Synopsis
Automation has eliminated the need for most people to work and also provided more goods that people need. So everyone is forced to consume beyond their needs.
History
First publication: Galaxy, April 1954
Review
Our society, our economy, depends on consumerism. Manufacturers must show greater profits to investors and that usually means selling more each year, which requires more people to buy each year. So the manufaturer and its investors don’t get what they want unless we all consume what they are offering. So the average people must be consumers. If they stopped cold turkey, the economy would crash. Mr. Pohl takes this further, on the assumption that greater automation would mean greater production and more to consume. The flip side of the automation is that the consumer classes are out of work. So the goernment in this story sets up quotas of consumption and provides tickets to everyone that they are forced to use even if they don’t need it. Our definition of wealth is having more and larger things. The definition in this world is the opposite, a redused need to consume and the rich have fewer things. Despite many things that mark this as written in the 1950s, this story thinks about the economics of a robot economy pretty deeply. Something we all need to be thinking about right now.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The Best of Frederik Pohl, hardcover, Nelson Doubleday / SFBC, 1975-03-00
The Best of Frederik Pohl, paperback, Ballantine, 1976-04-00
Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1954, edited by H. L. Gold, magazine, Galaxy Publishing, 1954-04-00
Midas World, hardcover, St. Martin’s Press, 1983-07-00
