"Having
fun lies in the satisfaction of consuming and "taking in" commodities,
sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies...all
are consumed...swallowed. The world is one great object for our appetite...
a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast...we are the suckers, the eternally
expectant ones, the hopeful ones...and the eternally disapointed ones.
Our character is geared to exchange and receive...to barter and to consume.
Everything... spiritual as well as material objects...becomes an object
of exchange and consumption." (Erich Fromm)
"We
are being made to expect too much. We are taking too much. We are scrapping
to much. We are paying... and compelling others to pay...far too high a
price." (John V. Taylor)
"It
is obvious that the world cannot afford the USA. Nor can it afford Western
Europe or Japan. In fact... we might come to the conclusion...that the
Earth cannot afford the "Modern World". It requires too much and accomplishes
too little. It is too uneconomic." (E.F. Schumacher)
"Today
we are likely to suffer all seven asaults upon our consciousness at once...
by TV commercials, by posters, by coupons through the letter-box, by national
newspaper advertisements, by lead-line display in several local shops,
by local newspaper ads wih cut-coupons for cash off enticments for quicker
sales, and by actually seeing the product on a neighbor's kitchen table.
Somewhere along the line we have lost the will to ask 'why?' any more.
Why must my sights be raised constantly beyond what would be sufficient
for me and mine? Why must I continue to be edged along into expecting more
of life quantifiably measured in goods and services?" (John Poulton)
"The
present system functions to benefit certain groups at the expense of others,
and those now living at the expense of generations yet to come. A social
system is needed in which the purpose of production and economic activity
is not profit...but... the satisfaction of genuine needs." (British Society
for Social Responsibility in Science)
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