The Affluent Society

The regrettable consequence of justifying leisure only in terms of its usefulness for other things is that it begins to feel vaguely like a chore – in other words, like work in the worst sense of that word. This was a pitfall the critic Walter Kerr noticed back in 1962, in his book The Decline of Pleasure: ‘We are all of us compelled,’ Kerr wrote,

What happens when a nation willfully ignores perhaps the most fundamental lesson of economics and hopes that rent seeking will equal real prosperity? This does. What happens when a nation either loses, or prevents, a stabilizing middle class? This does. What happens when a government—any government—gets so out of touch with the governed? This does.

Under the pressure of an expanding mega-machine, power is concentrated in a few hands, and the majority becomes dependent on handouts. New levels of luxuriant overproduction grow faster than the output of commodities which this wanton production imposes.

Nobody thinks of using improvements in technology and productivity to allow people to work less and require fewer assets to achieve the same standard of living. Instead, while everybody is richer, at least in terms of stuff, no one is any wealthier. Their wealth is "safely" out of reach. If it weren't, how many would still show up for wor