Job Myth
Material wealth is measured by the quantity and quality of desirable goods and services that you have. Money is just a ticket to acquire some of the goods and services that already exist in any given society.
Similarly, production is anything that increases the quality or quantity of goods and services.
Employment may or may not achieve this.
The tobacco industry, for example, creates jobs, but actually kills people who provide other necessary services to society. This destruction of the workforce cannot be considered true production.
A job becomes and end in itself when money becomes an end in itself.
Increased abundance for all will only come from eliminating non-productive jobs, and distributing the fruits of increased production to all of the population.
Whole institutions (e.g. banks, gambling agencies, stock exchanges, insurance companies, government mints) do not create any real wealth. Yet these are the institutions that literally own the country under present economic policy.
If all these non-productive workers could be freed to help the rest of us, we could all have an extra days holiday each week, without any loss in production.
Then we could work on eliminating products for which the greedy advertisers have created artificial needs, by conning the public into thinking that the products would make them happy, popular, good looking, or successful.
We could put our efforts into making everything from clothes to motor cars of the best possible quality, so that they would last ten times longer than the stuff we get today.
Millions of man-hours (in repairing or producing replacement items) would be saved, giving us still more time for truly productive tasks.
We could inoculate whole countries against diseases for which we already have vaccines.
We could provide clean water, sealed roads, electricity, and good sanitation for the entire world.
We could educate the masses of the Third World, thus producing still more workers to share the load of production with us.
The so-called cheap labour of Asian countries would be seen as a blessing instead of a threat, shortening the work week to as little as two days a week, again with no drop in wealth for the West (and a marked increase in wealth for the rest of the world). This is not a dream. It could really work!
Families would be able to spend plenty of time together, and all human relationships could be enriched.
Art, literature, and technology would flourish, as we used our leisure creatively. In this way, we would become even more productive.
But none of this will happen until people stop thinking money and jobs and start thinking wealth and production.
We are all afraid that if we let go of the money or the job we are presently clinging to, others will take advantage of us and they probably will to a certain extent!
But someone must absorb a few blows if a war is ever to cease.
If, like ourselves, you believe in an all-powerful God who has everything under control, then letting go of your wealth, and your means of support becomes an act of faith in his care and protection, and it becomes the first step toward building the new world that Jesus called the Kingdom of God.
Similarly, production is anything that increases the quality or quantity of goods and services.
Employment may or may not achieve this.
The tobacco industry, for example, creates jobs, but actually kills people who provide other necessary services to society. This destruction of the workforce cannot be considered true production.
A job becomes and end in itself when money becomes an end in itself.
Increased abundance for all will only come from eliminating non-productive jobs, and distributing the fruits of increased production to all of the population.
Whole institutions (e.g. banks, gambling agencies, stock exchanges, insurance companies, government mints) do not create any real wealth. Yet these are the institutions that literally own the country under present economic policy.
If all these non-productive workers could be freed to help the rest of us, we could all have an extra days holiday each week, without any loss in production.
Then we could work on eliminating products for which the greedy advertisers have created artificial needs, by conning the public into thinking that the products would make them happy, popular, good looking, or successful.
We could put our efforts into making everything from clothes to motor cars of the best possible quality, so that they would last ten times longer than the stuff we get today.
Millions of man-hours (in repairing or producing replacement items) would be saved, giving us still more time for truly productive tasks.
We could inoculate whole countries against diseases for which we already have vaccines.
We could provide clean water, sealed roads, electricity, and good sanitation for the entire world.
We could educate the masses of the Third World, thus producing still more workers to share the load of production with us.
The so-called cheap labour of Asian countries would be seen as a blessing instead of a threat, shortening the work week to as little as two days a week, again with no drop in wealth for the West (and a marked increase in wealth for the rest of the world). This is not a dream. It could really work!
Families would be able to spend plenty of time together, and all human relationships could be enriched.
Art, literature, and technology would flourish, as we used our leisure creatively. In this way, we would become even more productive.
But none of this will happen until people stop thinking money and jobs and start thinking wealth and production.
We are all afraid that if we let go of the money or the job we are presently clinging to, others will take advantage of us and they probably will to a certain extent!
But someone must absorb a few blows if a war is ever to cease.
If, like ourselves, you believe in an all-powerful God who has everything under control, then letting go of your wealth, and your means of support becomes an act of faith in his care and protection, and it becomes the first step toward building the new world that Jesus called the Kingdom of God.