A quote by Buckminster Fuller about jobs and the economy.....

I read a quote by this guy that I agree with that I thought would be a good topic of conversation for ATS.

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

This is a view that I support which many threads that I've created have alluded to. Not as elegantly written but nonetheless.

Wasn't big on your baby boomer thing but this I can definitely get my head around.

a reply to: minkmouse

That's ok that's a separate issue.

At least. Your capable of separating issues from one another and issues from people.

That in itself is a sign of real intelligence.

On one hand, we do not want a society that neglects work that needs to be done.

On the other hand, inventing jobs to keep people employed is ridiculous, but this (capitalist) system requires that every person have a job, if they want to live in a home.

I don't have an answer as to what sort of system can fulfill both of those issues, but it is definitely ridiculous to have all these people in corporations fulfilling positions that serve no significant purpose while things that really need development and doing in the world are neglected.

In some areas of the UK, we have generations of people in the UK that have never worked, their parents have never worked, and their grandparents have never worked, not since the 1970's. These places are called "sink estates". They are plagued with single parent teenage mothers (because the teenage fathers die off), drug addiction, alcoholism and unemployment. Everyone lives on benefits, gangs of teenage kids run wild in the streets terrorizing neighbors. Anyone who lives and works in these areas runs the constant risk of being mugged and their homes burgled.

And the people who do work, see themselves taken for mugs when nearly have their salary is taken away in taxes to pay for 30% of the population that work in the public sector and the other 30% that are unemployed.

Sometimes these areas can be cleaned up if the problem families are evicted, but then the problem just moves elsewhere.

Interesting, as there is a deeper thread of thought behind the quote. Note, one in ten thousand can invent. Too many of the "individuals" forgot their dreams. Smothered by the demand, they earn their keep. What leads to the messes created by many of the poverty programs is the demand you not be creative. There was, many years ago, a bit of a run up about a family on food stamps. Seems the father went a brought a lot of pig and fixings, and began selling BBQ with fixings out of his house. When the thing blow up, the family was no longer on welfare, or getting food stamps. They were making a living on pulled pork, BBQ and fixings. They took some "welfare" and used it to get on with their lives. Only the bureaucrats were all upset, using food stamps to buy the original food that started the family's move up. Seems like a good investment of government money. However, there had to be Ronnie Raygun's "welfare queen" theme from someone. First, asked to provide proof, his campaign brushed it off. Years later, it was proven to be a lie, a story made up to get the vote, especially the Southern vote. Since on its face the "welfare queen" had to be a black woman. Nothing like pulling a black getting uppity to get the Southern Democrats turned Republican to vote for you. Until the Republican Southern Strategy in the Seventies, thank you Tricky Dick Nixon, Southerns were Yellow Dog Democrats. It was said, they would vote for a yellow dog, if it was on the Democratic ticket. Now, the south is Yellow Dog Republican. Yes, they would vote for a yellow dog, if it was on the Republican ticket.
Which by the by takes us to the quote. If you believe without any factual evidence the stories ladled out like Jones Town Kool Aide, you get what you deserve. If you start demanding facts, and start looking for yourself, you realize what so many, up standing politicians and their supporters carry on about is barely factual, and often outright lies. The PTB busily pound round pegs into square holes, and blame the pegs for not fitting. People will rise to a challenge, if presented with a honest and factual challenge. Who would have thought in 1937-38, what amazing stories of self sacrifice and working together would occur in Great Britain and North America? Since, the PTB were sure there was a Communist style revolution brewing. The imagination and inventiveness that will take us, all, into a better life exists. But, it has to be encouraged from the early childhood, fed a diet of honest facts and mentored to find it's success.