This all-embracing second industrial revolution, with its supranational rational objectives formulated by an enlightened centralised authority, has been opposed by people of a liberal frame of mind. Many conservatives and greens have also found its revolutionary though well-founded solutions alien. If the reasons for this opposition differ, and are even contradictory, it is still opposition.
Opposition to change
People are horrified at the gigantic amount of work involved, perhaps not even recognising the justification for it. They do not wish to acknowledge the reasons because they know that it involves a sacrifice on the part of people today for the unborn generations. But the opposition is not perhaps to the goal itself, but to the means for its achievement. Among the arguments put forward I have detected the following:
1) Technology is always evil.
2) Centralised power is always evil.
3) Supranational robotics alienates people.
Evil technology
Hitherto, technology has been considered the means by which raw materials are extracted from nature and turned into useful products. That this is done irrespective of the damage caused to the environment is often left unsaid. But this insinuation need not necessarily be right and that is why it must be examined. Opposition to technology, which manifests itself as a revulsion for the engineering profession and often for all the natural sciences, can and must be reversed so as to change the objectives, nature and definition of technology. The new technology means that useful products are made by people from their own waste, in a renewable way, and without burdening nature or the environment.
People are normally implacably opposed to technology because it is too narrowly defined.
Evil power
The proposed radical change is also resisted because it means the concentration of power.
In the future we shall have to draw up long-term and wide-ranging international agreements to which the signatories are absolutely bound. These agreements are made in the interests of the common good. International agreements and an international judicial system are no more dictatorial than laws in general. Nearly all laws are passed by majorities and the opposing minorities submit to them. The fear of centralised power is a tenuous reason for rejecting this plan.
Alienation
The third argument I have detected in criticism concerns the relation between the megamachine and people. According to this the giant mechanism alienates ordinary people from the real, perceptible world and a rich and enjoyable life. This fear is, I think, justifiable.
The production mechanism discussed above is, however, only a colossal and complex tool whose operation ordinary people interfere with as little as possible. Ideally it functions automatically, and both services and reproduces itself. The sun is its constant and trusty dynamo. Such a mechanism is a safety net whose operation requires about the same human effort as operating the lights at home. It is enough to know how to switch them on, replace a bulb and, in extreme cases, mend a fuse.
This great machine has, however, one distinctive characteristic. Whatever part of it is in question – an automatic, unmanned forest harvester, a vacuum pipe conveying goods from one country to another, or a computer responsible for storing and transferring data – none of them observe strict working hours. The machine works flat out all the time, just as well on Christmas Day as a Monday morning in March, at midnight or midday. It is as independent of the day and time of the year as it is of the weather. It functions as a totality, even more so than today’s water and electricity supply systems. Servicing always functions. The few people who maintain it will also have to relinquish the idea of fixed working hours. It is their job to be on duty. Obviously, no automatised machine needs a break. It is the investment which is considerable, not the operating and maintenance costs.
But it is quite clear that nobody working with this complex mechanism can experience the joy of labour, let alone the opportunity to display talent and invention.
The zebra …
Thanks to this giant machine pounding away, unseen and underground, ordinary people can develop a charmed life style to delight their days and fulfill their nights. But even here there are conditions; protecting nature and the environment, being non-polluting, and saving natural resources. But these activities are not highly automatised. Serial production and cost accounting is unnecessary, and you do not even need to be efficient.
In this way society takes on a striped appearance, a unity of opposites. The black stripe consists of the large-scale, automatised megamachine using the most advanced technologies, which, once it has been built, no longer requires a great deal of labour. And the white stripe is the area of human-oriented, largely handcrafted activities. Although these two stripes coexist and interact, there is no rigid interdependence. Society takes on the appearance of a zebra, but over the centuries tries to change into a dalmatian, in which there is ever more white and ever less black (Paloheimo, 1981).
… its white stripes
This calls for a little more detail.
The extensive, socially produced energy within the black stripe is so clean that fireplaces, garden grills, tiled stoves, bonfires and wood-burning saunas are permitted without people getting a guilty conscience about increasing the greenhouse effect. All this is possible because the global area under forest is kept constant. Wood is burned only to the extent that it is replaced. Energy within the white stripe is also supplied by horses, reindeer, donkeys and camels, and every day people perform tasks manually without whining. Part of the daily energy requirement is produced by pre-industrial methods.
Many goods are made by hand. Tailors, carpenters, potters, cobblers, tinkers and other ancient craftsmen will gain a new respect. Houses will also be built by hand and be valued for their individuality. Such products as clothes, furniture, crockery, shoes and small houses will, in this post-industrial era, become part of a huge group of handmade objects. They will be far closer to objets d’art than present-day, factory-made goods. This group will not include machines, as they are produced almost exclusively within the black stripe. On the other, many of the goods will be produced using advanced machines and the actual processes will differ radically from pre-industrial times.
Likewise, regional planning within the white stripe will include many similar soft values affecting everyday life. There will be small-scale conservation areas everywhere. There will be meadows for butterflies, dead trees for woodpeckers, ponds for frogs, nesting boxes for birds, and even winter homes for hedgehogs. Agriculture will coexist in close proximity to residential areas. A small allotment, kitchen garden and greenhouse are as much a part of the home as the kitchen and bathroom. Back gardens are full of sheep, geese and chickens, not kept as pets but as a source of food, despite the fact that most food comes from mass production. Anglers thrive wherever there is water. Mushrooms diversify meals. Small bakeries and vineyards proliferate. Home-produced food becomes the foundation of the culinary arts.
The means of transportation within the white stripe are bicycles, scooters, sleighs and skis. Bicycles are naturally made in factories. Specially designed pushcarts are used for conveying small loads. In the future people will talk and listen more when communicating as a counterbalance to the newspapers of today and the wide-screen digitalised technology of tomorrow.
… and its black stripes
It would be a mistake to imagine, as some have already done, that these charming homespun things I have described above will solve the world’s problems. They exist to preserve our mental health and are on a par with high quality entertainment, especially in the world after the great change, when entertainment is life and life entertainment. What’s so surprising about that?
The world will be saved by the creation of the megamachine, which uses but a fraction of the energy radiated by the sun, and reproduces and services itself. This machine is as close to people as a electric power plant or super dairy is today. People know that the one produces electricity and the other milk, but they do not have to understand the principles on which they operate, just consume their products. This is only necessary when they are employed operating or maintaining these plants.
In the following chapters I shall deal with the part areas of production which, in the future, will be an automatised, robotised world pounding away in the murky darkness of the black stripe. I shall only detail the white stripe when I am talking about eco-villages, renovating old things, light-weight transportation, and changes within old residential areas. In respect to a couple of existing highly mechanised branches I propose a withdrawal from a more complex form of production in the direction of the white stripe. These are the breeding of animals and forest stewardship. Both have a sound basis in bioethics.
This important machine is created by society using coercive and directive means. It is a secure basis for all that will change and flourish, give meaning to people’s ordinary lives, and create a leisurely and tangible environment for all. The machine is the prerequisite for a humane life, not the opposite. A humane life is an intrinsic value in itself.
