The Affluent Society

From their earliest years, the children of the New Class are carefully indoctrinated in the importance of finding an occupation from which they will derive satisfaction—one which will involve not toil but enjoyment.

However, the greatest prospect that we face—indeed what must now be counted one of the central economic goals of our society—is to eliminate toil as a required economic institution.

We are gravely suspicious of any tendency to expend less than the maximum effort, for this has long been a prime economic virtue.

To have failed to solve the problem of producing goods would have been to continue man in his oldest and most grievous misfortune. But to fail to see that we have solved it, and to fail to proceed thence to the next tasks, would be fully as tragic.

IN OUR SOCIETY, the increased production of goods—privately produced goods—is, as we have seen, a basic measure of social achievement. This is partly the result of the great continuity of ideas which links the present with a world in which production indeed meant life. Partly, it is a matter of vested interest. Partly, it is a product of the elabor

He wants above all that they will have an occupation that is interesting and rewarding. On this, he hopes, indeed, that they will take their learned parent as their model.

For, in fact, the differences in what labor means to different people could not be greater. For some, and probably a majority, it remains a stint to be performed. It may be preferable, especially in the context of social attitudes toward production, to doing nothing. Nevertheless, it is fatiguing or monotonous or, at a minimum, a source of no parti

No aristocrat ever contemplated the loss of feudal privileges with more sorrow than a member of this class would regard his descent into ordinary labor where the reward was only the pay. From time to time, schoolteachers leave their posts for substantially higher paid factory work. The action makes headlines because it represents an unprecedented d

The test will be less the effectiveness of our material investment than the effectiveness of our investment in people.