Arnold, your interest in the environment is right on target. The
real question is how to make this happen. You also mention the aging population and consumption. For many people in the abundant West consumption level could drop drastically without a drop in the quality of their lives. In fact, it would increase it. Now, we are supposed to have a problem with social security. In a recent interview Peter Drucker said that the retirement age should be in the upper 70's
because of the increased life expectancy. Thus, we ought to devise a
system where old people can work and still get part of the social security. If this is properly designed, then the date when people retire would be linked not only to their age, but earning potential
and slide appropriately. If this could be implemented for a generation or two, citizens would see that they do not need to work full time and would hopefully turn their attention to matters such as gardening, insulating their houses, and so forth, all of which would lead to a sustainable 'steady state' world. I remember reading in the seventies that if we would have taken the productivity gains since 1950 as time off, we would be all working half time. This, of course, is utopian, because the productive people would just have two jobs, and unproductive ones would stand in street corners as they do right now. For this reason I thought that we could start from the old end and gradually get people accustomed to the idea that consumption is not everything. I may be preaching to a choir here. <gg> |
