Perhaps We Cannot Raise The Winds. But

There Are Poor Societies Which Have Too Little; But Where Is The Rich Society That Says: 'halt! We Have Enough'? There Is None.

I Think I Should Not Go Far Wrong If I Asserted That The Amount Of Genuine Leisure Available In A Society Is Generally In Inverse Proportion To The Amount Of Labor-saving Machinery It Employs.

I Started By Saying That One Of The Most Fateful Errors Of Our Age Is The Belief That The Problem Of Production Has Been Solved. This Illusion, I Suggested, Is Mainly Due To Our Inability To Recognize That The Modern Industrial System, With All Its Intellectual Sophistication, Consumes The Very Basis On Which Is Has Been Erected. To Use The Language Of The Economist, It Lives On Irreplaceable Capital Which It Cheerfully Treats As Income.

Even Bigger Machines, Entailing Even Bigger Concentrations Of Economic Power And Exerting Ever Greater Violence Against The Environment, Do Not Represent Progress: They Are A Denial Of Wisdom. Wisdom Demands A New Orientation Of Science And Technology Towards The Organic, The Gentle, The Nonviolent, The Elegant And Beautiful.

That Soul-destroying, Meaningless, Mechanical, Moronic Work Is An Insult To Human Nature Which Must Necessarily And Inevitably Produce Either Escapism Or Aggression, And That No Amount Of 'bread And Circuses' Can Compensate For The Damage Done-these Are Facts Which Are Neither Denied Nor Acknowledged But Are Met With An Unbreakable Conspiracy Of Silence-because To Deny Them Would Be Too Obviously Absurd And To Acknowledge Them Would Condemn The Central Preoccupation Of Modern Society As A Crime Against Humanity.