unemployment. What happened to the new lifestyle and general happiness? Well, the way i see it, people didn't do what they should have with technology. People worked themselves into the ground trying to buy all the wonderful new labour-saving devices, which they were too busy working overtime to enjoy anyway. Instead of using new manufacturing techniques to let everyone work shorter hours by accomplishing the same amount in half the time, people worked just as long and had to do twice as much. Then the bosses thought to themselves "hmm, we can employ half as many people now!", and could you come and see me in my office Mr Jones? Shut the door.

When this wasn't efficient enough, the human element was removed; to be replaced by a machines. A strategy that must have made sense to someone working overtime to pay for the second car, new pool and beach holiday home.... and bingo, the Luddites suddenly don't look so stupid, do they? So now the world clanks and grinds along, putting more people onto the welfare system because a machine did their job more efficiently. It's a pity that the now unemployed worker now can't afford to buy so many things anymore, so profits fall. A factory somewhere mechanises to try to get profits up again. More people unemployed. Less money being spent. Another factory mechanises.... you get the idea.

The latest idea i've heard is that Woolworths is trialling a system where customers scan their own groceries. Bingo. Thousands of people out of work, thousands of uni students struggling to make it through and get a degree, trying to survive on the Austudy pittance (do you have $5 and a can of Coke? sorry, you fail the means test). Australia's heading for the biggest welfare state you've ever seen. So few people will be working that the country will collapse under the weight of its welfare-dependent population. All because people couldn't be happy with the same amount of work in a shorter time; because people mechanise their factories In The Name Of Progress(tm) but with no real reason to do so (other than profits, maybe). The government is no help, either... the government will let it happen. Maybe they're too gutless, maybe they're too stupid. Maybe i'm just your standard Long Haired Teenager(tm), maybe i just need to Get With The Program(tm) or something.

What was wrong with having a couple of people run around with the rubbish truck to tip the bins instead of one person operating an automated boom? What's wrong with having bank tellers instead of phone banking? What's wrong with someone scanning your groceries? What the hell was so wrong with employing 100 people to peel potatoes? Why is it so much better to employ one person to turn a machine on and ponder why unemployment and taxes have gone up?

We have a fixation with careers, a psychosis about being Upwardly Mobile(tm). Instead of calling it natural for someone to leave high school and go into an apprenticeship, the term "dead end job" was coined and suddenly you have a stigma attached to something essential for the continued operation of society. People start to live on the dole, and protest against schemes like "Work for the Dole"... they'd rather sit on their arses all day than actually do something productive. We have a huge workforce waiting to happen - strangely enough it's called the unemployed. OK, so i've probably just totally pissed a lot of people off, but I personally go crazy sitting at home day after day with no money to go do anything. I'd rather DO something if i was to ever receive the dole (i'm out of work for the uni holidays).

In South Africa they have a different welfare system. As I understand it (i could have the wrong impression, i'm getting this second hand), instead of getting a payout, you're given a small job to do (admitted for a reduced wage). It's not direct welfare, you're doing a job. For instance, there is a position with the railways called "Wheel Tapper". A Wheel Tapper goes along the train and taps each wheel with a piece of metal, listening for the sound of a cracked wheel. You have to do a fairly short training course to become a Wheel Tapper (around 2 years - c'mon, that's short), and then you do this simple - but essential - duty. There are lots of jobs like this. Sounds kinda sensible, doesn't it?

But then, someone always wants to be richest; which is where most of the problems come from. People don't want world peace and equality for all people. Fuck that! They want to be better off than the Joneses. So they work hard to make more money, mechanise a few things and the distribution of wealth gets all skewiff. It's a tough one isn't it? Would you take a lower wage to give everyone else a little more? Yes? Liar.

I wonder sometimes why we can't get some sort of agreement whereby everyone got paid the same for shortened hours, or they're paid more for the same hours... i'm not an economist so these things make sense to me. Why don't we just give everyone wads of money? Print more out damnit! What difference would it make? One proviso though... there'd have to be a condition that you DID work your short hours. But then i realise that sort of vision only leads to the abject horror of Huxley's perverse Brave New World; or worse, Orwell's 1984. Damn.

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