Justin sez:
>The other limit is time. Human effort is itself scarce in the sense that
>each of us can only put out so much of it in our limited lives, so that if
>we use it inefficiently, wasting it, it is just lost, and much of it--that
>involved in merely necessary production, the stuff we wouldn't do if we
>didn't have to--criminally so; it's stealing people's lives to waste their
>efforts. That is one of Marx's deepest insights, and one of his great
>objections to capitalism.
Indeed, and the biggest waste of my time is my job. I'd rather sleep in, hang out with my fiancee, play bridge with my buddies or play computer games. And I have a relatively easy and well paid job.
>I myself do not think it is good or smart to call for austerity in
response
>to scarcity. I think what is called for is another word that horrifies the
>conventional left: _efficiency_, which at the bottom is (from a left point
>of view) about avoiding waste. We no doubt need to change our consumption
>patterns, but we can all live well if we don't waste our time and
resources.
This paragraph does horrify me. It sounds like you're saying we need to make more fuel efficient cars that run for 100 years instead of 10. Let's make industry more productive. That makes sense as far as it goes, but maybe it isn't worth the trouble of making cars, or salad shooters, or a myriad of other things. Maybe if it's a hot day we should just go swimming instead. Maybe all of our lives would be richer by producing a lot less, and doing a lot more of what we want, when we want.
Brett