The Decline of Civilisation (Ch.16a)

                    Chapter 16 : The Decline of Civilisation

                     (Quotations from the book ‘The Decline of Civilisation’ by Janus Apinus)

  18/3/98

Ch.16a

  Economics requires a consumer society, so that a market can be created for goods and services. A couple of centuries ago, when the free market economy really took off, there was initially much development to be done. Markets, suddenly created as products and services were being created for the first time, were very large. Vision boxes, ground cars, houses and flats, full of gadgets of all types, created huge demand amongst the populations of the wealthier regions of the world, which included the Martan Empire, which had been one of the originators of the modern industrial age. The populations of the wealthier nations on Gallanol and Barbarol mainly benefited, for many years, from the expanding world economy, on the back of cheaper resources which often came from the poorer regions of the planet. Thus the standard of living of the Martan citizen, and those of the other wealthy nations, improved dramatically in turn, creating a larger, more prosperous consumer society, in which even more goods and services were demanded. While these new attainable and desirable products were being demanded by populations who had never had them before, the world economy was prosperous and expanding. The demand for labour in the rich countries was often insatiable and wages improved, while in the poorer nations the cost of labour was cheap and their people became employed as the ill paid servants of the prosperous world.

    After some decades the economic boom began to show signs of relaxation. The consumer economy was still very great, but the most essential consumer products of the past were now already possessed by the people who wanted them. Replacements and refinements to these products continued to be important in the modern economy. As certain groups within the poorer countries became more wealthy they demanded these goods. However the prosperous countries began to experience problems in their economies. The production of the ‘old’ products had become very efficient so fewer workers were needed to make them. The original producers of these products had been copied by other producers so they had greater competition. Also some of the poorer countries with their  cheaper labour had begun to produce these commodities at lower cost than the producers of the wealthy nations. Because they could sell at cheaper prices they began to take markets away from their wealthier competitors. To compete the Houses of the prosperous nations were forced to compete more vigorously by cutting the prices of the goods they sold. Either their profits were hit, or the wages they paid their workers, or both. They discovered that they could maintain both, although they were always prepared to limit the rewards of the  lowest paid workers. The answer they discovered was to reduce the number of workers they had to pay. They gave it respectable titles like ‘cost efficiency’, and taught their managers that it was a noble cause to sacrifice a few workers, and by making the remainder work harder they could save the profits of their shareholders and save their markets. So the phenomenon of unemployment, well known from the experiences of earlier stages of economic development began to return. Some people became richer, others were unfortunate. Unemployment for many individuals was a temporary affliction. They might be out of work for some months, and then find new employment. However it was now competitive to look for work. They had to convince their future potential employers that they were better than the hundreds of other candidates applying for the same job. They did this by becoming better qualified than their competitors, thus having to embark on (often) years of rather difficult, and often rather dull exams which were not usually easy to pass. Understandably, while many were motivated by this competition, as it gave them a sense of superiority over their fellow competitors who were less motivated, others began to feel their job prospects were hopeless and felt they must settle for careers they did not like, or jobs which were well below their abilities, just in order to stay in work.

    To improve their own profits, and driven by a sense of needing to improve the overall economies of the prosperous nations their Houses continued to experiment with, and invent new products. Thus computers, electronic communications, and the beginnings of technologies which laid the basis for the Vidnet system, began to be developed. The markets for these goods and services were initially the business houses, driven by the need or desire to cut costs ever further. Large new segments of economic activity were stimulated. The final consumer market was slower to arrive, but gathered pace as small personal computers were developed and began to become cheaper to the consumer. After many years these technologies were merged with those of the Vision Box to become the all embracing Vidnet, which, at a low but essential cost, gave everyone everything that they wanted or ever needed, in the technological communication and entertainment sense. As these technologies developed they stimulated the economies, but they did not eliminate unemployment, or the strong pressures of competition on the workers. People began to work longer hours just in order to keep their jobs, and to be able to afford the spiralling cost of buying or renting homes. People began to live in smaller houses again or flats. The growing population was housed in new blocks of apartments above the city skylines.

    The irony was that by now the demand for consumer goods was less than it had once been. Many people did not have the room to amass consumer goods. Kitchens were a thing of the past for many as food in a block of apartments could be delivered down the shutes, packaged and ready to eat. It had been judged far more efficient to have food produced centrally in each block and supplied on demand. Food workers supplied each block, receiving food supplies regularly, cooking and preparing the foods demanded by the population of the block. Reorder levels and prepared food stock levels were set to maintain supply adequate to demand. This progress superceded the demand for the old food stores of previous times, when every person or family unit had physically left their homes maybe once, twice, or three times a week to buy food from nearby foodstores. Indeed many had travelled in their ground cars, and later fly cars, to foodstores in order to stock up with food, an expenditure of effort, time, planning, and of fuel. This effort came to be viewed as highly inefficient. Government and business thinkers had held many committees to consider alternatives. The free market had been allowed to decide once the government had given grants and tax reliefs to landlords who would install the new food shutes in their blocks. Soon the efficiency and desirability of food systems tempted large numbers of tenants or owners to demand them. Long after the withdrawal of grants for the shutes, blocks continued to move over to the new systems if their structures allowed it. The population, eager to save the time spent on chores when the long working day was over were keen to submerge themselves back in the Vidnet. The new food distribution methods allowed them to spend less time on the old activities and more on quality leisure time and (in practice) at work. One of the major factors which had encouraged the government to act had been the congestion caused by, at first, ground cars, and then flycars. The later improvement and expansion of the Tram Network could not adequately solve the problems of transporting people to the foodstores because many people refused to go more frequently and carry lighter loads. Cars had been perfectly suited to bringing the stores home, but few were willing to use the network when the car was an alternative. The Block Food Supply Systems were a perfect answer to this dilemma.