Ben Bova, an associate of K. Eric Drexler and Arthur Kantrowitz says that
hunter-gatherers or foragers worked four hours a day doing work so
enjoyable that the richest indutrialized people pay to do it--hunting. The
source for the four hour figure is Marshall Sahlins in "The Original
Affluent Society" in _Stone Age Economics_. On Pg 56 of _Friendly Fire_
"Smokestack Lightning" author Bob Black says this
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[ For David Ramsey] Steele "the usual communist claims" serve the same
diversionary function "the usual suspects" do when
rounded up.
At least two science fiction writers who likely know
a lot more about high tech than Steele does, the
cyberpunks Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner, have
drawn on "The Abolition of Work" in sketching zerowork
lifestyles which variously turn on technology. In
-Islands in the Net,_ Sterling extrapolates from several
anti-work stances: the "avant-gardejob enrichment" (as
Steele would say) of the laid-back Rhizome multinational;
the selective post-punk high tech of Singapore's
Anti-Labour Party; and the post-agricultural *guerrilla*
nomadism of Tuareg insurgents in Africa. He incorporates
a few of my phrases verbatim. Shiner in Slam
recounts an individual anti-work odyssey expressly
indebted to several Loompanics books, including "a
major inspiration for this novel, _The Abolition of Work_
by Bob Black." If I am skeptical about liberation through
high-tech it is mainly because the techies aren't even
exploring the possibility, and if they don't, who will?
They are all worked up over nanotechnology, the as-yet-
nonexistent technology of molecular mechanical ma-
that SF cliche, the matter transformerwithout
showing any interest in what work, if any,
would be left to be done in such a hypertech civilization.
So I find low-tech decentralization the more credible
direction for now.
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That last bit stings. I hope I am an acception to that rule. I also
hope I am not alone.
The is a surprising lot written about Post-Scarcity Economics/Culture of
Abundance. For a booklist on the subject, point your Web browser at
Mysteries of the Web
http://www.msen.com/~pauleric/mist.html
SunCat>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu
"If productive play is possible, so too is the abolition of work." -Bob
Black "Smokestack Lightning" in _Friendly Fire_ p 48