Faceless cowards/invisible hands

Tom Walker timework at vcn.bc.ca
Wed Sep 12 07:35:25 PDT 2001



>> MR. REICH: The last few months have been a sobering reminder that
>> technology is not the Holy
>> Grail. It is not going to make us all instantly rich and deliver us to
>> any promised land -- there is a
>> sense of being brought down to earth. Many people are waking up and
>> asking themselves, "What
>> do I want and need out of all of this?"


>From Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments:

"Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which in spite of all our care are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics, which it requires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten every moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them, and which while they stand, though they may save him from some smaller inconveniencies, can protect him from none of the severer inclemencies of the season. They keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much, and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to death."

Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list